Si Deus Nobiscum: A Polish-Lithuanian Scion Quest

Just a few more things regarding fantasy.

Besides clothing, your very hairstyle could be seen as very... trendy. Fo instance, Zaporozhian Cossacks were famous for the osełedec, that is a single long clump of hair, that they grew from the top of their heads, while shaving the rest. Add the long (and I mean long) moustache and tie it up together with the long osełedec and you have peak fantasy, that even the nobles appreciated.

A real-life example: one infamis and his band of misfits were drinking in some tavern in town. Suddenly they decided to make a bet: they'll go to one of the town entries and beat up the first man that exists the place. So, when they arrived a carriage was just leaving. The passenger happened to be a Jesuit priest. The band shouted "Huzzah, get him!" When the terrified priest asked why are they assaulting him, the group calmly explained their bet. So, the Jesuit then responded immediately:

"In that case you are mistaken sirs. I wasn't the first to leave town, it was my coachman."

The band laughed at this witty display of fantasy and promptly beat up the poor servant instead.

In general, the more crazy, outrageous, outlandish and downright death-defying stunt you pull off and escape the consequences, the more fantasy you have.

Sertorius said:

I have to say a few words about the second (after freedom) most important thing for the nobility of the Commonwealth. I'm talking about fantasy (yes, you heard me right). It's hard to explain exactly what fantasy was, since it's a very cultural-specific thing. However, I shall do what I can. It may be understood as a combination of charm, wits, honour, eccentricity, valour, high alcohol tolerance and oratory. The nobility showed a great deal of respect to men, who behaved according to certain cultural standards, that were understood as fantasy. It is exactly why the various scoundrels and murderers mentioned here were protected by the general nobility and held in high regard (with the exception of their victims of course) as paragons of fantasy. Any man can become an infamis in absentia. However, to be a true infamis required a great deal of fantasy, therefore in time the term ment not just criminals, but heroic outlaws Robin Hood-style. Of course the vast majority of them were terrible people, but for the noble populus they personified what it is to be a truly free nobleman, that can do whatever he wants.

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And the historical mythos was used as "justification" for this cultural phenomenon. Eastern Europe was a bit of a latecomer to Renaissance trends, but collecting Roman-era maps and writings became an especially popular pastime. Since the Romans often extended "Sarmatia" all the way to the Baltics on such maps, it became a popularized metaphor of the Commonwealth, and the nobility enjoyed the idea of themselves as Sarmatians (with whom they associated fancy clothing and hair styles, particular armor and armaments, great cat skins etc.), and even used that idea to promote their particular feudal system and conquest, downsizing entire peoples, or even their own peoples, into being the denizens of "Scythians, who got conquered by Sarmatians", thus claiming the right to rule over them.
How did the "Scythians" react? Some took pride in it, like a rebellion of sorts, example being Hryhoryi Hrabianka. Some disagreed, arguing that Scythians and Sarmatians were already close relatives to make much distinction between them. For example, Samiylo Velychko wrote: "Look, you free neighboring peoples of all tribes and languages, at what then was done in defiance of God's and natural rights to the free noble, Sauromatian, Cossack-Ruthenian, people, who had long been famous for their courage and courageous warlike deeds not only in their own Europe, but in distant Asian countries, and another folk, also a Sauromatian one - the Poles, which has always been a brother to the Cimbrians, Scythians and Cossacks!"
So, while Sarmatism was undeniably firstmost a Polish "thing", Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility also got onto it, although the latter continued to make up new weird quasi-historical analogues. Extrapolating from the location of Alania (East Sarmatia, now known as Ossetia) at the Caucasus mountains, they tried to tie the Khazars (spelled in Ukrainian as "Hozary") to the whole Sarmatian mythos (you can already see that in Hrabianka's writings), and from there make a linguistic "link" towards Cossacks (in Ukrainian also spelled with an "o", despite the word's seemingly obvious origin in the Turkic "Qazaq", possibly because there was still the influence of the word «Cosac», meaning watchmen or guardians, mentioned in the 14th century's Codex Cumanicus as a Cuman word). Thus 18th century Cossacks practiced not just Sarmatism, but also "Khazarism", associating Khazar's with Cossack-specific boldness and military campaigns. In both cases, little actual study of the history of Sarmats of Khazars was done to support these justifications.
Aside from Khazars, another Sarmatian-adjusted myth amongst the Ruthenians was specific to the Roxolani tribe (another Indo-Iranian tribe of late Roman era, either a part of the Sarmatians, or adjusted to them), with Roxolania/Roxolana being used as synonymous of Ruthenia/Ukraine when translating into Latin. Various figures of culture of the described era used "Roxolan" as a pen-name/self-id of sorts, to describe their land of origin. Furthermore, in Muscovy Ivan the Terrible also chose the Roxolani as an origin point of history for his realm, although in the next century it would be moved all the way to the grandsons of Noah.