The year 1706 was not very successful for Russia. In September, after the defeat of the Saxon army, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony Augustus II abdicated the Polish throne in favor of Stanislav Leszczynski, who was a protégé of the Swedes, breaking the alliance with Russia. Thus, Peter no longer had any allies in the Northern War. Mazepa hoped to submit to the rule of the new Polish monarch, who, as he hoped, would provide Little Russia with sufficient independence. On September 16, 1707, Leshchinsky sent a letter to the hetman in which he asked him to “begin a deliberate business” when the Swedish army approached the borders of Ukraine.

The hetman promised to provide the Swedes with winter quarters and provisions, and also to win over the Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks and the Kalmyk Khan Ayuka to the side of the Swedish king.

Having received an invitation from Peter in the fall of 1708 to join the Russian troops near Starodub, the hetman was in no hurry to go there, citing his illnesses and unrest associated with the advance of the Swedes to the south. When at the end of October Peter’s closest associate, Prince Alexander Menshikov, decided to visit the “sick man,” he, taking with him the hetman’s treasury and one and a half thousand Cossacks, fled to the camp of Charles XII, located in Gorki, southeast of Novgorod-Seversky. Later, the Swedes were joined by part of the Zaporozhye army, led by the Koshe chieftain Konstantin Gordienko. In total, about 10,000 Cossacks gathered in the Swedish camp.

Peter's revenge for betrayal was terrible. On May 11, 1709, Russian troops took the Sich and destroyed it to the ground. Many were killed and executed. Several people were hanged on rafts, and the rafts were floated along the Dnieper as a warning to other potential traitors.

The statesman and political figure of Ukraine Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa (Mazepa Koledinsky) was born in the village of Kamentsy (later the village of Mazepintsy) near Bila Tserkva (Rzeczpospolita), in a family of Ukrainian gentry. His exact year of birth is unknown (1629, 1633, 1639, 1644). As a child, Ivan Mazepa mastered horseback riding and saber control, studied European sciences, and over time, at the insistence of his mother, went to study at the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium, which he transformed into an academy during the years of his hetmanship. Later he studied at the Jesuit College in Warsaw.

Later, his father sent Ivan Mazepa to the court of the Polish king John II Casimir, where he was one of the “rest” nobles. Then, as a talented nobleman, he was sent to Western Europe to complete his education. Holland, France, Germany, Italy expanded the young man’s worldview. He thoroughly studied the basics of fortification, cannon making and other sciences. Ivan Mazepa was a very enlightened person for his time: in addition to Ukrainian, he spoke Russian, Polish, Latin, German and Italian, knew Dutch, French, Tatar, was well versed in philosophy and history, music and poetry, and wrote poetry.

In 1665, after the death of his father Adam-Stepan Mazepa, Ivan Mazepa received the position of Chernigov commander. This position was held by his father from 1662 until his death. In 1669, Ivan Mazepa entered the service of the hetman of right-bank Ukraine Petro Doroshenko and rose to the rank of clerk general. In 1674, it passed to the hetman of the left bank of Ukraine, Ivan Samoilovich.

In 1682 - 1688 he was general captain and carried out important diplomatic assignments.

After the unsuccessful Crimean campaign of 1687, Hetman Samoilovich was removed from his post as hetman and exiled to Siberia. With the support of Princess Sophia's favorite, boyar Vasily Golitsyn, on August 4 (July 25, old style), 1687, Ivan Mazepa was elected hetman of the left bank of Ukraine.

Officially, his title was called “hetman of the Zaporozhye army of both sides of the Dnieper.” Ivan Mazepa was married to a rich Polish widow and was himself one of the largest landowners in Ukraine.

For a long time, Ivan Mazepa was one of his closest associates and did a lot for the economic rise of Left Bank Ukraine. For his numerous services to Russia, Mazepa (second in the empire) was awarded the highest Russian award - the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.

Ivan Mazepa took part in the 1705 campaign against King Charles XII of Sweden in support of King Augustus II of Poland, then an ally of Peter I. In 1706, Mazepa undertook the fortification of the Pechersk fortress in Kyiv. In 1707, wanting to tear Ukraine away from Russia, he entered into secret negotiations with Charles XII and the new Polish king Stanislav Leszczynski. In 1708, Mazepa entered into an agreement with King Stanislav Leszczynski, promising Poland Kyiv, Chernigov and Smolensk; For himself, he wanted to receive the title of prince and rights to Vitebsk and Polotsk. In October 1708, in Novgorod-Seversky, Mazepa openly joined Russia’s enemy in the Northern War, the Swedish king Charles XII. Later, about 3 thousand more Zaporozhye Cossacks went over to Mazepa’s side. In response, Peter I liquidated Mazepa's headquarters, deprived him of all his titles and elected a new hetman, and on November 12, 1708, the Metropolitan of Kiev declared Mazepa an ecclesiastical anathema. In the following months, many of Mazepa's followers defected to the Russians. Thus, by the time

At the end of the summer of 1709, in the small village of Varnitsa near Bendery, the former hetman of Ukraine Ivan Mazepa (Koledinsky) was dying in terrible agony. He constantly lost his mind from unbearable, hellish pain stemming from dozens of incurable diseases. And, regaining consciousness, after a long, absurd muttering, he whined heart-rendingly: “Otroot mani - torn off!” (“I’m poisoned, I’m poisoned!”)…

But since poisoning an Orthodox Christian even before a grave death was always considered an unforgivable sin, the elders and servants decided to act according to the old custom - to drill a hole in the ceiling of a peasant hut. In order, therefore, to make it easier for the sinful soul of a dying person to part with his mortal body.

