Glin cenotaph
landart
Author: Kostyantyn Alenynskyi, Ukraine, Sumy
Material: stones that archaeologists removed from the excavation site.
Location: Tyagin, Kherson region, Ukraine
August 2021
The first mention of Ukrainian Cossacks is related to Tyagin, and the artist shows its connection with his native Sumy region, with the history of Lithuania and with the warlord of the Golden Horde named Mamay. Mamay’s descendants became the princes of Hlynsk. Now Hlynsk (Glinsk) is a village in Sumy region). And it was Mamai's descendant Bohdan Glinski who led the squad that sank the Turkish ship near Tyagin, which became the first mention of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The story told by this landart is really amazing.
So, Hlynsk (Glinsk) is a former estate of the Glinski princes. That time it was a big town on the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The southern border is marked by the Tyagin fortress. The "Cossack Glory" monument was erected in Tyagin in honor of the first battle of the Cossacks with the Turks and the first documentary mention of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
The first written references to the Cossacks on the banks of the Dnieper river, date back to the end of the 15th century. On August 1, 1492, Cossacks from Zaporizhzhia marched to the Dnieper estuary under the leadership of Prince Bohdan Glinski, who was Chingizid and descendant of Mamay. In Tyagin, the Cossacks boarded an Ottoman galley and freed the slaves. Khan Mengli I Heray was forced to complain to the Alexander, Grand Duke of Lithuania, for the first time. As Professor Mykhailo Hrushevskyi wrote, it was the first historical official mention of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks.
Bohdan Glinski belonged to the princely family of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Zhemaitia.The family had Polovtsian roots; according to chronicles and genealogies, his ancestor is the famous warlord of the Golden Horde, Mamay. Mamay 's son, Mansur-Kiyat, after 1380 settled in Transdnieper and founded Hlynsk. His son Lexa (Oleksander) became the heir to these possessions. Having accepted Christianity, he began to serve the Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. The intelligent Vytautas invited the descendants of Mamay to the Hlynsk principality, thereby making a diplomatic move: the princely family of Tatar-Mongolian origin would better find a dialogue on the border of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Golden Horde.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the Glinski princes were still called "Mamay". So it turns out that the Cossack Mamay from Hlynsk visited Tyagin, and this historical connection is obvious. According to the artist’s investigation, it is Bohdan Glinski who is the main prototype of the well-known Mamay Cossack. Folk paintings depicting a Cossack bandurist can be found in any large museum in Ukraine.
It is not known where Bohdan Glinski is buried. Therefore, the artist from Sumy creates a cenotaph from the stones of the Tyagin fortress and tells us story that connects Kherson region and Sumy region and brings back to us the name of Bohdan Hlinski-Mamay, an important and very interesting figure for understanding Ukrainian history and formation of Ukrainian statehood.
