Most readers remember about this historical figure of Little Russia only that during the war of Peter the Great with Charles XII, the hetman of the Zaporozhye Cossacks Mazepa went over to the side of the Swedish monarch. Someone recalls the intrigue of the relationship between the 60-year-old Getman and his 18-year-old goddaughter ... But what kind of person was Ivan Mazepa? This topic usually remained outside the attention of biographers.

Unknown project

In Russian historiography, it was dangerous not to scold the hetman. Mazepa went over to the Swedes from Peter I, betrayed the Tsar, who for several generations of Russians is a symbol of the country's great past. Publications of a different orientation about Mazepa almost automatically led the author under suspicion of sympathizing with separatism and the partition of a single and indivisible Russia. The dominant point of view was that Peter I was a knight without fear and reproach, he had the right to break previous oaths and agreements with whomever and whenever he liked. His partners who did this are treacherous traitors.

Yes, in 1708 hetman Mazepa went over to the side of the Swedish king. But what was the reason? Together with his like-minded Cossack Colonel Ostap Gogol, the hetman wanted to form on the territory of modern Ukraine the "Principality of Rus" - an Orthodox kingdom. It was supposed to become an alternative to the fanaticism and thoughtless Westernism that Peter the Great instilled in Muscovy. This project is almost unknown to the broad masses, but it is for it that the hetman is so furiously hated even after 300 years.

Intellectual and poet

Mazepa's clan comes from the Belaya Tserkov boyars, who in 1572 received a land allotment - the Mazepintsy farm. The documents of that time mention Mikhail Mazepa, the hetman's grandfather. His father was Stepan, the ataman of the Belaya Tserkov Cossacks, who had sworn allegiance to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Mother Maria Mokievskaya is from an old Cossack family, after the death of her husband she was tonsured and lived to be 90 years old, being the abbess of the Kiev Resurrection Monastery. Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa was born on March 20, 1639 in the ancestral village Mazepintsy in right-bank Ukraine. Graduated full course Kiev-Mohyla Academy in the class of rhetoric. He was fluent in, in addition to his native Ukrainian, Polish, Latin, French, Tatar (in the Crimean version) languages.

He spoke Italian, Dutch and german... Contemporaries testify that in moments of leisure the hetman liked to quote the works of ancient authors - Horace and Ovid. True, his reference book was the work of Machiavelli "The Sovereign", sympathy for the ideas set forth in it - the only thing that united him with Peter the Great. In adulthood, the hetman began to write poems, or, as they were then called, thoughts.

Around 1657-1659. young Mazepa, as one of the best graduates of the academy, was sent to study in the West: he studied artillery in the Dutch city of Deventer. Visited Italy, Paris and the south of France.

At the Sorbonne he graduated from the course of philosophical sciences. Returning to his native Ukraine, Mazepa contributed to enlightenment as best he could, and this was not accompanied by a struggle with the Orthodox Church. However, 20-year-old Ivan began to build his career at the court of the Polish king - smart, educated, slender, handsome, he rushed to conquer Warsaw, like once one ambitious Gascon - Paris. But if the literary hero Dumas was able to win the heart of only the queen's maids, then a real contemporary of the literary musketeer - a dashing Cossack - won the favor of Queen Mary herself, an ardent Frenchwoman from the Louis family.

Otherwise, it is impossible to explain how the descendant of the Zaporozhians, who in those years in Warsaw were treated with undisguised suspicion, quickly received a rather high court rank under the Polish monarch - "rest". That is, a nobleman entering the private chambers of the king and ... the queen. The French Ambassador to the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jean Bonac, subtly hinted at the closeness of the handsome Zaporozhets to the first beauty of Poland: “As I heard from Mrs. Velskaya, the confidante of the Queen, Mazepa, besides his other abilities, easily attracts women with his charms, if only he wants to ".

He must be a daughter french king Louis read the poems of ancient poets, enveloped him with quotations from ancient philosophers. And another fact confirming the hints of the French ambassador: in 1667, when the queen died, the future hetman was 28 years old, and he was never married. Only after a year of mourning Mazepa married - to the widow Hanna Fridrikevich (much older than him), who had already raised two children. It was a typical marriage of convenience - his wife's connections allowed the newlywed to enter the inner circle of Hetman Petro Doroshenko. It was at that time that Ivan Mazepa began to write poetry, but only three poems - thoughts - have come down to us. The theme of his poetry is the defense of Orthodoxy and Cossack freedom: "But for the faith, at least die, / Protect our freedom!"

Beloved Letters

Widowed, Ivan Mazepa formally remained lonely until the end of his days. And then everyone remembers his romance with his young goddaughter - Matryona Kochubey, the daughter of his fierce political enemy. Say, the treacherous hetman has gray hair in his beard, a demon in the rib - took and took away the young beauty. How was it really? In fact, the girl herself ran away to her godfather, but he sent her home. Her feelings were certainly sincere. Why doesn't a girl get carried away by a smart one, educated person? Who is surprised at the wedding of a young beauty with an elderly oligarch now? So by the standards of 1704, Hetman Mazepa was a Little Russian oligarch. And what he took away by force ... The letters of an elderly hetman to his beloved Matryona were found. One of them describes the essence of the events.

The style of the writing makes it clear that a loving man is writing, not a rapist-invader. “My heart! I was upset when I heard that Your Ladyship was angry with me for not keeping me with you, sending me home. Think for yourself, what would have happened? Firstly, your relatives all over the world announced that I took their daughter from them by force at night and kept them instead of my concubine. The second reason is that, keeping your grace to myself, I could not stand it, and your grace too, would begin to live together as the marriage dictates, and then there would come not a blessing from the church, but an order not to live together ... What would I do in this case? And that is why I felt sorry for your grace, so that later I would not cry because of me. "

The hetman is a sincere believer, at first he sent his beloved back, fearing that the church would not recognize their cohabitation as a legal marriage. Perhaps, had he acted less ceremoniously, his direct descendants would have lived in Ukraine or Sweden ...

Countless treasures

Already in January 1711, rumors from the Crimea began to spread in Vienna that the Crimean Tatars and Swedes - veterans of the Ukrainian campaign - had begun searching for "Mazepa's treasures." Naive Turks and Austrians also believed that chests with gold of the Cossacks were buried somewhere in the Kiev mounds. In fact, everything was stolen before them. The Royal Archives of Stockholm contain the "Report on the Death of Hetman Mazepa", which was compiled in 1720 for the Swedish Senate by the secretary of Charles XII - Captain Gustav Solden. By order of the king, he arrived in Bendery, at the house of a Turkish judge, where he met the last hours of his life, the fugitive hetman, and made a report.

The personal inheritance of the late Mazepa was a bag with 300 gold medals (each about 5 grams of gold) - the hetman's prize fund. Gold coins - 18,000 ducats, 20,000 silver Swedish riksdalers. The coins were kept in two oak barrels. In addition, Mazepa's nephew, the son of his own sister (the hetman had no direct heirs) - the Polish nobleman Voinarovsky - legally took for himself a diamond writing instrument, valued at 20,000 gold ducats, and a saber decorated with diamonds, valued at 10,000 gold ducats. The precious weapon is a gift from the Turkish Sultan. Voinarovsky received these riches by right of a blood heir.

A crown for the right cause

The personal blade in those days was a very individual weapon. By saber or sword, one could learn more about the owner than he would like to tell. Until 1917, the saber of the dreamer about the "Principality of Rus" was kept in the armory of the palace collection of Tsarskoye Selo. It was transferred to the Tsarskoye Selo Museum in 1849 by Count Buturlin. The hetman's saber was rich! The length of the curved blade is 116 cm. The hilt is covered with snakeskin, the scabbard is in gilded silver. On one side of the blade there is an inscription in Old Slavonic script: “Hope is in Bose, and a fortress in a rutsa is a crown to the right cause. Mazepa ". On the other side: "To the death of an adversary, see the one daring death." And the date is engraved - "1687 from the birth of Christ". The saber was probably received by Hetman Mazepa in 1687 from the Cossacks in the Sich. At first, they wanted to place the relic in the Museum of Peter I in Voronezh. Then they were transported to St. Petersburg. How she got to the ancestors of Count Buturlin remained an unsolved mystery.

Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa (Mazepa-Koledinsky 1639-1709) - hetman of Ukraine in 1687-1709. He came from the Ukrainian gentry in Belotserkovshchina. Hetman's father Adam belonged to the Belaya Tserkov gentry and owned the village of Mazepintsy. Hetman Mazepa's mother Maria came from the Makievskys gentry family. He studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, was a page at the court of the Polish king Jan-Casimir. He was fluent in Latin, knew Polish, German and Italian well. According to the recollections of his contemporaries, Mazepa attracted the attention of those around him not only by his high education, but also by his ability to establish friendly relations with people, instill in them confidence in himself. After returning from Poland he entered the service in the Cossack army. During the reign of hetman Samoilovich, he was appointed general chieftain, and also carried out important diplomatic assignments. After the unsuccessful Crimean campaign of 1687. all the blame was placed on hetman Samoilovich, who was removed from the post of hetman and exiled to Siberia. With the support of the favorite of the then ruler Princess Sophia boyar Vasily Golitsin, July 25, 1687. Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa was elected hetman.

Ostrikh shabel dobuvaite, and for freedom, if you wish, die, and liberties boronit

Mazepa Ivan Stepanovich

Throughout his 21-year rule, Mazepa pursued the policy of strengthening the position of the Cossack foreman, traditional for the hetmans of the Left-Bank Ukraine. Thanks to the generous gifts of Tsar Peter I, Mazepa took possession of about 20 thousand estates and became one of the richest feudal lords in Europe. A zealous patron of Orthodoxy, he built many churches in the Ukrainian Baroque style on the lands of the Hetmanate. During the reign of Hetman Mazepa, the Kiev-Mohyla Academy was able to build new buildings and increase the number of students to 2 thousand.

Mazepa provided active support to Peter I in his campaigns against the Turks and Tatars, the culmination of which was the capture in 1696. Azov - a key Turkish fortress on the Azov Sea. The aging hetman constantly gave advice to the young monarch in Polish affairs: over time, a sincere friendship arose between them ..

However, at the beginning of the XVIII century. tensions appear in the relationship between the hetman and the tsar. In 1700. great began North War... In the exhausting struggle for possession of the Baltic Sea coast, the main rivals were the Russian Tsar Peter I and the 18-year-old King of Sweden Karl XII. After several catastrophic defeats at the beginning of the war, Peter I decided to modernize the army, its management and weapons. Within the framework of the new state policy of the Russian tsar, the traditional autonomy of hetman Ukraine, guaranteed by the Pereyaslavl Treaty, was under threat.

Nekhay vіchna bude glory - same prez shablu maєm right!

Mazepa Ivan Stepanovich

During the war, the tsar made unheard-of demands on the Ukrainians. Instead of protecting their lands from direct enemies - Turks, Tatars and Poles, Ukrainians were forced to fight Swedish armies in distant Livonia, Lithuania and central Poland. In these campaigns, the fact became painfully obvious that the Cossacks could not fight on equal terms with the regular European armies. Their regiments constantly suffered heavy losses, which reached 70% of the personnel. When, trying to coordinate the actions of his troops, Peter I put Russian and German commanders at the head of the Cossack regiments, the morale of the Cossacks fell. Foreign officers treated the Cossack army with contempt, often using it as cannon fodder.