How can one not remember the old belief: the more a person sins during life, the more painful the death awaits him. Indeed, in the foreseeable past and present of the then Little Russia, it was difficult to find a more insidious, evil and vindictive person than Mazepa. He was an example of a classic and complete villain for all times and for all peoples. Even though the general morals of the Little Russian politicians of that time did not suffer from special gentry (nobility). This is understandable: people living surrounded by stronger and more powerful neighbors were constantly forced to solve a painful but inevitable dilemma - who would be more profitable to “follow”. Mazepa achieved unprecedented success in solving such problems.

By the hour of his death, he had managed to commit a dozen major betrayals and an immeasurable number of minor atrocities.

“In the moral rules of Ivan Stepanovich,” writes historian N.I. Kostomarov, whom one would never suspect of Russophileism, had the trait ingrained from his youth that, noticing the decline of the strength on which he had previously relied, he did not bother with any sensations or impulses, so as not to contribute to the harm of the declining strength that was previously beneficial for him. Betrayal of his benefactors had already been demonstrated more than once in his life.

So he betrayed Poland, going over to her sworn enemy Doroshenko; So he left Doroshenko as soon as he saw that his power was wavering; So, and even more shamelessly, he did with Samoilovich, who warmed him up and raised him to the height of the senior rank. He now did the same with his greatest benefactor (Peter I. - M.Z)”, before whom he had recently flattered and humiliated himself... Hetman Mazepa, as a historical figure, was not represented by any national idea. He was an egoist in the full sense of the word. A Pole by upbringing and methods of life, he moved to Little Russia and there made a career for himself, forging the Moscow authorities and not stopping at any immoral paths.”

“He lied to everyone, deceived everyone - the Poles, the Little Russians, the Tsar, and Charles, he was ready to do evil to everyone as soon as the opportunity presented itself to him to benefit himself.”

The historian Bantysh-Kamensky characterizes Mazepa this way: “He had the gift of words and the art of persuasion. But with the cunning and caution of Vygovsky, he combined in himself the malice, vindictiveness and covetousness of Bryukhovetsky, and surpassed Doroshenko in love of fame; but all of them are in ingratitude."

As always, A.S. exhaustively accurately defined the essence of Mazepa. Pushkin: “Some writers wanted to make him a hero of freedom, a new Bogdan Khmelnitsky. History presents him as an ambitious man, inveterate in treachery and atrocities, a slanderer of Samoilovich, his benefactor, a destroyer of the father of his unfortunate mistress, a traitor to Peter before his victory, a traitor to Charles after his defeat: his memory, anathematized by the church, cannot escape the curse of mankind.”

And in “Poltava” he continued: “That he does not know what is sacred, / That he does not remember goodness, / That he does not love anything, / That he is ready to shed blood like water, / That he despises freedom, / That there is no homeland for him "

Finally, an extremely accurate assessment of the villain belongs to the Ukrainian people themselves.

The expression “Damn Mazepa!” for centuries it referred not only to a bad person, but to any evil in general. (In Ukraine and Belarus, Mazepa is a slob, a brute, an evil boor - outdated.)

A very remarkable detail. More than a dozen portraits of this historical figure and even several artistic canvases with his image have reached us. Surprisingly, however, there is no elementary similarity among them! It seems that this man had many mutually exclusive faces. And he had at least five birthdays - from 1629 to 1644 (it’s such a treat for the hetman’s political fans to celebrate his “round” anniversaries!). However, Mazepa has... three dates of death. It's so slippery. Everything about him was not like people...

I deliberately omit Mazepa’s childhood, adolescence and youth. For the devil himself will break his leg in that segment of his flawed biography. Although I will quote the following excerpt solely out of respect for the authority of the authors: “The one who held this post at that time was a Polish nobleman named Mazepa, born in the Podolsk palatinate; he was the page of Jan Casimir and at his court acquired a certain European luster. In his youth, he had an affair with the wife of a Polish nobleman, and the husband of his beloved, having learned about this, ordered Mazepa to be tied naked to a wild horse and set free.

The horse was from Ukraine and ran away there, dragging with it Mazepa, half dead from fatigue and hunger. He was sheltered by local peasants; he lived among them for a long time and distinguished himself in several raids against the Tatars. Thanks to the superiority of his intelligence and education, he enjoyed great honor among the Cossacks, his fame grew more and more, so that the tsar was forced to declare him Ukrainian hetman.” This is a quote from Byron, given in French, taken from Voltaire.

True, it’s hard not to marvel at how two outstanding European creators fell for a simple idea. Because this could not really happen by definition. And involuntarily you still think: it’s not in vain that such outstanding Europeans began to wax poetic about the “Khokhlatsky Judas” so long ago. They even claimed that “the king was forced.” That is, they put the upstart nobleman and the greatest monarch in the history of mankind on equal terms.

All Mazepa’s contemporaries unanimously claim that he was a “sorcerer.” This is probably why they thought so because it was difficult for them to explain in any other way the incredible ability of this talented rogue to impress people and inspire them to trust him.

Meanwhile, it was precisely such insidious abilities (he was a master of hypnosis!) that elevated Mazepa to the pinnacle of power

When Pavlo Teterya was the hetman of Right Bank Ukraine, Mazepa entered his service. Hetmans at that time changed like the gloves of a capricious lady. And Teterya was replaced by Petro Doroshenko. Naturally “charmed” by the young nobleman, he appoints him general clerk - personal secretary and head of his chancellery. At the same time, Hetman Doroshenko played a complex, triple game. Remaining a subject of the Polish king, he sent his secretary to the hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine Ivan Samoilovich with assurances that he wanted to serve the Russian Tsar.

