Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa / Іван was a Ukrainian military, political, and civic leader who served as the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host and the Left-bank Ukraine in 1687–1709.
A loyal vassal of the Moscow during most of his rule, in 1708 Mazepa abandoned his alliance with Tsar Peter I after learning that the monarch intended to relieve him as acting hetman of Zaporozhian Host, and sided with King Charles XII of Sweden, who declared himself to be the protector of Ukraine. Mazepa played an important role in the Battle of Poltava. The political consequences and interpretation of his defection have resonated in the national histories of both Ukraine and Russia. The historical events of Mazepa's life have inspired many literary, artistic and musical works, and the hetman himself was famous as a patron of the arts.
The Russian Orthodox Church laid an anathema on Mazepa's name in 1708 and still refuses to revoke it. The anathema was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which considers it uncanonical and imposed with political motives as a means of political and ideological repression, with no religious, theological or canonical reasons. Pro-independence and anti-Russian elements in Ukraine from the 18th century onwards were derogatorily referred to as Mazepintsy. The alienation of Mazepa from Ukrainian historiography continued during the Soviet period, but post-1991 in independent Ukraine Mazepa's image has been gradually rehabilitated. The Ukrainian corvette Hetman Ivan Mazepa of the Ukrainian Navy is named after him.
Early life
Family home
Mazepa was probably born on 30 March 1639, in, near Bila Tserkva, then part of the Kiev Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, into a noble Ruthenian family. His mother was Maryna Mokievska , and his father was Stefan Adam Mazepa. Maryna Mokievska came from the family of a Cossack officer who fought alongside Bohdan Khmelnytsky. She gave birth to two children – Ivan and Oleksandra. Stefan Mazepa served as a Cossack Ataman of Bila Tserkva.In Polish service
In 1657, Stefan Mazepa became involved with Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who pursued a pro-Polish policy. In 1659 Stefan Mazepa traveled to Warsaw to attend the Sejm and placed his son Ivan in service at the royal court of John II Casimir Vasa. Before that Ivan Mazepa probably studied at the Kiev Academy from the age of 10 and graduated with a degree in rhetoric. According to Samiilo Velychko, Ivan was to complete his philosophy course at the Jesuit college in Warsaw.According to late tradition, King John Casimir sent Ivan Mazepa to study "gunnery" in Deventer in 1656–1659, during which time he traveled across Western Europe. From 1659 the Polish king was sending him on numerous diplomatic missions to Ukraine. His service at the Polish royal court earned him a reputation as an alleged catholicized "Lyakh" – later the Russian Imperial government would effectively use this slur to discredit Mazepa.
File:Mazeppa aux loups - Vernet, 1826.jpg|thumb|Painting Mazeppa and the Wolves by Horace Vernet showing a naked Mazepa tied to a horse.
During one of his missions, Mazepa met Jan Chryzostom Pasek, whom he took to be a supporter of the anti-royal confederation. He led to Pasek's arrest and had him brought before the king, who was staying in Grodno at the time. According to Pasek's account, he managed to prove his innocence, the king rewarded him for the harm he suffered and Mazepa lost the royal trust. Further on in his memoirs, Pasek recounts the story of under what circumstances Mazepa left Poland in 1663. According to Pasek, Mazepa had an affair with Mrs. Falbowska, wife of his neighbour in Volhynia. When the neighbour discovered the affair, he tied Mazepa naked to a horse, head to tail, and fastened the horse. The horse carried Mazepa to his household, but he was so badly wounded that his own subjects were unable to recognize him. Pasek's memoirs were written in 1690-1695, when Mazepa was already a Cossack hetman; it is possible that Pasek, who had a personal grudge against Mazepa, colored the story. However, this anecdote also appears in the anonymous Memoirs to the Reign of Augustus II and in the memoirs of Marquis de Bonnac. The story was later recounted by Voltaire in his Histoire de Charles XII and became a recurring motif in the literary works of such writers as Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin or Juliusz Słowacki, as well as in the paintings of such painters as Horace Vernet, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Chassériau, Théodore Géricault and others. The tale was probably widespread by then and referred to Mazepa's reputation as a womanizer.
Despite Pasek's accounts, Mazepa still remained in royal service. In February 1663 he was sent to the Cossack Hetman Pavel Tetera, to whom he brought the Hetman's mace, presented to Tetera by. Mazepa then took part in a royal campaign against Russia in left-bank Ukraine in years 1663-1664. Mazepa was certainly still at the royal court in 1665, probably until the abdication of John II Casimir in 1668.