The general dissatisfaction of the Cossacks with the Tsar's policy forced Mazepa to look for a new patron. When the Polish ally of Charles XII Stanislav Leshchinsky began to threaten with an attack on Ukraine, the hetman turned to Peter I for help. The Tsar, expecting an attack from the Swedes, refused to provide military assistance to Mazepa. Considering that Peter I violated the obligation to defend Ukraine from the hated Poles, which was the basis of the Treaty of Pereyaslavl in 1654, the Ukrainian hetman ceased to consider himself obliged to remain loyal to the king. On October 28, 1708, when Charles XII, who was heading for Moscow, turned to Ukraine, Mazepa, hoping to prevent the plunder of his land, went over to the side of the Swedes. Together with him, about 3,000 Cossacks and part of the Cossack foreman passed over. The conditions on which the Ukrainians joined the Swedes were stipulated in an agreement signed in early spring 1709.

It's a pity, God, from Ukraine, it’s not like me!

Mazepa Ivan Stepanovich

For the provision of military assistance and the provision of food, Charles XII promised to defend Ukraine and refrain from signing an agreement with the Russian tsar until the complete liberation of Ukraine from the power of Moscow and the restoration of its rights. A few days after Mazepa went over to the side of the Swedes, the hetman capital Baturin was destroyed by a detachment of Russian troops under the command of Menshikov, with more than 6 thousand people killed, including the elderly and children. The news of the massacre in Baturyn, arrests and executions at the slightest suspicion of sympathy for Mazepa changed the plans of many potential supporters of the hetman. Meanwhile, Peter I ordered the Cossack foreman, who did not follow Mazepa, to elect a new hetman, and on November 11, 1708, Ivan Skoropadsky became him. The terrible Baturyn massacre, the cruelty of the Russian troops sowed fear among the Ukrainian population, the Protestant Swedes also aroused suspicion. Therefore, most of the population did not support Hetman Mazepa. The only significant group of the population that sided with the hetman was the Cossacks. They paid a heavy price for this decision. In May 1709. Russian troops destroyed the Zaporozhye Sich, and the tsar issued a decree on the execution on the spot of any captured Zaporozhets.

"AND. S. Mazepa ".
Portrait from Greensholm Castle.
End of the 1720s.

MAZEPAIvan Stepanovich, hetman of the Left Bank Ukraine (1687-1708) and “both banks of the Dnieper” (1704-09). Descended from the Ukrainian Orthodox gentry. Educated at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, knew Latin, German and Polish. In 1656, unlike the majority of the Ukrainian foremen, who supported B.M.Khmelnitsky in the War of Independence of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples in 1648-54, Mazepa entered the service as a page to the court of the Polish king Jan II Casimir. In 1663 he took part in the diplomatic preparation of the Polish campaign against the Left-Bank Ukraine and at the same time was sent from Warsaw to present insignias (signs of power) to the hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine P.I. Teter. However, in 1666 Mazepa passed to the hetman P.D.Doroshenko, who had rebelled against the Poles, and together with him served the Ottoman Empire from 1669. In 1674 he was taken prisoner by the Zaporizhzhya koshevoy chieftain I. Sirko, was almost killed by him, but escaped and began to serve the hetman of the Left Bank Ukraine I. S. Samoilovich. Since 1682, the general esaul. Relying on the support of Prince V. V. Golitsyn (together with V. L. Kochubei) he denounced Samoilovich during the first Crimean campaign in 1687. As a result, Samoilovich was arrested (later exiled to Tobolsk), and instead of him 25.7 (4.8) .1687 on the Rada during the stop of Russian troops on the river. Kolomak Mazepa was elected hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine. He swore an oath addressed to the tsars Peter I and Ivan V Alekseevich "to be ... in eternal citizenship, faithfully and constantly." Then he went to an agreement with the government ("Kolomak Articles"), formally strengthening the position royal power in the Hetmanate. In 1689 he was one of the first to support Peter I in his struggle for power with Princess Sophia Alekseevna. In 1692-95, Mazepa defeated the detachments of the self-styled hetman Petrik (an adventurer whose claims to hetmanship were supported by the Crimean khan), during the Azov campaigns of 1695-96 he acted in the lower reaches of the Dnieper as part of the troops of B.P.Sheremetev, and in 1697-98 he participated in the campaign near Ochakov. At the request of Tsar Peter I, Emperor Joseph I bestowed upon Mazepa the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (1.9.1707; Mazepa did not receive a letter for the title, since the money transferred to him for the letter did not reach the emperor).

Mazepa enjoyed the boundless confidence of Peter I, at his own discretion he spent taxes, customs duties from the Hetmanate and the military treasury. In order to enlist the support of the foreman, in 1701 he introduced a 2-day "panshchina" for the peasants, in 1708 he forbade them to move with his allotment, securing the feudal lords the right of ownership of the peasant land. He caused discontent among the rank and file Cossacks and the peasantry, but Peter I ignored all the denunciations and complaints regularly drawn up against Mazepa. Mazepa also received income (over 200 thousand rubles a year) from farms for the sale of wine, tobacco, tar, etc., from taxes from the city (territorial) regiments of the Left Bank Ukraine, and from 1704, when, at the direction of Peter I, he occupied the right bank of the Dnieper, - and from the regiments of the Right Bank. He became one of the richest feudal lords in Europe. He owned 5 volosts (with a population of up to 100 thousand people) in the Hetmanate, 2 - in Sevs county, possessions in Putivl and Rylsky (center - Ivanovskoye village) counties (over 20 thousand peasants). He used part of the funds for church construction (with the participation of Mazepa, over 40 church buildings were erected or rebuilt - in the Kiev-Pechersky, Bratsko-Epiphany, Kirillovsky, Mikhailovsky Golden-Domed monasteries, etc.), made significant contributions to monasteries with icons, church utensils and bells. Financed by the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and the Chernigov collegium. The government valued Mazepa as an expert on the affairs of Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries, instructed him (despite the formal ban on having foreign relations) to conduct diplomatic correspondence with the Crimean Khanate, Moldavia, Wallachia, Rzeczpospolita.

During the Northern War of 1700-21, Mazepa ensured the maintenance of garrisons and fortification works in the fortresses of the Left-Bank and Right-Bank Ukraine, sent Cossack detachments to auxiliary areas of hostilities near Pskov, in Belarus, Volyn and Galicia. However, Mazepa and some of the Cossack foremen negatively perceived the episodic attempts of the Russian command to involve them directly in military operations. Believing that Peter I would lose the Northern War, Mazepa in 1705-1707 negotiated with the Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky (in 1707 he was awarded the Polish Order of the White Eagle) and the Swedish king Charles XII. In February 1708, the General Judge V.L. Kochubei reported about the negotiations to Peter I, who openly clashed with the hetman because of his intention to marry Kochubei's 16-year-old daughter. However, Peter I, considering the denunciation as slander, arrested Kochubei and handed him over to Mazepa. In the spring of 1708, Mazepa concluded a personal secret agreement with Charles XII, and also offered Leshchinsky to accept the Hetmanate "as his legacy", undertook to place the Swedes in the Severshchina, gather a 20,000-strong army, annex the Don Cossacks and even Kalmyks to it, and at the first call to take the side Swedes.

After russian army counterattacks near the villages of Dobroe and Raevka (near Smolensk) forced Charles XII to abandon the offensive on Moscow and forced him to turn to Ukraine in September 1708, Mazepa's position in the Hetmanate became sharply complicated, since the majority of the population of the Ukrainian lands was opposed to the Swedes, seeing them as invaders and "heretics". Mazepa received an order from Peter I to block the way for the Swedes at the Desna River, but, in order not to go on a campaign, he feigned his death throes. Having learned that His Serene Highness Prince A.D. Menshikov with dragoon regiments is coming to his residence, the city of Baturin (now Cherkasy region, Ukraine), to the aid of the Cossacks, Mazepa fled to the Swedes on 24.10 (4.11) 1708, taking about 2 thousand Cossacks with him under the pretext that he would send them against the troops of Charles XII (only beyond the Desna, having received Swedish protection, Mazepa, invited the foremen to speak to the Cossacks with speeches about "freedom from the tsar"). At the same time, Mazepa, not excluding the possibility of the death of the city when his deception and betrayal were revealed, took out most of his wealth, as well as the former treasury of I. M. Bryukhovetsky, D. I. Mnogogreshny and Samoilovich. I. I. Skoropadsky became the new hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine on November 7 (18), Mazepa's supporters were granted amnesty for a period of 1 month. In the Trinity Cathedral of the city of Glukhov, on November 12 (23), Metropolitan of Kiev, Galician and Small Russia Joasaph (Krukovsky) in the presence of Peter I anathematized Mazepa. In his manifestos, Peter I denounced him as a traitor to the Ukrainian people, who sought to give Ukraine under the rule of the Poles. Mazepa, in his manifestos, unsuccessfully urged the population to fight against the tsarist power.

Mazepa tried to get the Tsar's forgiveness, promising (his words were conveyed by D.P. Apostle) to capture Charles XII and hand him over to Peter I, while Mazepa demanded guarantees of his security, which were to be provided by the European powers. The Swedish command, in order to prevent the return passage of Mazepa, limited his freedom of movement. During the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Charles XII left the Cossacks and Mazepa to guard the train. The flight from Poltava through the Wild Field undermined Mazepa's health, he fell ill and soon died. He was buried in the monastery of St. George (Jura) in the city of Galati (now Romania), the grave has not survived.

Great Russian Encyclopedia. Volume 18. Moscow. 2011.

"Great hetman of the Cossacks Johann Mazepa."
Western European engraving of the early 18th century.

MAZEPA Ivan Stepanovich (1644-28.08.1709) - hetman of the Left-Bank Little Russia (Ukraine) in 1687-1708.

I. S. Mazepa was born into a Little Russian noble Orthodox family in the village of Mazepintsy near the town of Belaya Tserkov. He was brought up at the court of the Polish king Jan Casimir. Since 1669, Mazepa served as a captain of the hetman court company, and then as a clerk for the hetman of the Right Bank Little Russia, PD Doroshenko. Since 1674, in the rank of a military comrade, and then in the rank of general esaul, he was in the service of I. Samoilovich, hetman of the Left Bank of Little Russia, who was later removed by intrigue. On July 25, 1687, he was elected hetman of the Left Bank Little Russia (Ukraine). Mazepa took part in the Azov campaigns of Peter I and won his trust.

Wanting to tear away Little Russia from Russia, secretly from Peter I, Mazepa negotiated with the Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky and the Swedish king Charles XII. General Judge V.L. Kochubei informed Peter I of Mazepa's plans. Frightened by the denunciation, Mazepa hastened to conclude secret treaties, according to which he provided the Swedes with provisions, fortified points in the Severshchina, pledged to win the Zaporozhye, Don Cossacks and the Kalmyk Khan to the side of Charles XII. Under the agreement with Stanislav, all Little Russia and Severshchina annexed Poland, while Mazepa became the prince and ruler of the Polotsk and Vitebsk voivodships.

During the Northern War of 1700-1721. in October 1708 he openly sided with the Swedes. After being defeated in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Mazepa, together with Charles XII, fled to the Turkish fortress of Bender, where he died.

School encyclopedia. Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003 year.

"Hetman of the Zaporozhye Troops Ivan Mazepa."
Published in the German edition 1704.

