Geography and Ethnography
Beauplan, Guillaume Le Vasseur de. Description d’Ukranie, qui sont plusieurs provinces du Royaume de Pologne. Contenues depuis les confins de la Moscovie, iusques aux limites de la Transilvanie. Ensemble leurs moeurs, facons de viures, et de faire la Guerre / par le Sieur de Beauplan. – A Rouen : Chez Jacques Cailloue, 1660. – [6], 112 p., [2] planches pl. : ill.
A book by French army engineer and famous cartographer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan (1595?–1685?) “A description of Ukraine, containing several provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, lying between the confines of Moscovia, and the borders of Transylvania. Together with their customs, manner of life, and how they manage their wars.” It is a valuable source for the study of Ukraine in the XVII century. The book contains unique geographical and economic testimonies of the author about Ukraine, ways and life of peasants and Cossacks, sea trips of the Cossacks, a detailed description of the Dnieper overfalls. The «Description», which opened Ukraine to a Western European reader, has remained for a long time a valuable source of information about Ukraine and its people. This publication was of great interest in Europe and has been translated into several languages: English (1704), German (1780), Polish (1822), Russian (1832). The first Ukrainian translation appeared only in 1981.