Thoughts on the symbolism and roles of Jan, Jurko, and Helena in canon

 

The love triangle of Jan Skrzetuski-Helena -Jurko Bohun in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s ‘Ogniem I Mieczem’ [With fire and the sword] is a far deeper matter than just a love triangle, though that plays its part in paralleling one of the underlying causes of the Chmielnicki uprising.

The rivalry between Jan and Jurko reaches back into the early psyche of the Slav, drawing upon the protoslavic pagan gods, Belobog and Czarnobog, the original light and dark, day and night, good luck and bad luck, summer and winter.

It is a common feature in early religions to discover the concept that a knight of light overcomes a dark knight to end winter and bring about the return to longer days; such struggles are celebrated today in a much watered down form in the mummeries of Morris dancers in England, where the serious aspect of enacting the killing of winter has long been lost. This may have come to England with the Romans as part of the Mithraic tradition, which had its roots far to the east of the Roman empire and may have some tenuous connection with Belobog and Czarnobog.  However, what is important is that Jan represents all that is best of the Polish nation, and though in the book he is dark haired, he is fair skinned, physically representing the light in contrast to Jurko’s tawny good looks. Jurko represents the paradigm of  the Cossack, wild and untamed and undisciplined.

Jurko is unlucky. It is implied that he is a bastard, with no family he considers his own, and with the excellent portrayal of him by Aleksander Dumogorow in the film version, the suggestion that he has been an abused child is also given by the upward glances through his brows. Whilst this is only the actor’s interpretation, it fits with Jurko’s pathological need to be accepted, and one might postulate that he was sired by a Pole and his mother was not happy about this.

Jurko  is all about emotion, contrasted to Jan, who is all about duty. Jurko wants and when what he wants is not fulfilled he falls into black rages. Jan suffers; but pulls himself together and does his duty. Helena is the sun whom both want, dark Jurko to devour, light Jan to set on a pedestal.

Thus, the deepest of the characterisations of our two protagonists, who also show their affinities through the Christian faith.

One might also draw parallels with Lucifer and Jurko; who would rather rule in his own company of devoted Cossacks than serve in Poland, where he must accept that he cannot have his own way. He can also be linked to the Cardinal Sins; Lust, Envy, Pride, Wrath, Greed [looting], setting aside only Gluttony and Sloth [his worst enemy could not accuse Jurko of being slothful].

The historic Cardinal sins of Acedia and Vainglory can also be laid at Jurko’s door; indeed the historic sins fit this primal character better. Acedia can be translated as melancholy, and though this can be apathy, and was combined into sloth by Pope Gregory, it suits well Jurko’s fits of melancholy when he sings sad Ukrainian love songs and wallows in his grief. Vainglory, or boastfulness was combined with pride by Gregory, but perhaps he feasts on his prowess in a kind of prideful gluttony.

Pope Gregory combined the four Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage with the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Jan can be seen to typify these virtues; he acts prudently at all times, and temperately, and his justice is tempered with mercy, or charity. His courage and faith fail once when he finds Rozłogi burned and believes Helena to be dead; but his faith is reawakened by the priest who makes him say the Lord’s Prayer, and the support shown to him by Jeremi Wiśniowiecki. His friends enable him to hope once more, and even though he has been put through  his own personal hell by Jurko, when he has his arch-rival in his power, it is mercy and understanding of the darkness he glimpsed in himself which rules his rival which prevails and he lets Jurko go.

It is an interesting parallel to draw in terms of the love triangle that there was a similar love-triangle which formed a part, at least, of the reasoning for the Chmielnicki uprising. Bohdan Chmielnicki had taken a common-law wife, one Helena, whose one extant portrait is suspiciously similar to the description of Helena Kurcewiczówna in the book.  His lands and wife were taken by Daniel Czapliński, one of the many magnates whose rapacity led to the discontent amongst Cossack landowners, who did not wish to lose their lands to the chicanery and casuistry of Polish and Lithuanian magnates. Where ‘Helena of the Steppe’ aka Oleńka Czaplińska stood [Czapliński married her in the regular way] is not recorded. She returned to Chmielnicki eventually, and was executed by her stepson, Timofey Chmielnicki, for treachery. The truth will probably never be known, but she stares brazenly out of her portrait, and it is my personal opinion that, unlike the pliant, and much-abused Helena Kurcewiczówna, Helena of the Steppe went with the main chance. 

Of course the reasons for the uprising are more complex than the love life of two powerful men on opposite sides, whether one references another Helen, Helen of Sparta, or not. But it would appear that Sienkiewicz wanted to fictionalise and dramatise the situation, and perhaps there is some symmetry in two of the early scenes, in which Jan rescues Chmielnicki from certain death, and then throws Czapliński into a muddy puddle, releasing Chmielnicki from his role as paradigmatic Cossack, and taking from Czapliński by force the role of the epitome of the Pole. The fictionalisation is a more hopeful outcome for both the Pole and the hapless Helena than the real love-triangle; and Jurko too receives more charity than Chmielnicki. Whether this is a kindness or not is a mute point; certainly to keep a wild, free creature like Jurko as an indentured outrider would have been a cruelty, but perhaps a broken Jurko, overcome by the light, and shown mercy, might have preferred to have his guts ripped apart in his body by an impaling stake rather than having to live with his soul ripped apart by living with the knowledge that he was so completely defeated, and that Helena, the sunshine of his existence, merely pitied him.