The late 19th century seems to have witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in historic genre painting in national minorities of the then major European empires. Unlike prevailing artistic styles such as Classicism and Romanticism practiced in academia, which seemed to capitalize mostly on antique and mythological plots, a more realistic historic genre trend sought inspiration in the history of a particular nationality, thus, by means of its own idiom, addressing the issue of national identification. In the case of Ukraine, it was mostly history and culture of Cossackdom that not only became the leading theme of historic genre painting, but also acquired a special appeal in the eye of Ukraine’s closest neighbours, Poles and Russians. A marked feature with the prominent Ukrainian artists of the time was a focus on picturesque genre scenes at the expense of large scale battlescenes, which, among others, shifted the focus of the ‘ethic and heroic’ exponent of the national identity from the outward manifestation of struggle for independence and self-determination onto the comprehension.