But a few months later he sent the same Mazepa to the Turkish Sultan to ask for help from the eternal enemy of the Orthodox. And as a gift to the Turks he presented “yasyk” - fifteen slaves from the Cossacks captured on the left side of the Dnieper. Along the way, Mazepa and the “gifts” were captured by the Zaporozhye Cossacks, led by Koshevo ataman Ivan Sirko. The same one who wrote with his Cossacks the famous letter to the Turkish Sultan Mohammed IV: “You are a pig’s face, a mare’s ass, a biting dog, an unbaptized forehead, motherfucker... . You will not herd Christian pigs either. Now it’s over, because we don’t know the date, we don’t know the calendar, but the day is the same as yours, so kiss us on the ass!”

And now I’m asking myself a question that no one will ever be able to answer. Well, why didn’t Ataman Sirko, devoted to Samoilovich (and therefore to the Russian Tsar!), this frantic defender of the Orthodox, the sworn enemy of the Tatars and Turks, cut off Mazepa’s head on the spot because he, the bastard, was taking fifteen Russian souls into slavery? After all, Ivan Dmitrievich always mercilessly exterminated the busurman’s accomplices. And then he took and sent the “vile enemy” to Hetman Samoilovich. It was only Providence that intended to make sure how low and vile Mazepa’s soul was still capable of falling.

Here, on the Left Bank, something else is happening, almost incredible, in any case, difficult to explain - it is Mazepa, as his confidant, that Samoilovich sends to Moscow for negotiations. There, his broken envoy meets... Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself! And then he travels to the Russian capital many more times, now strengthening his own authority. Omitting the countless tactical and strategic moves of Mazepa, between which he successfully “merged” Samoilovich and his entire family, where he was almost a relative, we only note that on July 25, 1687, the cunning courtier received, by bribing the Russian bureaucratic elite, “kleinota” (symbols) hetman's power - a mace and a horsetail.

During the reign of Mazepa, the enslavement of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (as the peasants were then called) took on a particularly wide scale.

And the hetman became the largest serf owner on both sides of the Dnieper. In Ukraine (the Hetmanate at that time), he took control of about 20 thousand households. In Russia - many more than 5 thousand. In total, Mazepa had over 100 thousand serf souls. Not a single hetman before or after him could boast of such fabulous wealth.

And at this time, very serious tectonic shifts of the empire were taking place in Russia, as a result of which Peter I ascended the throne. You will laugh, but Mazepa almost immediately ingratiated himself into incredible trust in the young Tsar. Even now it’s hard to believe, but in 1700 Mazepa received the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called - the highest Russian award for No. 2! (Prince Ivan Golovin was the first to be awarded). Apparently, the Russian Tsar really liked the cunning hetman, although the age difference separating them was 33 years.

And it is not by chance that Mazepa wrote to Peter: “Our people are stupid and fickle. Let the great sovereign not give too much faith to the Little Russian people, let him deign, without delay, to send a good army of soldiers to Ukraine in order to keep the Little Russian people in obedience and loyal citizenship.”

This, by the way, is about the delight of some historians about the longest Hetman rule of Mazepa - twenty-one years - and about his allegedly passionate desire for the independence of Ukraine at any cost. Not to mention the so-called Kolomatsky Articles, signed personally by the hetman upon his assumption of office. It states in black and white that Ukraine is prohibited from any foreign policy relations. It was forbidden for the hetman and elders to be appointed without the consent of the tsar. But they all received Russian nobility and the inviolability of estates.

And, excuse me, where is the “struggle for the independence of Ukraine”? Yes, for two decades Mazepa strictly carried out the will of Peter I. And he did the right thing. Only he did this solely for his own benefit. There’s not even a hint of “independence” here. It smelled later, when the hetman, flawed in all moral respects, for some reason believed that the invincible Swedish army would defeat the troops of the nascent Russian Empire. Then, for the first time, Mazepa’s bestial, wolfish instinct failed him badly. We know how long the rope can twist... But before we remind you of the final fall of the hetman as a politician, let us dwell on his ugliest human meanness...

The first song of Pushkin’s “Poltava,” who hasn’t forgotten, begins like this: “Rich and glorious is Kochubey.”

And further: “But Kochubey is rich and proud / Not with long-maned horses, / Not with gold, a tribute from the Crimean hordes, / Not with family farms, / Old Kochubey is proud of his beautiful daughter.” For many years, almost the same age (Mazepa is one year older than Kochubey), they We were friends - water is inseparable. And they even became related: the hetman’s nephew, Obidovsky, married Kochubey’s eldest daughter, Anna, and the youngest Kochubeevna, Matryona, Mazepa became his godfather. In Ukraine, nepotism has long been revered as a spiritual relationship. Godparents look after the godchildren until they get back on their feet, and then the godchildren must take care of the godparents as if they were their own. In 1702, Mazepa buried his wife and became a widower for two years. At that time he was well over sixty, and Matryona Kochubey was sixteen (in “Poltava” she is Maria). The difference, according to the most conservative estimates, is half a century. And the old man decided to marry the young goddaughter, although he had previously seduced her mother. The “sorcerer” used all the techniques of his seduction: “My little heart,” “my heartfelt kohana,” “I kiss all the penises of your little white body,” “remember your words, given to me under an oath, at the hour when you left my chambers." “With great heartfelt anguish I am waiting for news from Your Grace, and in what matter, you yourself know very well.” From Mazepa’s letters it is clear that Matryona, who responded to his feelings, is angry that the hetman sent her home, that her parents scold her. Mazepa is indignant and calls her mother a “katuvka” - an executioner, and advises her to go to a monastery as a last resort. Naturally, the parents resolutely opposed the possible marriage. The official reason for the refusal was the church ban on marriages between godfather and goddaughter. However, the resourceful Mazepa would not have sent matchmakers if he had not expected that the church authorities, superbly lured by him, would lift the ban for him. Most likely, the Kochubeys were well aware of the kind of “halepa” (attack) the treacherous and evil groom could lead their entire family into. Yes, over time, Matryona got rid of her misconceptions:

“I see that Your Grace has completely changed with your former love for me. As you know, your will, do what you want! You will regret it later." And Mazepa fulfilled his threats in full.