According to the general opinion of his contemporaries, Mazepa was a native of the Little Russian region and saw God's light for the first time in the village of Mazepintsy, which lies not far from Bila Tserkva, on the Kamenka River. This estate was granted in 1572 by King Sigismund-August to the ancestor of Ivan Stepanovich, the nobleman Nikolai Mazepa-Kolidinsky, with the obligation to send him the service for him under the head of Belotserkovsky. Ivan Stepanovich himself, being already a hetman, reported to the Little Russia order that his parents had two children - a son and a daughter, and the father sent his son, that is, him, Ivan Stepanovich, to be raised to the court of Jan-Kazimir, where he was "Resting." The king sent him, along with three young gentry, somewhere abroad to be educated for three years: King Jan Casimir used to send three young men of the gentry rank to the royal expense every year for this purpose. Upon returning from foreign lands in 1659, we meet Mazepa as a royal courtier with an important assignment to the Cossack hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, and in the following years to the hetmans Yuri Khmelnitsky and (in 1663) to Pavel Teter.

It can be seen that although he was still in his young years, he already enjoyed the trust of the king, as an intelligent and sharp-witted man. Undoubtedly, at that time he was loyal to the Polish government. Soon, events happened to him that prompted him to retire from the royal court and then completely from Poland.

They say that this young man, well-bred in his time, acquired a secular gloss at the royal court and, moreover, gifted with a beautiful appearance, had the ability to please women; he made a secret connection with a lady, but the husband of the latter, noticing this, ordered to seize Mazepa, tie him to a horse's tail and let her into the field; This horse, not yet trained and brought to the master from the Ukraine, found itself free, rushed with a man tied to its tail into the Ukrainian steppes. The Cossacks found him half-dead from pain and hunger, brought him to his senses, and, having recovered, he remained between the Cossacks. Another historian, Stebelsky, tells the same anecdote, adding that the gentleman, whose wife Mazepa was in touch with, stripped him naked, doused him with tar, sprinkled him with fluff, put him on a wild horse, tied him to it with ropes, and let him loose. The same is stated in the history of Otvinovsky.

N. Kostomarov. "Mazepa".

"Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa".

By the time of Mazepa's election as hetman, Left-Bank Ukraine had the following administrative-territorial division and internal administration. It was divided into ten regiments: Gadyachsky, Kievsky, Lubensky, Mirgorodsky, Nezhinsky, Pereyaslavsky, Poltava, Priluksky, Starodubsky, Chernigovsky. These administrative-territorial entities, in turn, were divided into hundreds (up to about 20 in each regiment), hundreds were divided into smoking, and the latter united several villages.
The government of Ukraine was carried out by the hetman, whose election was confirmed by the royal charter. In his hands was concentrated not only administrative and military power, but also the highest judicial power: without his sanction, the death penalty was not committed. Under the hetman, there was a general petty officer in charge of the general convoy, in charge of all artillery, a general judge in charge of the general court, a general clerk in charge of financial affairs, a general clerk in charge of the office, two general esaul-inspectors of the army and the hetman's adjutants; the general cornet and the general bunchukovy were vested with approximately the same functions. The general foreman was also the outer layer of the class of feudal lords - for example, Mazepa owned 100 thousand peasants in the Ukraine and 20 thousand in the neighboring counties of Russia.

B. Litvak. Villain Hetman.

Hetman Mazepa.
From "Kievskaya Starina".
"Three centuries". Sytin's publishing house.
1912.

For Kostomarov, Mazepa is an adventurer, alien to any national idea, ready to serve those who ensure his insatiable desire for wealth and power, and as long as it is personally beneficial to him, Mazepa. He is not at all a traitor to the Ukrainian people, for he has never been a representative of the people's interests, he is a traitor in general, in his character; and at the same time, he is an extraordinary person - extraordinary in his ability to gain confidence in “ strong world this ".

Having thrown off his benefactor - hetman Samoilovich and sat down in his place, not without the help of a powerful temporary worker, the favorite of Tsarevna Sophia V.V. Golitsyn, in gratitude for the protection provided, he presented the prince with 10,000 rubles taken from the confiscated treasury of Samoilovich. Taking advantage of the prince's patronage, Mazepa dealt with everyone who was close to Samoilovich, and at the same time with those who, in his opinion, could play the same joke with him as he did with Samoilovich. When Sophia found herself in disgrace, and with her Golitsyn, Mazepa managed very quickly to gain confidence in the young Tsar Peter I. And this trust was so strong that Peter, without hesitation, swept aside the flow of denunciations against Mazepa, although many of them contained honest a statement of facts about Mazepa's actions bordering on treason. He was inventive in his cruelty, insidious in relation to his closest associates - when rewarding them, he secretly denigrated them in his reports to the tsar, who, as a rule, made decisions that Mazepa wanted. This is how the tragedy of Kochubei was played out, so memorable to everyone who read the poem "Poltava" by Alexander Pushkin.

Mazepa was a subtle politician, but his policy had nothing to do with protecting the interests of the Ukrainian people, it was entirely aimed at strengthening the hetman's own positions, at all-round enrichment, at robbing and enslaving Ukrainian peasants. He was merciless in the suppression of popular uprisings against the growing serf oppression, fiercely defending the interests of the Ukrainian feudal lords. By the time of his open betrayal of Peter, he was the richest man in Ukraine, in no way inferior in his land holdings and the number of serfs to the Polish magnates or the largest Russian feudal lords of the early 18th century. The betrayal of Peter was not at all an act of repentance, the action of a national hero who had come to his senses - this is a completely banal action of a gambler who hoped to warm his hands on the seemingly real victory of Charles XII over Peter. If this victory had not turned into a crushing defeat, then Mazepa's transition to the side of Charles XII and Poland promised Ukraine not state independence, but a return under the yoke of the Polish gentry.

So Mazepa was not the ancestor of the Ukrainian national idea, as Mazepa's modern apologists loudly noise about, but an example of that well-known category of adventurers of the feudal era, who, in pursuit of their own advantage, often changed their overlords.

The Ukrainian people did not accept “their own”, from the point of view of modern Ukrainian nationalists, “benefactor”. Kostomarov writes that among the Ukrainians "there have always been a huge number of those who would have been glad if only they had learned that the tsar was replacing him," and notes that when Mazepa retreated to the Swedish side, hostile to the tsar, "petitions immediately followed, assuring about the loyalty of the Little Russians to the Moscow throne, and, moreover, not only from the land where the Great Russian military forces were already located, - he emphasizes, - but also from such regiments where they were not yet, - therefore, they cannot be recognized as an act of fear. "

The latest investigations by Soviet historians documentarily confirm the characterization of Mazepa given by Kostomarov. So, M.F.Kotlyar discovered in the manuscript department of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR among A.D. Menshikov's papers a letter to him from Mazepa, in which he strongly advises to destroy the Zaporozhye Sich, but to do it with the hands of Russian soldiers, since he is inconvenient to destroy Ukrainian Cossacks, and the tsarist troops can do this under the pretext of the need to secure southern borders and ensure the inviolability of peace treaties with Turkey and the Crimean Khan. This letter had no consequences - either because the omnipotent Menshikov did not really trust Mazepa (the only one, by the way, surrounded by Peter), or for some other reason. Obviously, Kostomarov did not know this document, although he also wrote about Mazepa's fierce hatred of the "gultai" of the Zaporizhzhya Sich.

B. Litvak. Villain Hetman.

"AND. S. Mazepa ".
End of the 17th century
Ryazan State Regional Art Museum. I.P. Pozhalostina.

It would seem that with the fall of the temporary worker, Hetman Mazepa, who was elevated to the rank of hetman mainly due to the influence of Prince Vasily Vasilyevich, should have suffered an unfavorable fate as well. Indeed, Mazepa was already expecting trouble for himself, and the Little Russians who were with him consulted among themselves who they would now have to elect to hetmans instead of Mazepa: there seemed to be no doubt about the latter's dismissal. Willy-nilly, on the tsar's order, Mazepa went with his assistant to the triumphant Tsar Peter. On September 9, when, on his way to Trinity, he reached the village of Vozdvizhenskoye, the tsar's order was sent to him to stop and wait until he was called. He was afraid, of course, to expect this call. But he did not have to wait long. The next day, September 10, he was called. At Troitsky Posad, the Little Russians met a magnificent tent set up to receive their hetman. On the same day, in the afternoon, the hetman was admitted to the king. He entered, dressed in a rich caftan, surrounded by foremen, behind him the Cossacks carried brilliant gifts; these were: a gold cross strewn with precious stones, a saber in an expensive frame, which cost 2,000 rubles, and 10 yards of gold aksamite for the tsar's mother - Queen Natalia Kirillovna, and for Queen Evdokia - gold necklaces with diamonds. The young tsar, stately and handsome, sat dressed in a velvet caftan, surrounded by boyars, dressed in biberek caftans. Duma clerk Ukraintsev announced to the hetman and all the foremen praise for the military campaigns with Golitsyn. Thus, it was given to know that the tsar's disfavor towards Golitsyn for his Crimean campaign did not fall on the participants of this campaign - Mazepa was the whole Zaporizhzhya army, since the Cossacks in this campaign performed only their duty and could not take responsibility for the mistakes of the main leader. The thoughtful clerk, having made his speech, told the hetman that he could now speak to the great sovereign if he had a need. Mazepa first of all noticed about the difficulty of his dignity, especially since he, as an old man, cannot boast of health, but he made a promise to serve the king faithfully, until the last drop of blood was shed, beat his forehead so that the great sovereign would always keep him in his mercy with everyone foremen and with all the Little Russian people. Mazepa's speech, which did not reach us completely, liked Peter. Beyond the expectations of many, he received the hetman and all the elders very graciously and affectionately. The affectionate reception gave the hetman courage, and he immediately gave the sovereign a petition, vilifying Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn and the latter's comrade Leonty Neplyuev. He reported to the tsar that Leonty Neplyuev, by threats, forced him to give Prince Golitsyn partly from the belongings of the aforementioned hetman Samoilovich, and partly from his own "property", which, by the grace of the monarchs, had made from the hetman's uryad, 11,000 rubles in chervonets and efims, more than three poods of silver dishes, 5000 rubles worth of precious things and three Turkish horses with a headdress. An interesting note by Mazepa, preserved in the files of the State Archives, together with the letters of Princess Sophia, shows that Mazepa, after his election to the hetmans, paid a bribe to Prince Golitsyn for assistance. In the moral rules of Ivan Stepanovich, a trait was rooted in his youth that, noticing the decline of the force on which he had previously relied, he was not hampered by any sensations and impulses so as not to contribute to the harm of the previously beneficial force that was falling for him. Treason to his benefactors has already been shown more than once in his life. So he betrayed Poland, going over to her sworn enemy Doroshenka; so he left Doroshenka as soon as he saw that his power was wavering; so, and even more shamelessly, he did to Samoilovich, who warmed him up and raised him to the height of the rank of sergeant. He did the same now with his greatest benefactor, before whom he flattered and humiliated until recently. And this time he succeeded more than all the previous times. He earned the favor of Tsar Peter. Probably, now he was helped by that natural ingenuity, that ability to please everyone the first time, the ability that lives with a person and dies with him, leaving few traces for descendants who are interested in studying the historical person.

