MAZEPA S CONTACTS WITH LESZCZYNSKI AND CHARLES XII

As the war went on, the possibility that the Poles might return to Ukraine increasingly worried the Cossack leadership.¹⁹ Although they were themselves rent by internal strife, the conflict had put the Poles in a very advantageous position vis-a-vis their lost but by no means forgotten Ukrainian lands.

It was the desire to prepare himself for all eventualities that in­clined the Hetman towards an understanding with both pro-Swedish and pro-Russian Poles. With August II and particularly with his strongest Polish supporter, Crown HetmanAdam Sieniawski, Ma­zepa attempted to establish the most cordial relations possible (while simultaneously inciting the Tsar against his Polish allies and blocking their return to the Right Bank, lost by the Poles in a Cossack rebellion of 1701). Much more dangerous was the attempt to neutralize the potential dangers of a Charles XlI-Leszczynski victory, for it meant dealing with the enemy. The wily old Hetman would have to muster up all his skill in intrigue to emerge un­scathed from this “Scylla and Charybdis” as he often called it.

Apparently, Leszczynski thought along similar lines because it was he who t∞k the initiative in establishing secret contacts with the Hetman. What a coup it would be for the puppet-king if he managed to draw Mazepa over to the Swedish side! In the fall of 1705, when the Hetman was stationed with his troops in Zamostia, a Polish priest, Franciszek Wolski, was sent to him by Leszczynski with “secret and diversionary proposals.”²⁰ The Hetman ques­tioned him in private, then had him arrested and handed over to the Russian commander.

A year later, Leszczynski tried again, this time with greater suc­cess. Taking advantage of the skillful mediation of the Princess Anna Dolska, one of the high-born intrigantes so typical of the age, the Polish king was able to involve the Hetman in a discussion of concrete proposals.²¹ This sudden change of heart was to a large extent brought on by the successful progress of the Swedish inva­sion which forced the Hetman to treat the possibility of a Swedish victory ever more seriously. As he later explained to a close associ­ate, he took this initial step so that, “it would show them (Charles XII and Leszczynski) my inclinations towards them and so that they would not treat us as the enemy and ravage poor Ukraine with fire and sword.”²² While, at this point, Mazepa was still acting on his own, without revealing his plans, he carefully sounded the star- shyna on the possibility of an understanding with “the opposing side.” Almost all of the major officers supported the idea. Encour­aged, but still keeping his contacts with Leszczynski secret from the leading starshyna_f Mazepa began discussing with the Poles the terms on which he might consider joining them.

Because the negotiations were conducted in great secrecy and, therefore, no documentary evidence of their progress has survived, historians have had to piece together bits and pieces of contem­porary accounts in order to establish Mazepa’s position in the bar­gaining. From the outset, the issue of Mazepa’s goals was sur­rounded by controversy. Some contemporaries claimed that the Hetman’s goal was to establish a separate Ukrainian principality. Addressing his officers before the Battle of Poltava, Peter I stated that Charles XII and Leszczynski wanted to “separate the Little Russian people from Russia and to create a separate principality under Mazepa’s rule.”²³ Similar allegations were noted in the offi­cial Russian journal of the events of 1708-9.²⁴ And one of Mazepa’s colonels, Hnat Galagan, who remained loyal to the Tsar, noted (in 1745) that the Hetman went over to the enemy “in order to break us away from Russia and place us under Mazepa’s own rule, which would be independent of all monarchs.”²⁵ PeterI, and later, Rus­sian historians, stressed these alleged plans to create a separate Ukrainian principality in order to provide proof of the Hetman’s purely egotistical motives for breaking with the Tsar.

A more widespread interpretation of Mazepa’s goals states that the Hetman was to receive a princely title, while Ukraine became the third and equal member of the Polish-Lithuanian Common­wealth.²⁷ Several arguments make this interpretation the most con­vincing one: such an arrangement would have solved the Polish- Ukrainian relationship to the mutual benefit of both parties, and it would have preserved the socio-economic interests of the starshyna∖ furthermore, it had a well-known precedent in the Hadiach Pactof 1658.

Once the Hetman’s dealings with Leszczynski became known, most contemporaries also spoke of them in terms of a union of Ukraine with the Commonwealth. Contradicting his own state­ments, Peter I also accused Mazepa of wanting to return the Ukrain­ians into “Polish slavery.” Danylo Apostol, a leading colonel and a central figure in the conspiracy who later accepted the Tsar’s offer of pardon, reported that Mazepa “presented us with a document from King Stanislaw.... This document contained guarantees of the same liberties for Ukraine as those which the Polish Crown and the Lithuanian Duchy enjoyed.... Mazepa was thanked for plac­ing Ukraine under the (Polish) King’s sovereignty and he was assured that the Zaporozhian Host and Ukraine would be granted all the rights and privileges they desired.”²⁸ Universals to this effect were secretly sent by Leszczynski to Mazepa in 1707 for his perusal and for distribution at the appropriate time.²⁹ This was also the reason why the colonels, by now partially informed of the negotiations, met in Kiev and secretly studied a copy of the Hadiach Pact which they obtained from the Pechersk Library.³⁰ Whether Mazepa (or Leszczynski) concluded such an agreement for purely tactical reasons, as some historians assert, having no intentions of adhering to it after the war, will never be known.