According to the direct (and this has been established for sure!) slander of Mazepa, Kochubey and Colonel Zakhar Iskra, the tsar’s subjects were sentenced to death and handed over to the hetman for an exemplary execution. Before his execution, Mazepa ordered Kochubey to be brutally tortured again so that he would reveal where his money and valuable property were hidden. Kochubey was burned with a hot iron all night before his execution, and he told everything.

This “blood money” entered the hetman’s treasury. On July 14, 1708, the heads of innocent sufferers were cut off. The headless bodies of Kochubey and Iskra were handed over to relatives and buried in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The inscription was carved on the coffin stone: “Since death commanded us to remain silent, / This stone should tell people about us: / For loyalty to the Monarch and our devotion / We drank the cup of suffering and death.”

... And a couple of months after this execution, Mazepa betrayed Peter I

From the first steps of the Swedish troops on Ukrainian soil, the population offered them strong resistance. It was not easy for Mazepa to justify himself to Karl for the “unreasonableness of his people.” They both realized that they were mistaken - both in each other and in strategic calculations - each. However, Mazepa’s deceit, meanness and extreme lowliness had not yet been completely exhausted. He sent Colonel Apostol to the Tsar with a proposal, no more or less, to betray the Swedish king and his generals into the hands of Peter!

In return, he boorishly asked for even more: complete forgiveness and the return of his former hetman dignity. The proposal was more than extraordinary. After consulting with the ministers, the king gave his consent. For the bleziru. He understood perfectly well: Mazepa was bluffing to death. He did not have the strength to capture Karl. Colonel Apostol and many of his comrades joined the ranks of the army of Peter I.

As you know, after the historical Battle of Poltava, Mazepa fled with Charles and the remnants of his army. The Tsar really wanted to get the hetman and offered the Turks a lot of money for his extradition. But Mazepa paid three times more and thus paid off.

Then the angry Pyotr Alekseevich ordered the production of a special order “to commemorate the hetman’s betrayal.” The outlandish “reward” was a circle weighing 5 kg, made of silver. The circle depicted Judas Iscariot hanging himself from an aspen tree. Below is a pile of 30 pieces of silver. The inscription read: “The pernicious son Judas is cursed if he chokes on the love of money.” The church anathematized Mazepa's name. And again from Pushkin’s “Poltava”: “Mazepa has been forgotten for a long time; / Only in the triumphant shrine / Once a year anathema to this day, / The cathedral thunders about him with thunder.”

For several centuries, the name of the despicable traitor was even considered indecent to mention in serious works

Only a few Ukrainian Russophobes, such as A. Ogloblin, tried to whitewash the “damned dog” (the expression of Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko). This, if I may say so, historian became the burgomaster of Kyiv during the period of fascist occupation. His reign was marked by mass executions at Babi Yar. After the war, Ogloblin fled to the United States. The fascist burgomaster wrote his main book, the monograph “Hetman Ivan Mazepa and His Reign,” on the 250th anniversary of the traitor’s death (how, however, all vile people tenaciously stick to each other!) In his opinion, the goals of the traitor hetman were noble, the plans bold. Just in case: “He wanted to restore the powerful autocratic hetman’s power and build a European-type power, while preserving the Cossack system.” I just wonder who would have allowed him to do this in those days?

And yet, in reality, on a statewide, so to speak, scale, the memory of the “Khokhlatsky Judas” was reanimated by another Judas - first the main ideologist of Leninism-communism in Ukraine, and then the first cooperator of market lawlessness, President Leonid Kravchuk

The nickname, by the way, was taken from his personal youthful poetic exercises: “I am Judas. Iscariot!

...I will never forget the summer of 1991. Then the largest part of the Soviet army came under the jurisdiction of Ukraine: 14 motorized rifle, 4 tank, 3 artillery divisions and 8 artillery brigades, 4 special forces brigades, 2 airborne brigades, 9 air defense brigades, 7 combat helicopter regiments, three air armies (about 1100 combat aircraft) and a separate air defense army. The general centrifugal euphoric force of the collapse of everything and everyone also captured me, the then Soviet colonel. I’m a sinner, sporadic thoughts flashed through my fevered brain, why shouldn’t I, a Ukrainian, go serve in Ukraine?

I thank God that I did not succumb to a spontaneous feeling.

But the philosophizing of the director of the Center for Ukrainian Studies of the Kyiv National University named after T.G. Shevchenko, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladimir Sergiychuk. In Soviet times, this learned man modestly and quietly engaged in agriculture. And in Nezalezhnaya he became one of the first researchers of the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the exploits of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): “Yes, Mazepa betrayed the Russian Tsar, but he did it in the name of the Ukrainian people, in the name of Ukraine.

The condition that Charles XII would be the protector of our country, that is, would take Ukraine under his guardianship, was quite beneficial for Ukraine at that time. Mazepa was the real father of the Ukrainian nation! And nothing will help those downtrodden people who don’t want to be interested in their own history.”