Ivan Mazepa was born on March 20, 1639 in the village of Mazepyntsy near the White Church in the Kiev region, died on September 21, 1709 near n. p. Bendery in Moldova. The most famous hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army (1687-1708), who became a hero for Ukrainian patriots and a traitor for Russia, is a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

The logic of Russians about Mazepa is not difficult to understand: "Mazepa was a favorite of Peter I, treated kindly by the authorities", Cavalier No. 2 of the Highest Russian Order of St. Andrew the First-Called with diamonds (the first was Field Marshal Golovin, Peter I himself received the order for No. 6, Menshikov - No. 7), was the richest man in Ukraine with unlimited power, he had everything and ... lost everything when he "betrayed Moscow at the most crucial moment of the Northern War", going over to the side of Charles XII. The question is, what did he lack? The Russians have no answer to this question, the Ukrainians have the answer.

Why Ivan Mazepa is a hero of Ukraine.

1st feat of Ivan Mazepa: Homeland is above its own benefit and personal happiness. To understand Ivan Mazepa, Russians need to remember

How many volunteers went to the front in the fall-winter of 1941 and died, being talented teachers, physicists, grain growers, but not Red Army men, putting the country's interests above personal in moments of mortal dashing;

How many hundreds (!) Thousands of Ukrainians in the spring and summer of 2014 joined volunteer battalions, the National Guard, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, became volunteers and simply helped the army as much as they could to defend the independence of Ukraine, risking and dying, getting disability, transferring hard-earned funds to the army , which from "naked and barefoot" became one of the best in Europe in just 1.5 years.

Patriotism is higher than reason and common sense, then and now, and Russians and Ukrainians are different nations. This thesis helps to understand why, after the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654 and the death of Bohdan Khmelnitsky (1657)

Over the next 30 years, Russia was "betrayed" by more than a dozen (!) Ukrainian hetmans (Vygovsky (1657-1659), Yuri Khmelnitsky (1659-1662), Yakim Somko, Ivan Bryukhovetsky, Petro Doroshenko, Ostap Gogol, Demyan Mnogogreshny, Mikhail Khanenko, Samoilo Samus, Ivan Samoilovich and others). Hetmans changed, as in a kaleidoscope, and each tried to ... "betray", removing himself and the territory under his control from the Kremlin. Why? The answer is simple: the hetmans considered the Moscow Tsar a temporary ally, and not their sovereign and master, and “betrayed” him every time Moscow tried to gain a foothold on Ukrainian soil, showing “who was boss”;

Against this background, the "betrayal of Mazepa" looks like a typical behavior of the Ukrainian hetman and his entourage, who remembered the times before "joining Moscow" (50 years ago) and their older brothers, who over these 50 years tried more than a dozen times to get out of Moscow's control ;

The violent reaction of the Russians is also understandable: unlike the previous ten "traitorous hetmans", they considered Mazepa "their own," "warm," "kindly," "rewarded," whose act of leaving Moscow's power was a complete surprise to them ...

The main difference between Ivan Mazepa and his predecessors is that he had been preparing for this step for many years, as evidenced by all his activities during the 21 years of the hetman in Ukraine (1687-1708).

2nd feat of Ivan Mazepa: termination civil war ("Great Ruins" 1657-1687) and the revival of the economy and political influence of Ukraine in the world.

Ending wars and raids

- made it possible to start the economic revival of Ukrainian landswhose crops were not burned by punishers and nomads, women and children were not driven into slavery, and men did not kill each other in internecine strife;

- Mazepa tried to establish "civil peace" in the Hetmanate, widely distributing land to the Cossack foreman (this is evidenced by the hetman universals Vasily Borkovsky, Prokop Levenets, Mikhail Miklashevsky, Ivan Skoropadsky, etc.), while protecting the interests of ordinary Cossacks and commoners, which was recorded by generalists from 1691, 1692, 1693, 1701 and others in which the issues of taxation and working off were regulated;

- Ivan Mazepa has seriously strengthened the international image of Ukraine, which helped save Ukraine from destruction after the coup d'état in Muscovy in 1689. This happened thanks to the diplomatic approach of Mazepa, who managed to establish relations with both Princess Sophia and the de facto head of the Moscow government, Prince Golitsin, as well as with their successor, Tsar Peter I.

Despite the prohibition of international diplomatic relations, enshrined in the "Kolomatsky Articles", an agreement between Ukraine and the Moscow state signed when Mazepa was elected hetman, he had numerous connections with the monarchical courts of Europe, in particular, Vettinov in Poland, Giraev in Crimea, etc. In order to defend the southern borders, he built fortresses in southern Ukraine, in particular, Novoboroditskaya and Novo-Sergievsky on the Samara River.

3rd feat of Ivan Mazepa: development of education for the development of the state. He constantly took care of many educational institutions, for his own money, he built the buildings of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and the Chernigov Collegium, which were later also enriched with rare manuscripts that were modern at that time.

For the development of the culture of that time, the activities of the hetman to publish works of Ukrainian literature, in particular, the works of Afanasy Zarudny, Dmitry Tuptalo, Grigory Dvoeslov and many others, were of great importance.

Indirectly, Mazepa's activities also affected the development of architecture and the visual arts, gave art scholars a reason to talk about the emergence in Ukraine in the late 17th - early 18th centuries. unique style - "Mazepa baroque". In addition, the purposeful policy of Mazepa led to a general revival, which affected not only the development of all branches of art, but also in the field of philosophy, theology, social and natural sciences.

4th feat of Ivan Mazepa: support for the Ukrainian Church as the future ideological support of the Ukrainian state. At the expense of Ivan Mazepa himself, a huge number of church buildings were built, renovated and transformed. The most famous of them were buildings in monasteries such as the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Pustynno-Nikolaevsky, Bratsk Epiphany, Kirilovsky, Zolotovekho-Mikhailovsky, Chernigov Troitsko-Ilyinsky, Lubensky Mgarsky, Gustinsky, Baturinsky Krupnitsky, Makavlovsky, Petropnitsky Dom Bakhmachsky, Kamensky, Lyubetsky, cathedrals in Kiev - St. Sophia, Pereyaslav and Chernigov, churches in Baturyn, and others.

Ivan Mazepa also worked on the state of the Orthodox Church outside Ukraine. Among the gifts made by Mazepa to foreigners of the Moscow Patriarchate, the most famous is the silver shroud, which is preserved in the altar of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and is used only on especially solemn occasions. Another famous gift was the Gospel 1708, rewritten and engraved with means for the liturgical use of the Orthodox Syrians in Aleppo. In addition to these gifts, the hetman allocated certain funds for alms and assistance to Orthodox Christians abroad. In total, according to the estimates of the Cossack foreman, made immediately after the death of Mazepa, over the 20 years of his reign, the hetman spent at least 1,110,900 ducats, 9,243,000 zlotys and 186,000 imperials for philanthropic purposes.

The 5th feat of Ivan Mazepa: his life and death ... glorified Ukraine. To this day, Mazepa is the most popular Ukrainian in the world, who has bypassed all subsequent generations of Ukrainians from Taras Shevchenko to Mikhail Hrushevsky and the presidents of independent Ukraine. 186 engravings, 42 paintings, 22 musical works, 17 literary works, six sculptures are dedicated to him. Among the most famous works - engravings by I. Migura, I. Shchirsky, D. Galyakhovsky, L. Tarasevich, M. Berningrott; portraits not famous artists XVII - early XVIII century, stored in museums in Ukraine; canvases of historical and legendary content by famous artists A. Deveri, Y. Kossak, L. Boulyanzhe, G. Vernet, T. Gericault, E. Delacroix, E. Harpenter, M. Gerimsky; poetic and prose works by J. Byron, Hugo, Yu. Slovatsky, A. Pushkin, F. Bulgarin, G. Asaka; musical instrumental and operatic works by P. Sokolsky, K. Pedrotti, S. Purni, J.V. Ginton, F. Pedrell, P. Tchaikovsky, M. Granval, F. Liszt, J. Mathias, O. Titov, S. Rachmaninoff.

What would give Ukraine the defeat of Russia in the Northern War against Sweden.

Ivan Mazepa used the experience of Hetman Petro Doroshenko - for several years from Moscow to Ukraine after the Pereyaslavskaya Rada, for which he concluded an alliance agreement with Turkey.

The Great Northern War of 1700-1721 between Sweden and Russia gave a unique chance for Ukraine to gain independence from the Kremlin, since

1. first betrayed ... Peter 1, when in 1706. Charles XII defeated the Polish troops of the Russian ally and protege of King Augustus, forced him to renounce polish crown (1706), and forced the new king Stanislav Leshchinsky to declare war on Russia. A Polish threat hung over Ukraine with the support of the troops of Charles XII), Mazepa turned to Peter for help. But the king, while awaiting the Swedes' advance, replied: "I will not give even ten soldiers. Defend yourself as you know."

2.in the event of the defeat of Russia, Sweden could transfer Ukraine under the protectorate of its ally - Poland, as an excellent trophy in the war (Sweden itself was practically not interested in distant Ukraine)

3.In the event of a joint victory of Sweden with Poland and Ukraine, the hetmanate received the long-awaited independence

4. In the Ukrainian lands, dissatisfaction with the "alien war" grew, to which, at the request of Moscow, Ivan Mazepa sent more and more Cossack units, which suffered up to 60% of losses in battles with the best army in Europe at that time, led by Charles XII.

The critical moment of choice came for Mazepa in October 1708, when Karl XII began his campaign against Moscow not through Belarus (in the forests the Swedes suffered losses from “partisan strikes), but through the forest-steppe of Ukraine. Mazepa decided to go over to the side of Sweden.

Similar relations were typical of that time in Europe: if the overlord did not fulfill his obligations regarding the vassal, then the latter left his patron-suzerain and passed under the protection of another. As a result, in 1708 Mazepa signed an agreement with Charles XII, which stated the following:

1) Charles XII pledged to defend Ukraine, which was to become an independent state in Europe with the title of a principality;

2) the territory of the independent Ukrainian principality expanded due to the Ukrainian lands reclaimed from Russia;

3) the hetman and all classes of Ukrainian society retained their rights;

4) Mazepa was recognized as the ruler of Ukraine for life, and after his death, the General Rada had the right to elect a new hetman;

5) at the time of the war, the following cities were transferred to the Swedes: Poltava, Gadyach, Baturin, etc. to accommodate garrisons

Mazepa stressed that he was not looking for any personal benefit in this. Most of the Cossacks did not understand Mazepa's plans, left the hetman and went to join the army of Peter I. Several thousand people remained with the hetman. In the Battle of Poltava, the Swedish army lost, the remnants of Mazepa's troops left for Moldova, where the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks died on September 21, 1709

- Ivan Mazepa belonged to the family of the famous right-bank Ukrainian gentry. He received his primary education at the school of the Kiev Brotherhood, later he graduated from the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium and the Jesuit College in Warsaw. For three years he studied in Germany, Italy, France and Holland, where he received an excellent European education, experience of European political and cultural life... He knew several foreign languages;

- Mazepa was the first Ukrainian hetman to hold the hetman mace invariably for almost 22 years (8081 days). This period was characterized by the economic development of the Ukraine-Hetmanate, the stabilization of the social situation, the rise of church and religious life and culture;

At the beginning of the 18th century, under the conditions of the Northern War (1700-1721), Ivan Mazepa, in alliance with the Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky, as well as the Swedish king Charles XII, made an attempt to implement his military-political project. The main goal of this project was to get out of the protectorate of the Moscow state and the formation of an independent state on the Ukrainian lands;

Mazepa's goal as the hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Army was to unite the Cossack lands of the Left Bank, Right Bank, Zaporozhye and, if possible, Slobozhanshchina and Khan's Ukraine into a single Ukrainian state, to establish a strong autocratic hetman power in a European-type camp state while preserving the traditional Cossack system.

