Ivan Mazeppa

Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa (; ; ) was the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host and the Left-bank Ukraine in 1687–1708. The historical events of Mazepa's life have inspired many literary, artistic and musical works. He was famous as a patron of the arts.

Mazepa played an important role in the Battle of Poltava (1709), where after learning that Tsar Peter I intended to relieve him as acting hetman of Zaporozhian Host and to replace him with Alexander Menshikov, he defected from his army and sided with King Charles XII of Sweden. The political consequences and interpretation of this defection have resonated in the national histories both of Russia and of Ukraine.

The Russian Orthodox Church laid an anathema (excommunication) on Mazepa's name in 1708 and still refuses to revoke it. The anathema was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which considers it uncanonical and imposed with political motives as a means of political and ideological repression, with no religious, theological or canonical reasons.

Pro-independence and anti-Russian elements in Ukraine from the 18th century onwards were derogatorily referred to as ''Mazepintsy'' (). The alienation of Mazepa from Ukrainian historiography continued during the Soviet period, but post-1991 in independent Ukraine Mazepa's image has been gradually rehabilitated.

The Ukrainian corvette ''Hetman Ivan Mazepa'' of the Ukrainian Navy is named after him.

Early life

Family home

Mazepa was probably born on 30 March 1639, in Mazepyntsi, near Bila Tserkva, then part of the Kiev Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (today – Bila Tserkva urban hromada), into a noble Ruthenian-Lithuanian family. His mother was Maryna Mokievska (1624–1707) (known from 1674 to 1675 by her monastic name Maria Magdalena), and his father was Stefan Adam Mazepa (?-1666). Maryna Mokievska came from the family of a Cossack officer who fought alongside Bohdan Khmelnytsky. She gave birth to two children – Ivan and Oleksandra. Stefan Mazepa served as a Cossack Ataman of Bila Tserkva (1654).

In Polish service

In 1657, Stefan Mazepa became involved with Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, who pursued a pro-Polish policy. In 1659 Stefan Mazepa traveled to Warsaw to attend the Sejm and placed his son Ivan in service at the royal court of John II Casimir Vasa. Before that Ivan Mazepa probably studied at the Kiev Academy from the age of 10 and graduated with a degree in rhetoric. According to Samiilo Velychko, Ivan was to complete his philosophy course at the Jesuit college in Warsaw.

According to late tradition, King John Casimir sent Ivan Mazepa to study "gunnery" in Deventer (Dutch Republic) in 1656–1659, during which time he traveled across Western Europe. From 1659 the Polish king was sending him on numerous diplomatic missions to Ukraine. His service at the Polish royal court earned him a reputation as an alleged catholicized "Lyakh" – later the Russian Imperial government would effectively use this slur to discredit Mazepa.

During one of his missions, Mazepa met Jan Chryzostom Pasek, whom he took to be a supporter of the anti-royal confederation. He led to Pasek's arrest and had him brought before the king, who was staying in Grodno at the time. According to Pasek's account, he managed to prove his innocence, the king rewarded him for the harm he suffered and Mazepa lost the royal trust. Further on in his memoirs, Pasek recounts the story of under what circumstances Mazepa left Poland in 1663. According to Pasek, Mazepa had an affair with Mrs. Falbowska, wife of his neighbour in Volhynia. When the neighbour discovered the affair, he tied Mazepa naked to a horse, head to tail, and fastened the horse. The horse carried Mazepa to his household, but he was so badly wounded that his own subjects were unable to recognize him. Pasek's memoirs were written in 1690-1695, when Mazepa was already a Cossack hetman; it is possible that Pasek, who had a personal grudge against Mazepa, colored the story. However, this anecdote also appears in the anonymous ''Memoirs to the Reign of Augustus II'' and in the memoirs of Marquis de Bonnac. The story was later recounted by Voltaire in his ''Histoire de Charles XII'' and became a recurring motif in the literary works of such writers as Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin or Juliusz Słowacki, as well as in the paintings of such painters as Horace Vernet, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Chassériau, Théodore Géricault and others.'''' The tale was probably widespread by then and referred to Mazepa's reputation as a womanizer.

Despite Pasek's accounts, Mazepa still remained in royal service. In February 1663 he was sent to the Cossack Hetman Pavel Tetera, to whom he brought the Hetman's mace, presented to Tetera by . Mazepa then took part in a royal campaign against Russia in left-bank Ukraine in years 1663-1664. Mazepa was certainly still at the royal court in 1665, probably until the abdication of John II Casimir in 1668.

Under Hetman Doroshenko

After the death of his father (ca. 1665), he inherited the title of the Chernihiv cupbearer. From 1669 to 1673 Mazepa served under Petro Doroshenko (Hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine from 1665 to 1672) as a squadron commander in the Hetman Guard, particularly during Doroshenko's 1672 campaign in Halychyna