Kiev political scientist Dmitry Vydrin became an even more “progressive” ideologist in this direction: “Our country was born from the totality of thousands of betrayals. We betrayed everything! We took the same oath and kissed the same banner. Then they betrayed this oath and banner and began to kiss another banner. Almost all of our leaders are former communists who swore by one ideal, and then cursed the ideals to which they swore. From all this cumulative action, where there were thousands of small, large and medium-sized betrayals, this country was actually born.

This is how Ukrainian politics, our worldview and morality were formed. Betrayal is the foundation on which we stand, on which we have built our biographies, careers, destinies and everything else.”

And we are still surprised: how can the brothers and sisters of Ukraine put up with the revelry of openly fascist Benderists; how the blood in their veins does not run cold from the Odessa Katyn; why do many Ukrainian mothers, instead of unitedly and sacrificially speaking out against the fratricidal war, complain to the president: our sons do not have body armor, they have little ammunition and they are poorly fed. Yes, this is all a direct consequence of the current “national Ukrainian idea: we, Ukrainians, are traitors, and this is our strength!”

It’s time for the long-decayed bones of Pan Mazepa to start dancing: “she ne vmerla” Ukraine in his understanding

She - not all of her, of course, but a significant part of her - honors and prays for him, despite all his outrageous atrocities. Truly, the Mazepia plague is now raging in Ukraine.

Woe to the people whose national heroes include such flawed individuals as Mazepa, Petlyura, Bandera, Shukhevych, etc. Their examples are good for growing maidanut gopniks.

When the “glorious deeds” of the bastard Mazepa are given to a fighter as a role model, the fighter will act accordingly. Don't they understand this? But they really don’t understand.

...After the release of the film “Prayer for Hetman Mazepa” by the famous film director Yu. Ilyenko, I met with my old friend, the late artist Bogdan Stupka, who played the title role. Our long-standing relationship (we knew each other since 1970) allowed for a serious degree of mutual frankness. And I, without further ado, asked: “Bodya, why did you take on Mazepa?” “Well, you’re a smart person and you should understand that there are no forbidden roles for an actor. The meaner the hero, the more interesting it is to play him.”

“I agree with you if this is Richard S. He is always outside the ideological framework. But in this case, you understood perfectly well that the ardent nationalist Ilyenko used both you and your name to spoil Russia with his movie nightmare. Okay, let's leave out the fact that Yura (we also knew each other for a long time) is the author of the script, director, cameraman, actor, and his son played young Mazepa. But there are also rivers of blood, heads are chopped off like cabbage, and Kochubey’s wife, Lyubov Fedorovna, masturbates with her husband’s severed head. Peter I rapes his soldiers. Didn't that bother you? And this episode: Peter I stands over Mazepa’s grave, the hetman’s hand appears from under the ground and grabs the Tsar by the throat - didn’t it also?

Bogdan Silvestrovich was silent for a long time and painfully. Then he said: “As they say: don’t rub salt in my wound. Soon I will play Taras Bulba at Bortko’s. So I’m rehabilitating myself in front of people.” A great, world-class actor, he, of course, understood that Yuri Gerasimovich simply “used” him as an old friend. And his role is a catastrophic failure. It couldn't have been any other way. Just like the film itself turned out to be a disastrous failure. It was sent to the Berlin Film Festival. However, there the film was shown only in the category of films... for people with non-traditional sexual orientation!

Then we continued talking about Mazepa. And we came to a common conclusion.

If the criminal Koledinsky had not been pulled by the ears by the current upstart Ukrainian politicians into the current ideology, then we would not remember him more often than other hetmans

And so his personality is unnecessarily demonized. Meanwhile, he was an elementary, albeit very evil, scoundrel. It’s a shame that the current Ukrainian authorities like him so much.

...You can talk, write and broadcast as much as you like about what an outstanding statesman Mazepa was, who left our mortal world 305 years ago. It’s enough to go to Ukrainian Wikipedia and see there a countless list of merits of the glorious patriot of “independent Ukraine” Ivan Stepanovich: he is a polyglot, and a philanthropist, and a temple builder, and a poet, and a lover, and a “sorcerer”, and...But then you remember Pushkin: “However, what a disgusting object! Not a single kind, supportive feeling! Not a single consoling feature! Temptation, enmity, betrayal, deceit, cowardice, ferocity.” And everything falls into place.

T.G. Yakovleva

Yakovleva Tatyana Gennadievna- Candidate of Historical Sciences,
Researcher at the Department of History of Slavic and Balkan Countries
Faculty of History, St. Petersburg State University.

The period of Ukrainian history, known as the “Hetmanate,” despite the past two and a half centuries, still remains one of the most politicized. Until now, almost all events and activities of historical figures of that era are the subject of ideological speculation and endless debate. Among them, the most painful topic (along with the Pereyaslav Treaty of 1654) is the activities of Ivan Mazepa.

Everyone has heard about Mazepa - even those who are very far from the problems of the Hetmanate. At the same time, in Russia they know about him mainly from the poem by A.S. Pushkin (I’m afraid even many historians), and in Ukraine - on hryvnia bills. “Traitor” or “hero” - colors other than black and white are usually not used for Mazepa, and details are very rarely delved into. The situation was described very vividly in his memoirs by the general, head of the Hetmanate since April 1918, P. Skoropadsky:

“A portrait of Mazepa hung between the hetmans, so hateful to every Russian; in the house they did not bow to him, as the Ukrainians do now, seeing in him a symbol of Ukrainian independence, but silently treated him with sympathy, and they were only indignant that ... in Kyiv at the same time in Sofia "In the cathedral, Mazepa is anathematized, and in the St. Michael's Monastery, prayers are offered for him, as the creator of the temple, for the reassurance of his soul." .