Ivan Mazepa through the eyes of the artist Yuri Zhuravel.

The famous Ukrainian artist and animator Yuri Zhuravel saw Ivan Mazepa like this:

Biography of Ivan Mazepa.

1659 - after he returned after training to the Rzeczpospolita;

1662-1669 - King Jan-Kazimir entrusted Mazepa with several different diplomatic missions in Ukraine, the Ottoman Empire, Muscovy;

Since 1663 Ivan Mazepa lived in the family estate in the village of Mazepintsy;

End of 1669 - entered the service of Hetman Petro Doroshenko, which became a "turning point" in the life and work of the future Hetman, who since then completely devoted himself to the Ukrainian state cause;

1668-1669 - married;

After 1674 Mazepa acted as the General Esaul. He took part in the war of Doroshenko as an ally of the Ottoman Empire against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (campaign against Galicia in 1672);

June 1674 - Poroshenko sent Mazepa to the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire, gave a Tatar escort, several captured Cossacks from the Left Bank, intended as a gift to the Khan and Sultan officials. While traveling by the Ingul river, Mazepa fell into the hands of the Cossacks, who could have killed him; koshevoy ataman Ivan Sirko recognized Mazepa and saved him;

July 1674 - Ivan Samoilovich, hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine, having learned about this, demanded that Sirka give him Mazepa. At first Sirko refused, but under pressure from the Moscow government he was forced to send Mazepa to Baturin. By his experience in international affairs, by his impeccable manners, Mazepa convinced Samoilovich to make him a confidant (he was elected as a military chief);

1687 - the hetman's mace fell into the hands of Mazepa after Samoilovich was thrown from the hetmanship and sent to Siberia;

October 28, 1708 - Mazepa hoped to prevent the plunder of his land by King Charles XII, who came to Ukraine. Therefore, he went over to the side of the Swedes. Three thousand Cossacks crossed with him. A few days later, Baturin was destroyed by Russian troops;

June 1709 - Mazepa and Charles XII fled to Moldova, which at that time belonged to the Ottoman Empire;

Tsar Peter and Hetman Mazepa.

As we remember, Hetman Samoilovich was deposed in 1687 and sent into exile after an unsuccessful Crimean campaign. According to a number of historians, the General Esaul Ivan Mazepa, who was a close friend of Prince Golitsyn, the favorite of Princess Sophia, and had long wanted to become a hetman, played an important role in the accusation of the hetman. Mazepa, with the assistance of Golitsyn and a fairly significant amount of money (albeit confiscated from the same Samoilovich), became hetman.

At the beginning of 1689, Princess Sophia, yielding to the new requests of her favorite, agreed to undertake a second campaign to the Crimea, which turned out to be no more successful than the first. The new hetman Mazepa, who was inseparable from the prince, also took part in this campaign. Returning to Moscow, Golitsyn, with the approval of Sophia, tried to present the Crimean campaign in a favorable light for both, however, the young Peter was angry at the results of this enterprise. It was at this time, in August 1689, at the very climax of the battle between the claiming absolute power Peter and Sophia, Hetman Mazepa, accompanied by the foremen, arrived in Moscow. At the beginning of his visit, he was full of courtesies in front of Sophia, in every possible way praising the military merits of Golitsyn. But after the defeat of the princess Mazepa, the tone of statements about the former favorite abruptly changed. The Little Russian delegation had to wait more than two months for an audience with the 17-year-old Tsar, who was in the Trinity-Sergiev Posad (100 km from Moscow). At this reception, Mazepa demonstrated to the tsar his ability to get into the soul and adapt to circumstances. Now the Little Russian hetman did not regret the colors that denigrate Prince Golitsyn - the enthusiastic tone at the princess's reception was replaced by almost direct denunciation of the former patron. By this, the hetman made a pleasant impression on the tsar, and anger at Sophia and Golitsyn did not become the reason for Mazepa's resignation.

Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa.

Mazepa was a very educated person, in his youth he studied in Europe, served with the Polish king Jan-Casimir. The king noticed a capable young man and gave him diplomatic assignments. In particular, it was he who was sent to Hetman Vyhovsky as a royal representative, and it was he, on behalf of the king, who presented Hetman Teter with hetman insignia. After returning to the right-bank Ukraine, Mazepa served with Hetman Doroshenko, carrying out diplomatic assignments. After his capture by the Cossacks, Mazepa falls into the hands of Hetman Samoilovich, but even there he becomes a prominent figure.

At the same parliament, at which Mazepa was elected, the so-called "Kolomatsky Articles" were signed as an addition to the previous agreements, aimed at strengthening Russian power in Little Russia. The first years of his hetmanship, Mazepa showed himself to be a zealous supporter of Peter, causing discontent from, first of all, the Zaporozhye Cossacks. In 1692, there was a strong movement in Ukraine against the hetman, which was led by the former military clerk Petro Ivanenko (Petrik), who called on the Crimean Tatars for help. For three years, Petrik "spoiled" Ukraine, but Mazepa dealt with the rebel with decisive actions, who, however, failed to win popular recognition.

In 1695, Tsar Peter undertook (not without the influence of Mazepa) new campaigns against the Crimea and Turkey. The first campaign near Azov ended in failure, but the next one was marked by brilliant success: the fortress of Azov was taken. In this campaign, almost a decisive role was played by 15 thousand Cossacks under the command of Chernigov Colonel Yakov Lizogub. Mazepa himself, together with Field Marshal Sheremetyev, defended the southern borders, preventing the Turks and Tatars from coming to the aid of the besieged Azov. The tsar's trust and gratitude were so great that Hetman Mazepa was the third in a row to receive the newly established Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. (After the Battle of Poltava, the image of this order will be torn from the effigy of the former hetman who was burned).

A mature politician, Mazepa knew how to please the tsar without causing hostility from his elders. The king paid him generously for his loyalty: Mazepa became one of the richest people in Russian Empire, he owned 100 thousand peasants in Ukraine and 20 thousand in Russian counties. In turn, Mazepa presented the general foreman and the colonels with estates, turning a blind eye to their greed.

We must pay tribute, Mazepa did a lot for the all-round cultural development of Ukraine. He built many Orthodox churches, during his hetmanship, the Kiev-Mohyla Academy built new buildings, where the number of students enrolled reached 2 thousand, many schools and printing houses were built. In a word, against the background of previous hetmans, Mazepa seemed to the tsar as an ideal governor. But the events of the early 18th century radically changed Russian-Ukrainian relations, testing them for reliability and strength.

North War.

In 1700, the Northern War with the Swedes began. 18-year-old Swedish king Karl XII entered the Russian borders. Peter moved against him a hastily assembled 35,000-strong army, consisting of recruits under the command of foreigners. Near Narva, the 8,000-strong Swedish corps utterly defeated the Russian army, and took the generals prisoner. According to the tsarist decree, Mazepa sent up to 10 thousand Cossack troops near Narva, which never managed to get in touch with the enemy. They only witnessed the flight of the Russian army, and returned home ragged and without horses. After 8 months, Charles XII defeated the Russian army near Riga. In just these two battles, the Russians lost almost all of their artillery. It was after this that Peter confiscated a fourth of the church and monastery bells for casting cannons. A long seven-year confrontation began in the theater of operations, during which Peter actually re-created and prepared the army for military action.

The main ally in this war for Russia was Poland, or rather the Polish king August II. At the very beginning of the Northern War, Peter I, wishing to enlist the support of the Polish king, promised him to transfer several Ukrainian cities to control. At the same time, he sent clerk Mikhailov to Mazepa in order to find out Mazepa's attitude to such a diplomatic deal. Mazepa, as an experienced diplomat, partially agreed with some articles of the treaty being prepared, with others he strongly disagreed.

In April 1704, Tsar Peter ordered Mazepa to go to the aid of the Polish king. An incident occurred here, which should be elaborated upon. After the conclusion of the Peace of Bakhchisarai in 1681, Poland began to pursue a policy of settling the right-bank Ukraine, relying on the Cossacks, subject to the recognition of the Polish protege as the hetman, who became Boguslav's Colonel Samus. Quite quickly, new regiments were formed, among which the fastov regiment with Colonel Semyon Paliy at the head stood out. After the accession to the throne of Augustus II, the Sejm decided to disband the dangerous Cossack army. But the Cossacks, sensing the strength, began to expel the Polish gentry from the estates. A Cossack uprising began, because of which the Polish king could not provide Tsar Peter with proper assistance. The Tsar's governor in Warsaw, Prince Dolgoruky, wrote to Mazepa not to help the right-bank Cossacks. In early 1704, the right-bank hetman Samus came to Pereyaslavl and handed over to Mazepa the hetman's insignia sent by the Polish king. Colonel Paliy continued to operate on the Right Bank, enjoying popular love. In July, Mazepa personally met with Paliy and began to reproach him for not fulfilling the tsar's order and attacking the Polish gentry, thereby damaging the tsar's business. Paliy had intended to leave, but Mazepa actually arrested him and sent him to Moscow, where Paliy was tortured and exiled to Siberia.

Meanwhile, violent events were taking place in Poland itself: part of the Poles stood for August II, part for Charles XII, who managed to conquer Warsaw, Krakow and Lvov. The confrontation between the right-bank Cossacks and Poland was a serious obstacle to the intentions of Tsar Peter, so he persuaded Mazepa to influence the Cossacks. In the spring of 1705, Mazepa, by order of the tsar, went to the Polish gentry, which had gone over to the side of the Swedes. In September of the same year, Charles XII installed Stanislaw Leszczynski as king, and there were two kings in Poland.

The first attempt to persuade Mazepa to betray the Russian tsar took place in the fall of 1705 by the newly elected Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky. Mazepa informed the tsar of this, sending him, as proof of his loyalty, instructions taken from the royal envoy and oral testimony taken from him under torture. A month or two later, the hetman met with the beautiful widow Princess Dolskaya, a supporter and even a relative of Leshchinsky, and had long conversations with her, which resulted in secret correspondence. The winter of 1705-1706 was in all respects difficult for Tsar Peter and King August II and favorable for their rivals Charles XII and Stanislav Leshchinsky. More and more Poles went over to the side of the new Polish king. Secret correspondence with Princess Dulskaya continued. Mazepa was forced to tell his general clerk Pylyp Orlik about one of her regular letters in such colors that Orlik did not suspect a change in the hetman's mood. Mazepa read the next letter again in the presence of Orlik, was indignant at the impudence of Dulskaya, who openly called on Mazepa to take the side of Leshchinsky. This correspondence, which, as it becomes known from the denunciations to the tsar, was not a secret for the closest hetman's entourage. But the king not only deeply believed his old friend, but also punished the informers. But at that time, Mazepa only looked closely at the capabilities of his rivals and secretly figured out who and when to stick in the event of a victory or defeat of the warring parties.

But there were other reasons forcing the hetman to be dissatisfied with the Russian presence in Ukraine. Firstly, such a reason was Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, outwardly disposed to Mazepa, but jealous of Peter. Menshikov's behavior towards Mazepa repeatedly infuriated the old hetman. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that at that time Peter carried out steep government reformsthat could affect Ukraine. At the same time, Prince Menshikov saw his own benefit, dreaming of becoming a Ukrainian hetman. Princess Dulskaya also wrote to the hetman about this, drawing information from conversations with the highest tsarist officials.

