Summary

Viewed broadly, it is evident that, in many ways, the activity of the Mazepists closely fitted the general pattern of the East European nobiliary uprisings that swept the region in the early eighteenth century.

If patriotism had a somewhat different meaning for the Maze- pists and their contemporaries than it has had in modern times, the same holds true for the idea of separatism. Granted, every Hetman from Khmelnytskyi to Mazepa, like every modern-day Ukrainian nationalist, either desired or actually attempted to withdraw Ukraine from the domination of Moscow. However, while the underlying motive for this separatism—the natural desire of a people to resist foreign domination and to preserve self-rule—was the same, the goals, perceptions and rationale of the Ukrainian Hetmans were perforce quite different from those of the Ukrainian nationalists.

The necessity to accept the overlordship of another monarch once that of the Tsar was rejected was obvious to Mazepa and Orlyk because Cossack Ukraine was clearly unable to withstand Russian domination on its own. Undoubtedly, following the precedent set by the Hadiach Treaty of 1658, both Mazepa and Orlyk would have preferred to accept the sovereignty of the Polish King and to have Ukraine enter into a trilateral union with Poland-Lithuania. It seemed to them that the decentralized, noble-dominated nature of the Commonwealth could best guarantee the starshyna’s rights and privileges and Ukrainian autonomy. But the defeat of Leszczyn- ski and the opposition of the Polish magnates to any arrangement that would limit their chances of regaining the Ukrainian lands which they had lost in 1648 foiled the plan. Most feasible but least popular among the Mazepists was the plan to establish a Ukrainian principality in Right-Bank Ukraine under Ottoman overlordship. But Orlyk’s anti-Muslim prejudices, Ottoman unwillingness to force the issue and the stubborn opposition of the Poles, repeatedly blocked the project.

It has often been argued that the major reason for the failure of the Mazepists was their lack of a broad base of support. This view­point begs the question. Mazepa’s revolt was a nobiliary uprising and therefore, by definition, not a mass movement. The interests of the Starshyna and the masses rarely coincided for any protracted period of time. There were, however, added reasons for the limited support which the Mazepists received from Ukrainian society as a whole. The Ukrainian masses and clergy, strongly influenced by the Tsar’s religiously-oriented propaganda, found it easier to iden­tify with the Tsar, who was Orthodox like them, rather than with Mazepa’s and Orlyk’s Catholic, Muslim or Lutheran allies. Since the Ukrainian Starshyna was a relatively new elite, its recent usur­pation of various social and economic prerogatives antagonized the general populace more than did the harbingers of absolutism which Peter I began to introduce in Ukraine. Peter Γs skillful use of the carrot-and-the-stick approach toward the Starshyna after Mazepa’s defection was especially effective in discouraging poten­tial support for the Hetman even within his own class. As a result, Mazepa could count on the backing of only his closest associates, the highest officials of the Hetmanate (heneralna Starshyna) and of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who, although they bore no love for Mazepa, were the only other element in Ukrainian society which felt directly threatened by Russian centralism.

The isolation of the rebels from major segments of Ukrainian society explains why Mazepa and Orlyk, like other East European leaders of nobiliary revolts, were so dependent on foreign support. It was thus the arrival of the Swedes in Ukraine that finally con­vinced Mazepa to reject the Tsar’s sovereignty. During the Bender period after Poltava (1709-1714), it appeared that the Mazepists would be able to recoup some of their losses with foreign help.

During and, even more so, after the Bender period, the condition of the proponents of Ukrainian separatism underwent a drastic change: the erstwhile leaders of the Ukrainian elite became—as did Rakoczi, Kantemir, Leszczynski and Patkul—political emigres. And it was as impoverished, insecure exiles that they continued their attempts to wrest Ukraine from Russia. Completely dependent on the patronage of such powers as Sweden, France and the Otto­man empire, they found in their support a source both of hope and of frustration. On the one hand, their patrons’ aid encouraged the emigres to continue their efforts, to believe in a chance of success; on the other hand, it also made them subservient to their patrons’ interests which quite often conflicted with their own.

After the death of Charles XII, the two principal powers most interested in Orlyk’s services were the Ottomans and the French.

The French involvement with the Ukrainian emigres and their cause was brief. Versailles also hoped to counter the Russian threat by erecting a barrier, one which would consist of Sweden, Poland- Lithuania and the Ottoman empire. The role that French strate­gists envisaged for the Mazepists and their “great Ukrainian revol­ution” was that of a fifth column or diversion which could be triggered the moment Russia struck against the barrier. It seemed for the French and their protege, Leszczynski, that Orlyk provided them, at little cost and no risk, with a tactical option. For Ver­sailles, this made him both interesting and expendable.

As for the Russian reaction to the activities of the Ukrainian emigres, this marked the first time that they had to deal with a political emigration, as opposed to individual defectors. The ex­perience came at an awkward time. Just when they were engaged in a series of crucial wars and were extremely conscious of their image in Europe, a group of Ukrainian dissidents roamed the continent, besmirching the image of the Tsar and urging foreign powers to exploit dissatisfaction with Russian rule in Ukraine.

In the final analysis, one might easily come to the conclusion that the Ukrainian separatists lost their one chance for success at Poltava and that Orlyk’s and his colleagues’ long years of struggle in exile represented an exercise in futility. But perhaps that would be judging too harshly. Compared to what later generations of Ukrainian emigres were able to accomplish, the Hetman’s achieve­ments were considerable. Most noteworthy was the high level of his political contacts. He and his son, Hryhor, were in close personal contact with Charles XII, Louis XIV, August II, StanisIaw Lesz- czynski, Sultan Mahmud I and Khans Devlet and Kaplan Girei, not to mention their most important ministers and advisors. Several of these rulers—Charles XII, the sultan and the Khans—committed themselves by treaty to the creation of a Ukrainian principality independent of Russian control. Moreover, Orlyk, unlike Rakoczi or Kantemir, did manage a second effort. The campaign of 1711 and the negotiations of 1712-1713 came close to giving the Hetman­in-exile control of Right-Bank Ukraine. Finally, Orlyk’s activity in the late 1720s and 1730s was worrisome enough to Russia’s rulers to contribute, at least indirectly, to the conciliatory attitude they adopted during the period in Ukraine. With Orlyk’s death in 1742, the first phase of the long history of Ukrainian separatism, one in which the Hetmans together with Ukraine’s new Starshyna- elite played the leading role, came to an end. But the precedents set by Mazepa and Orlyk would be far from forgotten when the issue of Ukrainian separatism arose again in the twentieth century.