In fact, this state of affairs is extremely dangerous, in particular for modern Russian-Ukrainian relations. We cannot avoid sensitive topics, we cannot turn a blind eye to existing disagreements and problems. By rewriting history in a “rosy” manner that pleases someone, we are deceiving ourselves and causing harm to future generations.

The article offered to the reader does not at all pretend to be the ultimate truth. This is an attempt to restore the course of events and objectively analyze documents and materials, facts from different points of view.

It seems to us that one of the main principles when studying the period of Mazepa’s Hetmanate is to consider events taking into account the entire previous history of the Hetmanate. It is impossible to understand Mazepa’s treaty with the Swedes without knowledge of the treaties of B. Khmelnitsky or I. Vygovsky, just as it is impossible to understand Petrik’s uprising - without referring to the uprisings of Barabash, Bryukhovetsky, etc. Mazepa’s hetmanship was, in fact, the last (or more precisely, the penultimate) an act of the history of the Hetmanate, the origins and essence of which date back to the times of the Khmelnytsky region, the period of the hetmanship of B. Khmelnytsky in 1648-1657.

There are very few serious scientific works devoted to Mazepa. The most detailed so far is the monograph by N.M. Kostomarov "Mazepa" and information about him in the "History of Russia" S.M. Solovyova. Individual subjects of Mazepa's hetmanship were examined in detail in the works of N. Andrusyak, A. Ogloblin and others. Of the latest biographies, it should be noted that they were balanced and interestingly written by O. Subtelny and V. Smoliy. Along with this, there is a large number of works by “jingo-patriots”, both on one side and on the other, in which the historical and source study approach is replaced by an ideological one.

In general, Mazepa’s biography is thoroughly saturated with persistent cliches, the main one of which, for Russian historiography, is “Mazepa the traitor.” Of course, treason is a terrible sin, but when it comes to a politician, a leader of a state, everything is not at all so simple and unambiguous. Some historians call I. Vygovsky, Yu. Khmelnytsky (son of B. Khmelnytsky) and other hetmans “traitors”, completely disregarding the circumstances or reasons that pushed them to take one step or another. By the way, the Andrusovo Treaty (1667) or the Eternal Peace (1686), concluded by Russia with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, can also be called “treason” or “betrayal” in relation to Ukraine and a clear violation of all treaty articles starting with the Pereyaslav Treaty of 1654 .

In this article, we will dwell on those moments that we consider the starting points of the eventful twenty-year period of Mazepa’s hetmanship.

* * *

Ivan Mazepa was born on March 20, 1639 in the family of a Ukrainian nobleman. First he studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium, and then was sent to the court of the Polish king, where he continued his education. It is this circumstance that allows many historians to accuse Mazepa of pro-Polish sympathies or consider him a petty courtier, a “Polye”. In fact, being at court allowed the future hetman to receive an excellent education: he studied in Holland, Italy, Germany and France, and was fluent in Russian, Polish, Tatar, and Latin (according to a contemporary, he could compete with the Jesuits in it). He also knew Italian and German, and according to some sources, French. Mazepa had an excellent personal library with a huge number of Latin publications, his favorite book was “The Prince” by N. Machiavelli, at home he had a magnificent collection of weapons, portraits of many European sovereigns hung on the walls, his letters, especially “love” ones, were distinguished by their excellent style, he also wrote poems and thoughts.

Accusing Mazepa of “pro-Polish” sympathies, many historians forget that both B. Khmelnitsky and I. Vygovsky had a “Polish” education. They, too, at the beginning of their careers served the Polish king, while Bogdan Khmelnitsky was even on very friendly relations with Vladislav IV. One should not confuse passion for “Polish” or, more precisely, for Western culture, for Polish gentry liberties (or for gentry democracy) with a “pro-Polish” political course, which, for example, was adhered to by P. Teterya, hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine (1663-1665). ). By the way, in a conversation with Jean Baluz, the French envoy in Moscow, in 1704, Mazepa, with the brilliant insight of a politician, said about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that it, like Ancient Rome, was heading towards its destruction.

Mazepa has a lot in common with his predecessor Vygovsky. Ordinary Cossacks also did not like him, sometimes calling him a “Polye,” and many historians stubbornly attributed to him “pro-Polish” sympathies, completely forgetting that it was I. Vygovsky who was the closest confidant of B. Khmelnytsky, with whom they smashed the Poles and created their Hetmanate .

Thus, we can agree with the Ukrainian historian of the early 20th century. A. Efimenko, who very accurately noted that Mazepa was a man of “Polish culture”, forced to adapt to the rough, low-lying environment of the Left Bank Cossacks. It was in this that she saw the reasons for some of the duality of the hetman’s nature.

Usually, “pro-Polish” accusations are followed by accusations against Mazepa of lust, which is shameful at his age. Everyone knows the love story of the elderly hetman for the young Motrona Kochubeevna. However, Mazepa’s love letters to this girl deserve admiration: “My heart, my color is pink!”, “my heartfelt love”, “you yourself know how heartily, passionately I love your grace” etc. We do not undertake to judge Mazepa, but let us recall that the reason for the uprising of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (he was then nearly sixty) was his dispute with D. Chaplinsky over the young 16-year-old beauty Elena, whom he later made his wife in spite of censure of the clergy.

In 1663, Mazepa was sent to the hetman of Right Bank Ukraine (1663-1665) P. Teter, who had just been elected hetman, with kleinods (insignia of hetman insignia) from the king. He was not greeted very kindly, but he never returned to Poland, remained on the Right Bank, then served the hetman of Ukraine P. Doroshenko (1665-1676) - he was a participant in a number of embassies. In 1674, during a trip to Crimea, he was captured by the Cossacks, and the Koshevoy of the Zaporozhye Sich I. Sirko sent him to Hetman Samoilovich. There he taught the hetman's children and traveled as ambassador to Moscow, after which he received the rank of captain general.