The events of 1706 became decisive for the hetman's intentions to lean toward the Swedes. In the fall of this year, Charles XII forced the Polish king Augustus II to renounce the crown. This step forced even his supporters to go over to the side of King Leshchinsky. For Mazepa, such a turn of events could not but become personally dangerous. And if earlier the complaints of the Little Russians about the rude and cruel treatment of the Great Russians with them had little effect on the hetman, then at the end of 1706 he began to write about these atrocities to the tsar and the highest tsarist officials. At this time, many Cossacks were in the royal service, where they really suffered beatings and humiliation. Ukrainian colonels began to accuse Mazepa of inaction and neglect of the interests of his people.

At a banquet in Kiev in honor of the Tsar Menshikov began to persuade the hetman to deal with the Cossack foreman, making hints of treason. The hetman also knew that the tsar was taking measures to get him the title of prince of the Roman Empire. In April 1707, upon the arrival of the tsar in Ukraine, there was another skirmish between Mazepa and Menshikov. And in the fall of the same year, after receiving another letter from Princess Dulskaya and King Stanislav Mazepa, he finally decided to go to Charles. At first, only the general clerk Philip Orlik knew about this, to whom the old hetman confessed his intentions not to gain self-interest, but out of love for his fatherland to achieve full independence of Ukraine. But then gradually the circle of initiates expanded, and soon the entire hetman government was on his side. One of Mazepa's closest associates, General Judge Vasily Kochubei and his brother-in-law, Colonel Iskra from Poltava, informed Tsar Peter about the hetman's intentions. (this tragic story is well known to every cultured person, thanks to the genius of Pushkin). But there were so many denunciations against Mazepa during the twenty years of Mazepa's reign that Tsar Peter did not believe them for a long time, moreover, he punished the informers. The tsar did not believe either Kochubei and Iskra, ordering to arrest them and conduct an investigation. During the inquest, Kochubey and Iskra retracted their testimonies and "admitted" the accusations were false. The king ordered to cut off their heads.

Betrayal of Mazepa.

In 1708, Charles XII, defeating August II, led his 44,000-strong army to Moscow, from the north another 30,000 troops were ready to go to his aid under the command of General Levengaupt. But at that time, popular uprisings broke out in Russia: in the Urals, the Bashkirs. and on the Don - Kondraty Bulavina. At the same time, the Swedish ally, the Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky, threatened to attack the hetman territories. Mazepa turned to the tsar for help, but he, preparing to repel the Swedish attack and fearing the events on the Don, answered Mazepa that he could not give him even ten people and advised him to defend himself on his own.

For Mazepa, it became obvious that the star of Peter was setting, that the tsar remained in complete isolation and was not able to put things in order even in his own house. At the same time, the successes of Karl XII and Stanislav Leshchinsky tempted Mazepa to treason. The difficult, delicate and dangerous game of the Little Russian hetman began. Fearing the disclosure of his plans and being unable to make a decision without the approval of the general foreman, Mazepa conducted the matter in such a way that his inner circle pushed the old hetman to oppose the tsar. He could only pretend that he was inferior to the foreman. But he remained true to himself even here. Gradually revealing himself in the circle of his entourage, the hetman spoke of his ardent desire to see Ukraine independent neither from the Russian tsar, nor from the Polish or Swedish king. However, a number of historians claim that it was precisely about the entry of Ukraine into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, for which Mazepa was promised the title of Prince of Chernigov.

Everything went according to the plans of the hetman. And if Charles XII went to Moscow, Russia would be brought to the brink of political catastrophe. But, heading for Smolensk, the Swedish king unexpectedly turned to Ukraine, apparently hoping for the help of the Ukrainian and Zaporozhye Cossacks before the decisive rush to the Russian capital. This talentless move allowed Tsar Peter to defeat General Levengaupt near the village of Lesnaya on the Sozh River, who was carrying artillery and provisions to Charles XII. After the Swedish maneuver, the tsarist army entered Ukraine, and the tsar demanded a hetman. The hetman, upon learning of Karl's decision, flew into a rage, realizing that now it was impossible to avoid the appearance of the tsarist army in Ukraine. And the decisive hour has come. On October 23, Mazepa, along with part of the Cossack regiments with a total number of no more than 12 thousand people, left Baturin and crossed the Desna, heading for Karl. And only then did Mazepa turn to his army outlining his intentions. The hetman's speech impressed the army as a bomb, but not everyone shared the hetman's fate. On October 29, 1708, the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa was received by the Swedish king.

The reaction of the king.

The news of Mazepa's betrayal struck the tsar, and decisive measures were not long in coming. Prince Menshikov was sent to the Cossack capital Baturin with the task of its complete destruction. At the beginning of November 1708 Baturin was taken, destroyed to the ground, all residents, including old women and children, were killed. The tragedy of Baturin is not only on Menshikov's conscience, - Baturin residents did not know about Mazepa's intentions to be transferred to the Swedes, they simply carried out the hetman's order: “... russian army do not let into the city ... ". Nevertheless, Baturin's fate made a heavy impression on everyone. Incidentally, one of the regimental foremen of the Prilutsk regiment, Ivan Nos, helped to seize the Baturin castle, who indicated a secret entrance in the castle wall. The Swedes moved to the aid of the besieged Baturin, but Mazepa, instead of taking a shortcut, made a detour through Novgorod-Seversky. Having reached the now former Cossack capital, the old hetman, seeing the destroyed Baturin and thousands of rotting bodies, said with bitterness to his clerk: “Oh, our wicked and unfortunate ears. I see that God did not bless my intention. "

A week later, on November 6, 1708, a council was convened in Glukhov, to which several colonels arrived, and a new hetman was elected there - Ivan Skoropadsky. The colonels were more inclined towards another candidate - the Chernigov colonel Polubotka, who initially did not stick to Mazepa. But the tsar, whose word was decisive, especially in such a situation, actually expressed distrust to the young colonel, he said: “Polubotok is very cunning, another Mazepa might leave him. Better to choose Skoropadsky. ” A few days later, Metropolitan Iosaph of Kiev, after a prayer service attended by the tsar, proclaimed Mazepa "anathema" and "eternal damnation." Once again, Ukraine was divided into warring parties, an information war began, in modern terms. Both Peter and Mazepa sent out generalists throughout Ukraine. Mazepa, explaining the reasons why he left Moscow, wrote: "Moscow wants to devastate our cities, imprison the entire foreman, turn the Cossacks into dragoons and soldiers, drive the people across the Volga, and populate our land with its own people." The tsar sent out two station wagons: in one he urged the Ukrainians not to believe the Mazepa propaganda, and in the other he promised not to punish the apostates and urged them to return to their estates, but not later than within one month. Meanwhile, the Swedish king, having encamped in the vicinity of Romen, also sent out generalists to the Ukrainians, urging them to free themselves from the Moscow yoke and go under his arm. I must say that the tsar's propaganda worked more effectively, and many colonels left Mazepa, including those who were with him at the Swedes. Things got to the point that Karl stopped believing the Little Russians and put a guard near each colonel, the guard was even assigned to Mazepa himself. Convinced that the Little Russian people did not heed his appeals, the hetman fell into despair and, through the escaped Mirgorod Colonel Apostle, tried to ask the Tsar for forgiveness. But Mazepa's intercepted letter to King Leshchinsky with a request to expedite the arrival of Polish troops against the Moscow tsar once again showed the tsar the true face of a traitor and double-dealing.

The common people treated the generalists of the tsar and the new hetman Skoropadsky with greater confidence than the Mazepa and Swedish. So, upon the arrival of Mazepa with the king in Romny, the former hetman summoned several centurions of the Lubensky regiment and ordered that oxen and provisions be delivered to the army. But this could not be done, so the Swedes themselves began to take what they needed, causing anger among the Little Russians. At the same time, many centurions simply refused to Mazepa. Moreover, the men even attacked the Swedes. According to the Swedish historian Arthur Stille, the army of Charles XII "at every step had to deal with rebellious rural gangs." On the right-bank Ukraine, Mazepa was treated even worse. And this is natural, since the trump card in the station wagons of the tsar and hetman Skoropadsky was the accusation of Mazepa of secret collusion with the Poles. Economic measures were also applied. The tsar in his station wagon announced the release of half of Mazepa's property to those who find it. Quite quickly, a significant treasury was discovered in the Belaya Tserkov fortress, which Mazepa had previously transported for storage. These deplorable and, apparently, unexpected facts upset Mazepa and made him doubt the correctness of his choice. Thus, Mazepa was not supported by the Ukrainian society, with the exception of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, to the history of relations with the Russian authorities, we now turn.

The status of Zaporozhye in relations with Russia.

Before the national-religious uprising of 1648, the Zaporozhye Sich, naturally, no official relations between Russia and Zaporozhye existed, since the Sich was not a state. However, some signs state structure did take place. This is the election of the administration, the Cossack court, the participation of all Cossack strata in solving the most important issues. But these initial signs of statehood were enough for the Cossack freemen to consider such a social structure ideal and to defend it for many decades. According to the Greek classification, this type of government is called ochlocratic (and its carriers are called ochlomons). The year 1648 forced the Cossack leaders to look differently at the seemingly unshakable values.

On initial stage revolution, the Sich device contributed to Khmelnitsky in his desire to lead the uprising and achieve military success. But, the rapidly changing situation demanded immediate decisions, as a result of which the question of the undesirability of frequent convocation of "black glad", that is, glad with the participation of ordinary Cossacks, was put on the agenda. Apparently, the last straw of Khmelnytsky's patience was the general joy in June 1648, at which the prospects of Ukrainian-Polish relations were discussed in vain for seven hours. Increasingly, the hetman limited himself to inviting only Cossack elders to the parliament, and as military successes generally dispense with authoritarian decisions. But new policy Khmelnytsky caused a sharp rejection from the ordinary Cossacks.

The need for quick decision-making in the process of conducting hostilities and conducting diplomatic negotiations forced the hetman to come to grips with the creation of an effective hetman government (baggage train, clerk, judges, treasurer, troop chief, troop cornet, bunchuzhny). It is clear that ordinary Cossacks could rarely apply for these positions, so the demand for the educated Ukrainian gentry increased significantly. So the nobleman Ivan Vyhovsky became the general clerk of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, whom Bohdan even had to rescue from Turkish captivity. Very soon, contradictions arose between ordinary Cossacks, gravitating towards the old liberties, and the new administration. Conflicts arose, as a rule, on a social basis, since the foremen, taking advantage of the circumstances, took over what used to belong to the Poles. But as the significance of Zaporozhye grows, its special status and military force conflicts began to acquire a political character.

