in its early, idealistic form, sarmatism represented a positive cultural movement: it supported religious belief, honesty, national pride, courage, equality and freedom. in time, however, it became distorted. late extreme sarmatism turned belief into bigotry, honesty into political naïveté, pride into arrogance, courage into stubbornness and freedom into anarchy. the faults of sarmatism were blamed for the demise of the country from the late 18th century onwards. criticism, often one-sided and exaggerated, was used by the polish reformists to push for radical changes. this self-deprecation was accompanied by works of prussian, russian and austrian historians, who tried to prove that it was poland itself that was to blame for its fall.