His preferred heroes were the Cossacks from the eastern provinces, who fought in this time normally against the Poles. Brandt’s paintings are so convincing, so realistic because he concentrated more on everyday life scenes than on the great battles, which he also painted.
There’s a Cossack on guard, a wild colorful figure in a wide landscape. This is no pretentious painting, it is reduced to the absolutely necessary.
Returning from Vienna. Here are the victors who saved Vienna in 1683. They are returning with there trophies, their exotic booty and their prisoners.
My grandfather was a Don Cossack, stationed on the Polish border to withold the Bolshevick push west in the 1930's.The modern Cossack was anti Bolshevick, although insurgents fought on both sides of the Stalinist-Hitler conflict, against Stalin or against Hitler. None of them were 'for' either, and few survived.
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