Under Hetman Doroshenko
After the death of his father, he inherited the title of the Chernihiv cupbearer. From 1669 to 1673 Mazepa served under Petro Doroshenko as a squadron commander in the Hetman Guard, particularly during Doroshenko's 1672 campaign in Halychyna, and as a chancellor on diplomatic missions to Poland, Crimea, and the Ottoman Empire. From 1674 to 1681 Mazepa served as a "courtier" of Doroshenko's rival Hetman Ivan Samoylovych after Mazepa was captured on the way to Crimea by the Kosh Otaman Ivan Sirko in 1674. From 1677 to 1678 Mazepa participated in the Chyhyryn campaigns during which Yuri Khmelnytsky, with the support from the Ottoman Empire, tried to regain power in Ukraine. The young, educated Mazepa quickly rose through the Cossack ranks, and from 1682 to 1686 he served as an Aide-de-Camp General.Hetman
Rule
In 1687 Ivan Mazepa accused Samoylovych of conspiring to secede from Russia, secured his ouster, and was elected the Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine in Kolomak, with the support of Vasily Galitzine. At the same time Ivan Mazepa signed the Kolomak Articles, which were based on the Hlukhiv Articles of Demian Mnohohrishny. In 1689 Mazepa supported the deposition of Tsarevna Sophia, who had served as de-facto regent of Tsar Peter I, which helped him ingratiate himself with the monarch, who valued the wide experience and education of the much older hetman. In words of a Russian historian, Mazepa "was like a father to Peter I in a sense".As hetman, Mazepa used his knowledge in military matters to introduce a new successful strategy in the fight against the Tatars and their Ottoman overlords. This success relieved both Ukraine and Muscovy from the danger of devastating enemy raids and led Peter I to award the hetman with the Order of St. Andrew, the Tsardom's highest honour. The order, as well as the title of honourable prince of the Holy Roman Empire, awarded to the hetman by Emperor Joseph I in 1707 as recognition of his help in the fight against the Ottomans and Tatars, greatly contributed to Mazepa's status both in Ukraine and at the Moscow court.
With the personal agreement of Peter I, Mazepa managed to become an undisputed ruler of the Hetmanate, concentrating most power over Ukraine, including gathering of taxes, in hands of his own administration. As hetman, Mazepa became known as a patron of culture and arts. A multitude of churches were built all over Ukraine during his reign in the Ukrainian Baroque style. He founded schools and printing houses, and expanded the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, the primary educational institution of Ukraine at the time. In many regards Mazepa greatly contributed to the establishment of the Russian Empire by supporting the policies of Peter I and providing the monarch with people needed to bring his reformist ideas into life. For example, the majority of religious figures who helped Peter I to reform the Russian Orthodox Church by bringing it under increased state control came from the Hetmanate, including Orthodox bishops Stefan Yavorsky and Theophan Prokopovich.
Himself a highly educated person who could speak both Latin and German, Mazepa established his court in a Western manner, reflecting the influence of Baroque art and literature on Ukrainian lands during that period. Mazepa's personal residence was reported to house one of the most extensive libraries of its time, containing numerous books and illuminated manuscripts from around Europe.
The Great Northern War
In 1700, as the Russian Empire entered the Great Northern War against the Swedish Empire, Mazepa, despite having concerns about the Tsar's adventurous foreign policies, supported Peter I with troops and resources. In 1702, the Cossacks of Right-bank Ukraine, under the leadership of colonel Semen Paliy, began an uprising against Poland, which after early successes was defeated. Mazepa convinced Russian Tsar Peter I to allow him to intervene, which he successfully did, taking over major portions of Right-bank Ukraine, while Poland was weakened by an invasion of Swedish king Charles XII. In 1704 Peter I allowed the hetman to incorporate the Right-bank territories into the Hetmanate, uniting Ukraine on both sides of the Dnieper for the first time in decades.At the same time, Peter I decided to reform the Russian army and to centralize control over his realm. In Mazepa's opinion, the strengthening of Russia's central power could put at risk the broad autonomy granted to the Cossack Hetmanate under the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654. Attempts to assert control over the Zaporozhian Cossacks included demands of having them fight in any of the tsar's wars, instead of only defending their own land against regional enemies as was agreed to in previous treaties. Now Cossack forces were made to fight in distant wars in Livonia and Lithuania, leaving their own homes unprotected from the Tatars and Poles. Ill-equipped and not properly trained to fight on par with the tactics of modern European armies, Cossacks suffered heavy losses and low morale. The Hetman himself started to feel his post threatened in the face of increasing calls to replace him with one of the abundant generals of the Russian army.