According to the Treaty of Pereyaslavl in 1654, the Zaporozhye Cossacks became subjects of the Russian Tsar, and the very fact of this citizenship was used by them in clarifying relations with the hetman. It was very difficult for the Russian government to understand why the Little Russian hetman, whose title included the word "Zaporizhzhya", spoke so sharply negatively about the Zaporozhye freeman, complaining of her willfulness. After the death of Khmelnitsky, the tension between the Cossack foreman and ordinary Cossacks (especially Zaporozhye) grew. The tsarist government benefited from the hostile relationship between the Zaporozhye Kosh and the hetman. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, during the sharpest confrontation between Vygovsky on the one hand and the Cossacks and Poltava Colonel Pushkar, on the other, sent the Tsar's letter to Koshevoy Barabash, which actually made Sich a legitimate political entity recognized by Moscow. Let us recall that the very election of Vyhovsky as hetman took place without the participation of the Cossacks, which made him in the eyes of the lower Cossacks, as it were, not completely legal. In general, the tsarist government willingly provided an opportunity to complain about the hetman, wishing to have full information about his actions and intentions. Such a clause was recorded in the article of the new 1659 of the second Pereyaslavl treaty, signed by Yuri Khmelnitsky: "... write about all controversial matters to the great sovereign, to his royal majesty."

Perhaps the most acute conflict arose in 1663 when I. Bryukhovetsky was elected hetman at the famous "Chornaya Rada". Recall that the adversary of Bryukhovetsky, for whom the secheviks stood, was Yakim Somko, who considered the Zaporozhye Secheviks who had left Zaporozhye as ordinary Cossacks, assigned to any city regiment, as a result of which they could not take part in the Rada as a grassroots Cossacks. The Zaporozhian people, in their desire to limit the hetman's power, were more likely to agree to be under the tsarist governors than under the hetman's hand. Bryukhovetsky then also insisted on limiting the hetman's power up to the transfer of power to the Tsar's governor. This was not surprising for the gentry, since local authority and has not previously been approved without the consent of the Polish king. The confrontation between the two candidates ended with the fact that Bryukhovetsky arrived at the Chornaya Rada not only accompanied by the Secheviks, but also by the tsarist warriors of Prince Romodanovsky and, naturally, was elected hetman. However, as we already know, Bryukhovetsky did not have political sympathies for the lower Cossacks for long. Having received the hetman's mace, he tried to distance himself from those who helped him in Nizhyn. And he himself had already asked the tsar not to allow the Cossacks to see the tsar's majesty without him, the hetman's knowledge.

The Andrusov world has radically changed the situation. According to this agreement, Zaporozhye was to be controlled jointly by the Russian and Polish governments. However, the grassroots Cossacks, led by the famous koshev ataman Ivan Sirko, repeatedly emphasized their loyalty to the Moscow sovereign. But such a situation in which the Left Bank was subordinate to Moscow, and Zaporozhye had a strange double status, did not contribute to the rapprochement of the lower Cossacks and the Little Russian hetman. Thus, even that part of Ukraine, which gravitated towards Russia, was not something whole, either politically or militarily, not to mention the Right Bank.

The "eternal peace" between Russia and Poland, concluded in 1686, put an end to the double subordination of Zaporozhye. This time, the tsarist and hetman government acted jointly, restricting the rights and freedoms of the lower Cossacks. The state interests of Russia and the interests of the Little Russian hetmans, the very logic of the historical process made even the relative independence of the Zaporozhye Sich problematic. The Zaporozhians were prohibited from any contacts with the Commonwealth and the Crimean Khanate; Moscow built military fortresses on their lands. In a word, Zaporozhye was viewed as an outpost in the military confrontation with Turkey. Mindful of past liberties and military glory, the secheviks have always treated the hetmans and their entourage with suspicion and rejection. They were irritated by the fact that the Ukrainian Cossack foreman received from the Moscow tsars the lands where ordinary Cossacks lived, who became claps in the eyes of the foreman.

The Zaporozhians were especially furious at the ruin of the Samara-Mikhailovsky Zaporozhye Monastery by Prince Golitsyn, in which the monks, the old Zaporozhians, lived out their days. The monks were dissatisfied with the construction of a military fortress near the monastery with an appointed Moscow governor. Prince Golitsyn, returning from the second unsuccessful campaign from the Crimea, literally destroyed the monastery, not sparing the elderly monks. After this shameful deed, the Cossacks began to openly oppose Hetman Mazepa, who was considered Moscow's main accomplice and even began negotiations with the Crimean Khan. In 1692, a military clerk Petro Ivanenko (Petrik) appeared in Zaporozhye, who became the general clerk and led the opposition movement against Hetman Mazepa. However, his intentions were not supported by the Ukrainian Cossacks, and three-year attempts to rouse Ukrainian Cossacks to oppose the hetman were unsuccessful.

1708 became for the Zaporozhye kosh the year of the revival of political recognition on the part of Hetman Mazepa, who, having decided to submit to the Swedish king, turned to the Zaporozhian people for help. At first, the Cossacks doubted the hetman's intentions and asked what to expect from the new union. Political moods in Zaporozhye were always changeable and depended on the strength of one or another party. The old men insisted on remaining faithful to the tsar and even sent a notice to Mazepa. But the kosh chieftain at that time was Kost Gordienko, an ardent enemy of the Moscow authorities. The Zaporozhians gathered at the parliament and listened to Mazepa's station wagon, in which he especially emphasized that he himself had heard the tsar say: "It is necessary to eradicate these thieves and villains of the Zaporozhian people." Rada took the side of Mazepa, after which the koshevoy ataman Kost Gordienko and his comrades left for Dikanka, where he met with the former hetman. Explaining now face to face, the chops were presented to King Charles the next day, to whom Gordienko made a speech. The Cossacks spent several days visiting, together with the Ukrainian Cossacks, and swore allegiance to each other. At the same time, the Cossacks and Karl drew up and approved a treaty according to which Karl pledged not to conclude peace with the tsar without the condition of withdrawing Ukraine and Zaporozhye from Russia.

In April 1709, the Cossacks, to whose aid the Swedes came, defeated the army of General Ren. Then Field Marshal Sheremetyev sent Colonel Yakovlev to Zaporozhye, who, together with Colonel Galagan, who had gone over to the Tsar's side, destroyed the Sich. Moreover, the irritation and anger of the attackers were so great that they not only killed every single Cossack who were in the Sich, but even tore up the Cossack graves and chopped off the heads of the dead.

Now, after such a retreat, which was necessary to explain the participation of the Zaporozhye Cossacks in Mazepa's enterprise, let us turn to a description of the events that followed the hetman's betrayal.

Battle of Poltava.

In early June 1709, the opposing forces met near Poltava, surrounded by the Swedes. At that time in Poltava itself there was a Russian garrison. Karl tried unsuccessfully to take possession of the city. But the Swedish army, especially after a terrible winter, was a rather pitiful sight. Peter brought in fresh strength. Karl tried to evade the battle, but this could no longer be done: he was surrounded on all sides by Russian troops, Ukrainian regiments of Hetman Skoropadsky, Polish troops - opponents of King Stanislav and even Kalmyks and Volokhs. The Battle of Poltava began on June 27. Self-confident Karl did not doubt his success. A day earlier, wounded in the leg, the king confidently declared to his generals: "Tomorrow we will dine in the tents of the Moscow Tsar, there is no need to take care of the soldiers' food, there is a lot prepared for us in the Moscow wagon train." The battle began with the Swedes, but after a short time, thanks to the efforts of the Russian generals and disagreements in the enemy camp, the course of the battle changed, and by noon the matter was decided. The Swedish army was defeated, Karl, Mazepa and the survivors, including the Cossacks (who, by the way, did not actually take part in the battle) fled. The broken Mazepa used his last strength to persuade Karl to flee as soon as possible; he saw captivity and the very possibility of meeting with those who trusted him for 20 years more terrible than death.

Peter, with joy, began to celebrate the victory, forgetting about the enemy. The chase after Karl and Mazepa, equipped later, lasted almost a month. Only by a miracle, thanks to the knowledge of the Cossacks of the area and the methods of crossing the rivers, the fugitives managed to escape. But the old hetman could no longer bear the hardest stress of the last months and died on August 2, 1709. He was buried in Iasi in the presence of the Cossacks and the Swedish king. The foreman who remained with him, with the help of Charles XII, elected Philip Orlik as hetman, who became the first Ukrainian hetman in exile.

The attitude of the Orthodox Church towards Mazepa.

From the very first days of treason, the Orthodox Church took the position of loud condemnation of Mazepa. It is also important that the highest official in the church hierarchy of Russia at that time was Stefan Yavorsky, a Ukrainian by birth. The history of this church leader is as follows. In his youth, he studied at a Polish Jesuit school, became a Catholic, but later, returning to Ukraine, he converted to Orthodoxy. Before moving to Russia, he was the abbot of one of the Kiev monasteries, but thanks to a bright speech at the funeral of a noble boyar, he was noticed by the tsar and made a dizzying career, becoming the Ryazan metropolitan. In Moscow circles, he was considered an upstart and did not take for one of their own, but it was precisely such a person that the tsar-reformer needed. Patriarch Adrian died in October 1700. Two months later, Peter, without destroying the patriarchate (he did this later), appointed Stephen Yavorsky "exarch, administrator and viceroy of the patriarchal throne."

On November 12, 1709, after the election and approval of Hetman Skoropadsky at the same time in the Trinity Church in Glukhov and in the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, the spiritual authorities declared "anathema and eternal damnation to the thief and traitor Mazepa." Metropolitan Iosaph Krokovsky of Kiev and Bishop Zakhariya Kornilovich of Pereyaslavl came to Glukhov. In Moscow, the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Stefan Yavorsky, at the beginning of the sermon noted Mazepa's former merits, but ended with the following words: “We, gathered in the name of the Lord God Jesus Christ and the holy apostles, have been given from God himself to knit and decide, and even what we bind on earth will be connected and in heaven! To the traitor Ivan Mazepa for perjury and for treason to the great sovereign, anathema. " The Metropolitan three times proclaimed the curse, and after him all the hierarchs present sang "anathema" three times. After that, throughout Little Russia, the hierarchs sent pastoral messages about Mazepa's curse and obedience to Skoropadsky.

Since then, for more than two hundred years, in the first week of Lent, from the pulpits of all churches and cathedrals of the Russian Empire, former hetman Ivan Mazepa was declared anathema.

Characteristics of Mazepa.

In history and literature, there are two opposite points of view on the personality of this person: according to some (mainly Russian) Mazepa is a self-lover and a traitor, according to others (mostly Ukrainian, but not all) - a national hero. Not wishing to freely present the evidence of both, we present detailed excerpts from the most authoritative authors: Russian historian Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (by the way, Ukrainian by origin) and Ukrainian historian Gnat Khotkevich.

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (1882). - Hetman Mazepa as a historical figure was not a representative of any national idea. He was an egoist in the full sense of the word. A Pole in education and ways of life, he moved to Little Russia and there made a career for himself, counterfeiting, as we have seen, to the Moscow authorities and by no means stopping at any immoral paths. The most accurate definition of this person would be to say that it was a lie incarnate. He lied in front of everyone, deceived everyone and Poles, and Little Russians, and the tsar, and Karl, he was ready to do evil to everyone, as soon as he presented himself with the opportunity to gain profit or to wriggle out of danger. He took advantage of the desire of the Little Russians to preserve the autonomy of their country and their nationality and deceived the elders, as if he had a plan - to acquire independence for Ukraine. But in fact, as his secret conspiracy with Leshchinsky shows, he thought to give Ukraine under the rule of Poland, in other words, in old age he did what he did in his youth, when King Jan Kazimierz sent him as an agent to Ukraine to carry out a plan to return this fallen from Poland's edge to its former domination. He could not seek independence of Ukraine before the Swedish and Polish kings: Stanislav, as the Polish king, could not and should not have renounced the inherited rights of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to Ukraine; Moreover, Mazepa himself knew very well that the people who hated him would not obey the new dynasty, which was supposed to start with him, Mazepa. He prudently reprimanded himself possession in the Belarusian territory, and gave Little Russia to the victim of an internecine war, which would inevitably flare up if Ukraine had come under Polish rule - Mazepa knew this from the experience played out in Right-Bank Ukraine. (Kostomarov means the uprising led by Colonel Paliy - author). But he was not sorry for the people from whom he could not acquire love for 20 years of his reign. That he only deceived his Russian accomplices with the specter of independence, but in fact was going to plunge them with the whole country into slavery, there can be no doubt, and Peter, who denounced Mazepa in front of all the Little Russian people, was absolutely right ...

