With Fire and Sword

In the seventeenth century, the Polish Commonwealth is close to breaking. Nobles oppress the poorer members of society, some of it perceived and some of it real, and trust between the classes has worn thin. When tension finally gives way, the Cossacks take up arms against the Polish nobility, and the violence spreads until it engulfs the whole state.

Against this backdrop the novel follows knights and hetmans caught up in the struggle, with episodes of heroism and heartbreak on every side. Invented characters and events are woven among documented history. The war it draws on is the Khmelnytsky Uprising, and this is the first book of a trilogy about it.

It is historical fiction on a broad canvas, written in the nineteenth century by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a longtime journalist and editor. He wrote it to lift the spirits of a partitioned Poland and to stir national feeling. The portrayal of Polish and Ukrainian fighters has been debated, but no faction is spared: each side commits brutal acts to turn the war, and each side's grievances are laid out plainly.

This edition uses Jeremiah Curtin's 1898 translation. The book was hugely popular when serialized and published, and the Trilogy has stayed popular in Poland. A 1999 film adaptation was then the most expensive Polish production.