Бо війна війною (For War Is War), Sich Riflemen postcard series II
A mounted rifleman in field grey with a pipe leans toward a village girl in a headscarf who points down the road, a wagon train behind them, over a strip of song notation titled 'Бо війна війною'. The homely encounter and the folk song present the legion as the countryside's own sons and voice rather than as a formation of the army.
- Date
- 1917
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Osyp Kurylas, artist and rifleman of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen legion in the Austro-Hungarian army (publisher not identified on the card)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Austria Hungary
- Medium
- Postcard
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Austria Hungary
- Leader
- Karl I
- Audience
- Diaspora or minority
- Purpose
- Reassure
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Plain folks
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1914-1918; artist died 1951, life+70 expired; Commons PD tag)
Kurylas, Osyp (1870-1951), artist. Postcard, 1914-1918. Via Wikimedia Commons (scan of the original card).
Text on the object
Бо війна війною [Song notation with two-line text under the staves, too small and low-resolution to read: [illegible]] [Handwritten inscription, lower left, partly legible, ending in a date that appears to read 1917:] [illegible] О. Курилас [illegible]
For war is war [Song notation with two-line text under the staves: illegible] [Handwritten inscription, lower left: illegible, signed O. Kurylas]
Only the title is legible. The committed scan is 402 x 604 pixels, so the song lines under the staves and the inscription cannot be transcribed reliably. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.