It is clear that Mazepa would not have betrayed Tsar Peter if it had not seemed to him that, so to speak, the Tsar's shares were falling, while Karl's shares were rising ... And in less than a month, Mazepa saw that he was wrong. And the majority of the Cossacks, and the entire Little Russian people - everything went not for him, but against him. … He did not think to betray his new ally either, he planned, as we have seen, to buy his reconciliation with the offended king by his death. Never in his entire life has this man fully manifested himself, as in this new idea ...

If the Little Russian people were seduced by the seductions of their hetman and the glory of the northern victor, Peter would never have come to terms with his rival. And if anyone was the true culprit in the salvation of the Russian state, then it is the Little Russian people ...

It cannot be said that in those days the Little Russian people had any kind of attachment to the Russian state and to the union with the "Muscovites", on the contrary, at every step we come across, so to speak, facts of mutual unfriendliness and even enmity between the two Russian peoples. Nor can it be said that the Little Russian people are not aware of their national personality and do not want national independence. There were many conditions that made it possible for the Little Russians to fall away from loyalty to the Russian Tsar. And, however, it did not work out ... The people instinctively saw that they were being pulled into death, and did not go there. The people remained loyal to the king not even because of some kind of affection, not out of reverence for the monarch, but simply because of the two evils, one must choose the lesser. No matter how hard it was for him under the yoke of the Moscow authorities, he knew from experience that the oppression of the Polish lords would become harder for him. According to the Russian government, at least, there was always spiritual consolation for him - the faith of his fathers, which the "Muscovites" could no longer trample on, no matter how they treated all the other people's rights. That alone was enough.

Gnat Hotkevich (1917). - ... Historians have so far succeeded in showing the hetman in a negative light only by hushing up the facts and twisting them. But in reality - what else did Mazepa lack? Honors? But he was the first person in a huge land, neither the king nor the king could reward him with anything else. Wealth? But he had plenty of money, and estates, and everything. Finally, he was already a 70-year old man - what else did he need for himself? And could a man of that religious time kiss the life-giving cross, telling a deliberate lie? Only these psychological circumstances indicate that the only impulse of his actions could be a feeling of desire for good to his native land. As for the undoubted circumstances, the political conditions speak about this even more expressively. Mazepa is not Rodzianko, or Tereshchenko, or Skoropadsky, who would never say “we are a free, not conquered people” ... Then a living person was rooting for the fate of his native land, he felt that he had sold himself into bondage for nothing and thought about how to get out of there, and hurt and suffered for the fate of his people ...

And for us, Mazepa is not a traitor and not a self-lover - but a hero out of time, a man who, in the last days of Ukrainian freedom, Ukrainian autonomy, in front of the growing onslaught of the tsars, nevertheless went, obeying the voice of the people's conscience, went with the last sword in his hands, with last guard beside him. And the Mazepa colonels are not miserable egoists, but death knights, who gave their prosperous existence, tranquility, and their whole soul for the idea, for the bright ideal of national independence.

Some conclusions.

What can I say here? The events of the early 18th century were dramatic for both Russia and Ukraine; they determined the nature of their relationship for centuries. Let the reader draw his own conclusions about the role and significance of Mazepa. The author, on the other hand, takes the position of a responsible politician who studies history not to find the culprits and not for mutual accusations, but in order to draw historical lessons. The Ukrainian national dream - to be an independent state - should be respected, or at least reckoned with. It is so simple. But how hard this lesson is for some Moscow politicians, including those whose surnames betray their Ukrainian origin.

Many Ukrainian sources, analyzing the behavior of the Moscow authorities in Ukraine, base their conclusions on the presentation of the Russian person as a traditional slave, and their tsar as a cruel and uncivilized despot. It should be recalled that in the era of Tsar Peter, the idea of \u200b\u200bconcentration of power in the hands of the monarch was a generally accepted theory of government. Everyone knows the phrase Louis XIV "The state is me." It was no accident that a tyrant ruler escaped, it was a system of views, according to which, the power of a monarch should not be limited by anything due to its divine origin. The German jurist of the late 17th century, Pufendorf, proposed to the reigning persons a formula according to which the sovereign is irresponsible in his actions, stands above human laws and is not subject to any other authority. He has the undivided right to direct the spiritual life of people. This formula is imbued with all the activities of Peter, who highly appreciated the German lawyer. This formula was reflected in the military regulations of that time: "His Majesty is an autocratic monarch who should not give an answer to anyone in the world about his deeds, but he has power and authority, like a Christian sovereign, to rule according to his will and benevolence." The theory of absolutism was preached and defended by the Pskov Metropolitan Theophan Prokopovich, by the way, a Ukrainian by birth, who had a huge influence on Peter.

This theory contributed to the development of such traits as self-reliance, a desire for innovation and perseverance in achieving goals set by nature in Tsar Peter. He felt that he was the father of the nation, teacher and commander who was obliged to teach his subjects how to live in new conditions, and in case of resistance, to force them. For, according to Peter's statements, even the actions of a doctor who inflict pain on a patient during treatment ultimately lead to his salvation. Peter's critics quite rightly condemn him for introducing a system of police supervision in the state, for excessive regulation, for the state's invasion of private life. Wanting to speed up the process of the slowly developing Russian society's transition to a developed European state, Peter considered it his fatherly duty to instruct his subjects, telling them how to lay stoves, how to make ceilings, ordered them not to take off their hats in front of the palace in order to avoid colds, not to build fences in front of the house and many others prohibitions and restrictions.

It is for this reason that Peter also treated the Little Russians, whom he considered his subjects, since half a century ago, the generally recognized people's leader hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky himself expressed a desire to stand under the high hand of his father, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Therefore, he considered himself entitled to allow past the hetman and his foremen to contact him directly when filing complaints. Therefore, during the extraordinary tension of the forces of the entire state, in June 1707, Peter directly prohibited violence against his subjects - the Ukrainian citizens: "Do not inflict any offense or ruin on the Little Russian land, under fear of our cruel anger and execution." He, as an autocrat who considered himself the father of the nation, simply could not behave differently, even for the reason that it was restless in his rear during hostilities. The above is not an excuse for atrocities against Ukrainians on the part of the Russian authorities, just a reminder that when analyzing such subtle matters as the analysis of historical phenomena, one cannot ignore the spirit and experience of a particular historical period.

And the last thing. From the point of view of the development of industry and trade, state regulation could not ensure a forward movement along the path of European progress. Moreover, the theory of absolutism after some time showed its inconsistency and for a long time was a brake on the development of both Russia and Ukraine.

From the book Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great [Fictional Tsar and Fake Tsar] author

4.3. Tsar Peter was replaced? But then one cannot but recall the dark story with the one and a half year trip of the young Tsar Peter I to Western Europe from March 1697 to August 1698. From which he returned as if a completely different person. And the next day, NOT EVEN

From the book History of Russia in stories for children author

Peter, the ten-year-old Tsar of Russia 1682 Finally, the sovereign appears on the throne of Russia, whose very destiny was destined to make a great revolution in our Fatherland, unheard of among any peoples. All of them, starting from the most ancient peoples, were enlightened

From the book Muscovy author Georgy Vernadsky

2. Tsar and Hetman, 1654-1657

From the book Zaporozhians - Russian knights. History of the Zaporizhzhya army author Shirokorad Alexander Borisovich

Chapter 14 Hetman Mazepa and the Zaporozhian Cossacks To the extreme displeasure of the independents, there are many blank spots in the life of their "apostle" Ivan Mazepa. So, even the date of his birth is still unknown. Kostomarov wrote: “According to the news delivered to the Archaeographic Commission by Count

From the book History of Russia in the biographies of its main figures. Second Division author

From the book History of Russia in stories for children (volume 1) author Ishimova Alexandra Osipovna

Peter, the ten-year-old Tsar of Russia 1682 At last, the most beautiful pages of the history of Russia open before us! Finally, on her throne is the sovereign, appointed by fate to make in our fatherland that great revolution, which can fully be called miraculous,

From the book History of the Russian Army. Volume one [From the birth of Russia to the war of 1812] author Zayonchkovsky Andrey Medardovich

Tsar Peter - a great commander Grateful Russia will never forget the name of its great reformer, a tireless worker on the throne, a skillful helmsman, who guided the ship of state to greatness and glory with a strong faithful hand. He turned Russia into great

From the book Egyptian, Russian and Italian zodiacs. Openings 2005-2008 author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

2.2.7. Peter I was called not Peter, but Isaac? Was the king replaced? It is known that over a century and a half, starting with Peter I and ending with Nicholas I, the Romanovs, sparing no effort and money, purposefully erected St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. More precisely, there were cathedrals with that name

From the book Crowd of Heroes of the 18th Century author Anisimov Evgeny Viktorovich

Emperor Peter II: Tsar-Hunter In 1721 a high-profile diplomatic scandal erupted in St. Petersburg. The Austrian envoy, Count Kinsky, expressed a strong protest to the Russian authorities over the state of the grandson of Peter the Great, the son of the late Tsarevich

From the book History of Ukraine. South Russian lands from the first princes of Kiev to Joseph Stalin author Allen William Edward David

The Great Northern War: Peter the Great and Mazepa At the turn of the century, there were dramatic changes in the distribution of power in Eastern Europe. For two decades, three empires located between the Arctic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, to one degree or another have lost

author Galushko Kirill Yurievich

From the book Treasures of Women Stories of Love and Creation author Kile Petr

Venus Tauride (Tsar Peter and Catherine)

From the book Donbass: Russia and Ukraine. History essays author Buntovsky Sergey Yurievich

Hetman-traitor Ivan Mazepa The reunification of Ukraine with Russia in 1654 served as an impetus for the further economic, political and cultural development of the Ukrainian people. Left-bank Ukraine gradually turned into one of the most developed in

From the book Russian Old Believers [Traditions, History, Culture] author Dmitry Urushev

Chapter 25. Tsar Peter Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich loved everything foreign. Following the example of the European rulers, he got himself an amusement - the court theater. The autocrat did not spare money for him. The Tsar was so fond of the game that he sat in the theater for ten hours in a row.

From the book Ukrainian Nationalism: Educational Program for Russians, or Who and Why Invented Ukraine author Galushko Kirill Yurievich

24. Love has passed: Ivan Mazepa and Peter I As we already know, after the overthrow of Samoilovich, hetman was either elected or appointed by Vasily Golitsyn Ivan Mazepa is one of the most polarized figures ukrainian history... Russian history still appreciates it

From the book Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. Second Division author Nikolay Kostomarov

Chapter 16 Hetman Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa Mazepa was a nobleman of the Orthodox faith, from western Little Russia, and served as a room nobleman under the Polish king John Casimir. This was probably after the victories of the Cossacks made the Poles respect for some time