A number of historians consider Mazepa one of the authors of the denunciation of Samoilovich, as a result of which he was removed from the hetmanship. In fact, Samoilovich most likely became a victim of Moscow intrigues: the failure of the Crimean campaign of Princess Sophia’s favorite V.V. was blamed on him. Golitsina. Some believe that Samoilovich was removed by the foreman who, like Moscow, did not like his desire to make the hetmanship hereditary. One way or another, but completely unexpectedly for many and bypassing stronger contenders, including the clerk general V. Kochubey - a fact very important for understanding further events - Mazepa was elected hetman at the Kalamak Rada on July 25, 1687. Of course, the decisive role in this belonged to V.V. Golitsin, who became Mazepa's patron.

It seems completely unimportant to us whether Mazepa gave or did not give a “bribe” to Golitsyn. It is doubtful that the all-powerful and richest favorite could be seduced by 10 thousand ducats. Most likely, this is just a late legend that appeared when the hetman was accused of all mortal sins. Another thing is much more important: Mazepa managed to please Golitsyn so much that he received a mace from his hands. They met during Mazepa’s first visit to Moscow, and probably became close during the Crimean campaign. Mazepa’s ability to “charm” people (and not only women) was noted by many of his contemporaries, even his enemies. Probably, the “cultural” closeness of the hetman and the favorite played an important role: both were admirers of the West and exceptionally educated people of their era. For Golitsyn, Mazepa, who spoke fluent Latin, may have become a ray of light in the dark expanse of the Cossack environment that was alien to him, in addition, he wanted to have a person in the place of hetman whom he could trust. And you can only trust someone you at least understand.

Many historians, with the exception of the “jingoists” who make Mazepa an angel, even M.S. Grushevsky, based on the circumstances under which Mazepa received the mace, was considered the hetman to be an inveterate ambitious and careerist. However, which politician lacks ambition? Which of the figures of the same Hetmanate cannot be suspected of selfish motives? Perhaps Bogdan Khmelnitsky - but even then only from the moment of a terrible family tragedy, when he lost his beloved woman and son-heir.

Where does this fine line lie: for oneself or for the state - and who will dare to draw it? With a sinking heart, with shaking hands, I. Vygovsky rushed to the mace, and then, risking his wealth and his head, rushed into the “pool” of the elders’ conspiracy about a single Hetmanate. Walking over corpses and not disdaining lies, P. Doroshenko received his hetmanship, and how much effort he made to overcome civil strife and war in Ukraine in 1657-1681, the so-called Ruins!

So, Mazepa became hetman. Everything seemed to be against him. First of all, he was surrounded by a left bank elder, alien to him, embittered by the fact that power over her was in the hands of a stranger. Educated in Poland, served by Doroshenko and found himself on the Left Bank against his will, Mazepa was indeed alien to the clan of elders that had developed there during the years of the Hetmanate, intertwined with family ties - Samoilovichi, Kochubei, Lizoguby, Iskra, Polubotki, Zhuchenki, etc. They probably hated this "rascal" who stole the mace from their hands.

The terms of the new Russian-Ukrainian treaty imposed on Mazepa at the parliament by Golitsyn were also extremely difficult and unpopular. In addition to the complete ban on foreign relations, the ban on peasants becoming Cossacks, the legalization of denunciations against the hetman, and the ban on the hetman changing senior officers, a rifle regiment was introduced to the Left Bank. The Kalamak Articles became the first step towards the Russification of Ukraine and the elimination of the autonomy of the Hetmanate:

“Unite the Little Russian people with all sorts of measures and methods with the Great Russian people... so that they are under one... Common Power... and no one would let out such voices that the Little Russian Territory is under the hetman’s control.” .

In 1688, Mazepa launched a successful raid on Ochakov, but then fate turned away from him again: a grandiose one followed - 100 thousand people took part in it on the Russian side and 50 thousand on Mazepa's side - and an extremely unsuccessful Crimean campaign (March-June 1689 G.). On August 10, Mazepa arrives in Moscow to meet with his patron, and before his eyes a coup d’état takes place: the Naryshkins and young Peter I come to power. Now no one doubts that the hetman will fall after Golitsyn.

On the Left Bank they were already rubbing their hands and sharing the mace. However, completely unexpectedly for all Ukrainians, first of all for Mazepa himself, who probably experienced the most terrible days of his life while waiting to be called to the Tsar, at Trinity, the reception provided by Peter I was the warmest and most merciful. Many historians, following the colorful presentation of N.M. Kostomarov, explain what happened with the amazing courtesy of Mazepa, to whom "managed to charm young Peter." Let us make another assumption. When the “gracious word” was spoken to the hetman, neither Peter nor his entourage knew Mazepa yet, but the Naryshkin party, which was in a very precarious position, needed peace and constancy in Little Russia, so create a precedent for unrest by removing the hetman, even the favorite of the disgraced Golitsyn , in Moscow they didn’t dare. Most likely, having already made such a decision and announced it, Peter had the opportunity to be convinced of the correctness of his choice - during a personal meeting with the hetman.

The most surprising thing about the persistent myth about the traitor Mazepa that exists in Russia is that everyone forgets (or brushes aside) the fact of almost 20 years of faithful service and close trusting relationships that existed between the hetman and the tsar from 1689 to 1708. About 20 (!) years of constant military campaigns, battles, defeats and victories are forgotten. Although this fact in itself so shatters the cliché “hetman-traitor” that Ukrainian “jingo-patriots” are trying to challenge it, attributing all sorts of secret plans to Mazepa, and Russian traditionalists, contrary to all logic and facts, call the hetman “two-faced”, about which we will talk below.

