HETMAN IVAN MAZEPA

According to the Eye-Witness Chronicle, Ivan Mazepa was “of noble lineage, of ancient Ruthenian nobility from the county of Bila Tserkva and highly esteemed in the (Zaporozhian) Host.”²¹ The Hetman’s ancestors were first mentioned in the documents in 1572 when a certain Mikolai Maziepa-Kolodynski received an estate from Sigismund II August in return for military service on the eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

As a representative of the Ukrainian gentry in Khmelnytskyi’s camp, Stepan-Adam was present at the Pereiaslav talks. When another member of this gentry, Ivan Vyhovskyi, became Hetman, the elder Mazepa was chosen to lead an important diplomatic mis­sion to the Polish King, Jan Casimir. Mazepa’s father was also involved in Vyhovskyi’s attempt to create a Ukrainian principality. However, when this plan failed and, in 1666, Ukraine was divided between Russian and Polish sovereignty, Stepan-Adam chose to remain on the Polish dominated Right Bank. Thus, the Mazepas embodied the symbiosis of the Catholic Polish Szlachtaand Ortho­dox Ukrainian Cossack societies.

Although there is some controversy about the date of Ivan Ma­zepa’s birth, in all likelihood he was born on 20 March 1639 in the village of Mazepyntsi.²³ He received an exceptionally broad educa­tion. After studying at the Kiev Mohyla Academy, he entered the Jesuit Collegium in Warsaw. In the words of his father, the reason why he was sent to Warsaw was, “in order that he might learn behavior from people in the King’s entourage, and not from those in the taverns.”²⁴ The plan worked exceptionally well.

But, in 1663, Mazepa’s promising career at the Polish court came to an abrupt end. In later times, an imposing array of writers, poets, painters and composers—among them, Voltaire, Byron, Pushkin, Slowacki, Hugo, Liszt, Tchaikovsky—preferred to see the reason for this in the young courtier’s romantic misadven­tures.²⁵ It is more likely, however, that court intrigue, his father’s failing health and perhaps Mazepa’s Cossack ties forced him to return to his family estate in Bila Tserkva. In any case, the Polish phase of his life was over.

Sometime in 1668-1669, Mazepa married Anna Fredrikewicz, a widow of a Polish nobleman and daughter of Semen Polovets, a noted associate of Khmelnytskyi’s. His wife’s relatives brought him into contact with Hetman Petro Doroshenko, who at the time was attempting to establish a Ukrainian Cossack principality under Ottoman protection. Upon entering Doroshenko’s service, Mazepa initially served as the commander of the Hetman’s personal guard and then rose to the rank of adjutant-general (osaul). During this period, he was sent on several missions to the Crimean Tatars and learned well the intricacies of dealing with the Muslim world.

Although his arrival on the Left Bank was unexpected, Mazepa would not regret this change in his life. Exactly at this time, Ukrainians by the thousands were fleeing the war-torn Right Bank for the relative safety of the Left Bank.²⁶ Members of such leading Cossack families as the Lyzohub, Skoropadskyi, Kandyba, Hama- liia, Khanenko and Kochubei had become disillusioned with Doro­shenko’s policies and sought their fortune in Samoilovych^,s ser­vice. Quickly finding his bearings, Mazepa managed to impress Samoilovych so favorably that the latter made him a member of his entourage and the tutor of his sons. But not only was the Hetman impressed. Russian authorities demanded that Mazepa be sent to Moscow for interrogation. During his first visit to Moscow, Mazepa also found favor with the leading Russian statesmen and returned to Samoilovych with the Tsar’s Zhalovannie (gifts). The way was now open to him for a brilliant career in the Hetmanate.

As a confidant of Samoilovych’s, Mazepa aided him in his at­tempts to regain the Right Bank from the Poles and to extend his authority over the Slobodas—lands along Russia’s southwest bor­ders which were occupied mainly by refugees from the Right Bank but administered by the Russians. Although Samoilovych’s efforts proved to be unsuccessful, Mazepa managed to benefit from them. In the process of negotiating with the Russians, he established con­tacts with V. V. Golitsyn, the favorite of Tsarina Sophia and the most influential man in Moscow. It was a relationship which Mazepa cultivated carefully and fruitfully.

The close ties with Golitsyn took on decisive importance in 1687 when the latter led a huge, costly and disastrous campaign against the Crimean Khanate. During his retreat, the Tsarina’s favorite anxiously searched for a scapegoat for his failure and—probably with Mazepa’s connivance—he chose Samoilovych.

On 23 July 1687, in the camp near the Kolomak River, Samoilo- vych was arrested on the basis of a denunciation submitted by the Starshyna (Mazepa did not sign the document), charged with trea­sonous contacts with the Crimean Khan and sent first to Russia and then to Siberia. With the arrest came unexpected turbulence in the Cossack camp. Disgruntled by the conduct of the campaign and by the Starshyna s exactions at home, rank-and-file Cossacks mutinied and killed some of their officers. This put the heneralna Starshyna in a precarious position: confronted by their rebellious men, they turned to Golitsyn for support, but the Russian commander was willing to provide it only on his own terms. One of these was that Mazepa was to be elected Hetman. Thus, on 25 July, at a hastily called and poorly attended council (rada) the election of Mazepa was carried out.

However, Golitsyn was still not satisfied; he demanded a rene­gotiation of the traditional pacts based on the Pereiaslav Treaty. As could be expected, the so-called “Kolomak Articles,” which Mazepa and the heneralna Starshyna had to accept, reflected a further dimi­nution of Ukrainian autonomy. The Ukrainians’ repeated request for the original right to maintain contacts with neighboring mon­archs was flatly rejected. Russian garrisons in Ukraine were to be enlarged, and the Hetman and heneralna Starshyna were obliged,

To unite by all means possible the Little Russian and Great Russian people... and bring them into tight, indissoluble agreement...

Thus, under terms which contradicted Ukrainian autonomy, Mazepa became the Hetman of Ukraine.

The degree to which the new Hetman’s political instincts were finely honed was evident not only from the way in which he had obtained his position, but also from his ability to retain it. After Golitsyn’s second unsuccessful Crimean campaign in 1689, Ma­zepa, with a resplendent retinue of 307 persons, came to Moscow to pay his respects to Tsarina Sophia and her influential favorite, Golitsyn. But, during his stay in the capital, Mazepa saw the Tsarina and Golitsyn removed from power by Peter I. Normally, he would have gone the way of his patron. Indeed, the Starshyna who accompanied him had already begun to discuss a possible successor. One can imagine the tension which the Hetman must have felt when, on 10 August, he was summoned to his first audi­ence with Peter I.²⁹ To Mazepa’s great surprise and relief, however, the Tsar began by praising the Cossack’s service during the Crimean campaigns. Taking advantage of this opening, the Hetman replied by emphasizing the difficulties of his office, the mistakes made by Golitsyn and his own commitment to the present Tsar. Pleased by Mazepa’s speech and his bearing, Peter gave the Hetman and his officers generous gifts and graciously allowed them to return to their homeland. This was the beginning of a close political and personal relationship—at least up until 1708.

Later, during the 1690s, when the Tsar launched his attack against the Tatars and Ottomans on the Black Sea coast and greatly needed the aid of the Ukrainian Cossacks, Mazepa proved to be remarkably accommodating. Year after year, he personally led his Cossack regiments into the Wild Fields.