1662 Blaeu Set of Maps of the Dnipro (Dnieper) River, Ukraine

A beautiful 1662 original-color set of Joan Blaeu maps of the Dnipro (Dnieper) River, the Ukrainian frontier of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the time, the region was undergoing a radical rearrangement, with Poland-Lithuania ejected as the major outside power and replaced by Tsarist Russia.

A Closer Look

The maps are based on the cartography of the Franco-Polish cartographer, engineer and architect Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan. The maps follow the Dnipro (Dnieper) River in what is today eastern Ukraine. The title and descriptive notes are in Latin, while placenames are rendered in Polish, as Beauplan was in the service of the Polish crown and the region fell within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Settlements, fortresses, and geographic features are indicated in detail throughout. All the maps contain the title 'Tractus Borysthenis [Herodotus' name for the region], vulgo Dniepr et Niepr dicti' followed by a unique subtitle, and each sheet is divided in half to allow for greater coverage of the long river. Each is also decorated with an elaborate cartouche depicting local Cossacks; the set is illuminated with superb original color.

The first map, subtitled 'A civitate Czyrkassi ad ostia et Ilmien lacum, per quem in Pontum Euxinum se exonerate,' covers the area from Cherkasy to the Black Sea. The following three maps ('A Kiovia usque ad Bouzin,' 'A Bouzin usque ad Chortyca Ostrow,' and 'A Chortica Ostro ad Urbem Oczakow') are sequential, following the Dnipro southwards from Kyiv (Kiev, here as Kiow or Kiovia) to the Black Sea, although each has a slightly different orientation and scale.

The first map differs markedly from the following three. It is oriented with west at top and north at right, and is at a much larger scale, covering some two-thirds of the territory included in the subsequent three maps combined. Instead of or in addition to Beauplan, it might have been influenced by Tomasz Makowski's 1613 map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (also known as 'Radziwiłł map'), which was also published by (Willem) Blaeu. The map indicates destroyed Christian settlements ('Arx vel oppidium Christianorum dirutum'), likely a reference to periodic fighting with the Tatars and the Crimean Khanate to the south, an interpretation supported by the verso text. This notation did not appear in Makowski's 1613 map and might have been included by Blaeu to reflect subsequent hostilities in the area.

Historical Context

Before he became a cartographer, Beauplan was tasked with building or renovating forts on the eastern frontier of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth along the Dnipro River (including Krzemienezyk / Kremenchuk and Kudac / Kodak, seen here). From the 14th century, this area formed a southern frontier of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and saw frequent fighting with Tatars and 'Turks' (both the Ottomans and their allies the Crimean Khanate). When Poland and Lithuania were joined in the late 16th century, the local (Ruthenian) nobility pledged suzerainty to the Commonwealth in exchange for confirmation of their land rights.

Over the following decades, the nobility associated more and more with Polish culture, causing a rift with the commoners, which became more pronounced in the 17th century as the Polish crown became a bastion of strict, Counter-Reformation Catholicism. Meanwhile, the localized Orthodox religious practices were under pressure from Moscow, which claimed ecclesiastical authority over all Christians in the area. Moreover, the Dnipro was the core of a militarized frontier dominated by Zaporizhian Cossacks who maintained an uneasy relationship with both Poland-Lithuania and the Tsar, being employed by Poland-Lithuania as a bulwark against Tatars.

In 1648, these tensions combined to shatter the uneasy equilibrium on the frontier. The leader (Hetman) of the Ukrainian Cossack nobility, named Bohdan Khmelnytsky, led an uprising of nobility, peasants, and Crimean Tatars against Polish-Lithuanian authority. Although it ranged as far as Lviv and the most intense battles took place in what is now in central and western Ukraine, the Dnipro was the heartland of the uprising, which besieged several fortresses including Cherkasy and entered Kyiv on Christmas Day 1648. The rebellion succeeded in creating an independent state, the Cossack Hetmanate, but this was accomplished at the cost of aligning with the Tsar in Moscow against Poland-Lithuania. Over time, the Tsar and the ecclesiastical authorities in Moscow exerted greater and greater control in the Ukrainian Cossack lands and by the end of the 18h century effectively incorporated them into the Russian Empire.

Publication History and Census

These maps appeared in Joan Blaeu's Atlas Major, based on earlier maps by Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan, namely his eight-sheet wall map 'Delineatio specialis et accurata Ukrainae,' first engraved in 1650 by Willem Hondius, a member of the Dutch publishing family who was also in the service of the Polish monarchy. The present maps were most likely were published in the 1662 edition of the Atlas Major as the text on the verso of each map is in Latin. Due to inconsistent cataloging and the commingling of digital and physical database entries, an accurate census is difficult to establish. Some leading research universities, such as Harvard University, and national libraries in Europe independently catalog all four maps, while others hold the entire 1662 edition of the Atlas Major without separately cataloging the maps. Individual maps occasionally appear on the market, but it is rare to see all four maps sold together, especially with consistent vibrant original color.