The understanding with Stanislaw paved the way for Mazepa’s contacts with Charles XII. In a proclamation issued after the Battle of Poltava, the Hetman’s desire to join the Swedes was described as “following exactly and directly the brave Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, of blessed memory, who in his ideas and military actions agreed with Carl XI and... received considerable aid in his own plans.”³¹ But precedent was certainly not the primary consideration for striving for direct contacts with Charles XII. Given the dominant political and military position of the Swedes, an understanding with them would certainly carry more weight than would one with their Polish protege. Moreover, despite the kind words and mutual assurances, neither Leszczynski nor Mazepa completely trusted the other. If the Ukrainian Hetman could get Charles’ imprimatur on his agreement with the Polish King, it stood a much better chance of being honored. At the outset of his contacts, Mazepa envisaged Charles XIΓs role as primarily that of guarantor of the understand­ing which had been reached between the Hetman and Leszczynski.

Initially, Charles XII did not evince a great interest in serving as a guarantor or even in developing contacts with the Ukrainian Hetman. Monarchical solidarity made the young King wary of dealing with a double-dealing vassal. But, after Leszczynski con­cluded his pact with the Hetman and as the Swedes encountered increasing difficulties in the north, Charles XII became more re­ceptive to the Hetman’s overtures.

A Ukrainian historian, Oleksander Ohloblyn, has suggested a provocative explanation for rising Swedish interest in Mazepa.³² Charles XIΓs plans called for the deposition of Peter I similar to that which had been forced on August II in 1706. To achieve this, the Swedish king would need the support of the old Muscovite aristocracy which was known to be critical of the Tsar’s rule.

Another of the Hetman’s links with the traditionalist critics of the Tsar lay in his close friendships with Ukrainian clerics who held high posts in Muscovy, such as the Metropolitan of Rostov, Dmytro Tuptalo, the Metropolitan of Riazan, Stefan Iavorskyi, and especially the Kievan Metropolitan, Ioasaf Krokovskyi, who was later arrested in connection with the Tsarevich Aleksei affair.³⁵ Although there is little concrete evidence of actual cooperation between the defenders of the old order in Muscovy and those in Ukraine, indications such as those cited by Ohloblyn would at least suggest that they sympathized with each other.

For many historians of these events there is some confusion as to whether a formal treaty between Mazepa and Charles XII was signed even before the Swedes arrived in Ukraine. Numerous con­temporary sources mention some sort of informal understanding between the Hetman and the Swedish King in which the latter promised to take Ukrainian interests into account. Theone source which distinctly mentions such a treaty is a document entitled “Deduction des droits de !’Ukraine.” Published in 1925 by Ilko Borshchak, a well-known specialist of this period, it was identified by him as a memorandum addressed to the courts of Europe in 1712 by Pylyp Orlyk.³⁶ According to Borshchak, the purpose of the memorandum was to establish Ukraine’s claims to sovereignty.

While the memorandum has been generally accepted as a vivid statement of Mazepist ideals, two historians delicately expressed some reservations about it. Borys Krupnytskyi wondered about its terminology (“etats”) and about it being overly advantageous to Mazepa; and Mykola Andrusiak found the exclusion of any men­tion of Poland to be curious.³⁷ The problem with this document is, however, more basic: the original has never been produced. After carefully following up Borshchak’s citations, we were unable to find the “Deduction” in the French archives.³⁸ Nor are there refer­ences to it in any of the contemporary sources or in any of Orlyk’s other papers. In view of these facts, Iheauthenticityof the “Deduc­tion des droits de !’Ukraine” must be questioned, and, with it, the view that a formal treaty between Mazepa and Charles XII was signed in 1708.

Only in April of 1709, when Charles XII was in Ukraine and the Hetman had already joined him, did the Ukrainian Cossacks con­clude a formal agreement with the Swedish King. The impetus for this agreement was provided largely by the Zaporozhians who had recently acknowledged Mazepa as their overlord and joined the Swedes. Because their trust of all authority, particularly Mazepa’s, was limited, the Zaporozhians insisted on clarifying the purposes and the terms on which the war against the hated Russians would be waged in Ukraine. To mollify the Ukrainians, Charles XII con­cluded, in Budyshche on 8 April 1709, a simple, straightforward agreement with them.³⁹

The first point of the pact was the most important one: Charles XII promised to protect Ukraine with his armies and to not make peace with the Tsar until the Ukrainians were completely and per­manently freed from Moscow and restored to their former rights and privileges. The rest of the terms were of a technical nature: Swedish troops were to be quartered in a manner which would not harm the Ukrainian population and soldiers who mistreated the populace were to be severely punished. For their part, the Ukrain­ians were to encourage the peasants to desist from their attacks on Swedish units and to provide their allies with provisions. These, in sum, were the contents of the Ukrainian-Swedish pact.

Mazepa’s conspiratorial-diplomatic edifice was now complete. With Leszczynski he came to an understanding about the basic political question of the future: once Ukraine left the “high hand of the Tsar,” it would be accepted under the incomparably less stifling protection of the Polish King and it would become a full- fledged partner in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. With Charles XII, Mazepa settled the pressing problems of the present; he obtained guarantees that, in the conduct of the war and in the making of the peace, Ukrainian interests would be safeguarded. But, while the details of this carefully wrought conspiracy were unique, its general pattern was quite familiar. Mazepa and his fol­lowers were acting in a manner typical of noblemen everywhere in Europe who planned to rebel against monarchs whom they con­sidered to be overbearing and tyrannical.