The main question that for some reason was never asked and, accordingly, no answer was sought: what became the key to such a long and successful union? (What caused the tragic ending is another question.) In our opinion, the reasons must be sought in the history of the Hetmanate and the Ruins.

In fact, what is surprising is not the fact of the hetman’s “treason,” but, on the contrary, his loyalty to the Russian Tsar for such a long time. If we take Mazepa’s predecessors, then

B. Khmelnitsky concluded an agreement with the Swedes two years after the oath to the Tsar,

I. Vygovsky, a year after taking the oath, signed the Galyach Agreement with Poland, and just a month later - with Sweden,

Yu. Khmelnitsky doomed the Russian troops to death at Chudnov a year after his oath.

Even the tsar’s devoted “servant”, elevated to the rank of “boyar” I. Bryukhovetsky, lasted only five years, and then went over to the Polish side.

In each of these cases, the circumstances were different, but the reason was the same: the conditions for which the contract was concluded ceased to be fulfilled. If B. Khmelnitsky concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav in the hope of finding a military ally against Poland, then the hetmans, starting with I. Vyhovsky, due to the internal ruin of the Hetmanate, were forced to look for allies against home opposition and unrest. It was Moscow’s desire to weaken the hetman’s power, and hence the support of “informers” and “rebels”, that pushed I. Vygovsky and Yu. Khmelnitsky to Poland.

The most terrible legacy of the “Khmelnytsky region” - the appearance of a huge number of declassed “disguised” people who had no other source of income other than war - became excellent material for manipulation by any adventurers and elders who were striving for the mace. The apogee of this destructive movement was the Black Rada of 1663. But when the protege of these demagogues, who swore allegiance to the Tsar, I. Bryukhovetsky, betrayed the Russians, Moscow woke up and realized that an agreement must be sought with the hetman’s power, and not with the mass of anarchists.

Peter I

Mazepa's hetmanship is an excellent example of a compromise concluded between the hetman and the tsar. Peter I unconditionally and unwaveringly rejected any accusations, denunciations and reports directed against Mazepa, extradited and executed all his opponents, and the hetman unfailingly supplied the tsar with troops for all military campaigns, so numerous during the reign of Peter I. It is unlikely that this agreement was ever enshrined on paper, but both sides carried it out religiously, contrary to all the logic of events.

For Mazepa, surrounded by hostile elders and eternally dissatisfied Cossacks and Cossacks, Peter’s support was vital, as were military campaigns, which made it possible to feed and occupy the rebels. For the young tsar, who had to carry out his global reforms in conditions of severe opposition and political isolation, who was rushing to the seas and forced to fight, the hetman, in turn, was a reliable, loyal ally, providing a calm rear in Ukraine and successfully fulfilling all diplomatic tasks.

In our opinion, it would be a clear exaggeration to consider the relationship between Mazepa and Peter to be friendly. Despite the numerous gifts they exchanged (fruit from the hetman’s garden and game to the Tsar, fish from the north of Russia to Mazepa, etc.), judging by their correspondence, they never crossed a certain line, maintaining a distance (Mazepa is not Menshikov, Naryshkin or Lefort). Peter I called Mazepa “Mr. Hetman”, he called him exclusively “sovereign”, and not familiarly “Mr. Colonel”, “bombardier”, “min Herz”, etc. True, as researchers of the epistolary heritage of Peter I note, the tsar saw in Mazepa person, "capable of understanding and appreciating the most subtle thoughts and humor" and in this sense, the hetman in the eyes of Peter was equal only to the Dutchman A. Vinius.

It seems that, most likely, the distance in relations with the king was maintained thanks to Mazepa. It seems that he never got close to anyone at all, had almost no friends (perhaps due to the sad experience of betrayal) and was a kind of lonely intellectual, proud and ambitious, even a romantic, but only deep down in his soul. The same Jean Baluz wrote about Mazepa: “His speech is refined and beautiful, however, in a conversation he prefers to remain silent and listen to others... He belongs to those people who prefer either to be completely silent, or to speak, but not to say”. At the same time, Peter with his noisy and cheerful squad, who shared joys and trials with her on equal terms, demanded from his entourage complete unanimity and hellish work for the benefit of the new Russia. Only those who fully shared the tsar’s ideology and way of life could count on his friendship. Russia, under the leadership of Peter I, was reviving and desperately strove for Europe, while the Hetmanate grew dim and weakened. Mazepa could not help but see and understand this.

In 1690, active Russian actions against Crimea began. The Crimean campaign was beneficial for the hetman. In the event of successful campaigns, Mazepa had the opportunity to establish very difficult relations for him with the Cossacks, who over the past decades had turned into a powder keg for the Hetmanate. The Cossacks criticized the hetman for everything: for distributing property (possessions) to the elders, for oppressing their long-standing rights, for not increasing salaries, etc. Raids on the Tatars were the original source of income for Zaporozhye. The war started by Peter I was supposed to bring, in addition to the usual booty, a generous salary. In July-August 1690, the Cossacks under the leadership of I. Novitsky and S. Paliya made a successful raid near Ochakov and Kazikermen. The entire operation plan was developed in great detail by Mazepa personally.

The next decade for Russia was marked by the struggle for access to the Black Sea. Mazepa sent his assigned hetmans, personally led many campaigns and, knowing the tsar’s passion for the fleet, used Zaporozhye canoes to march on Ochakov. On July 19, 1696, Mazepa’s Cossacks, led by Chernigov Colonel Y. Lizogub, took Azov. Peter's dream came true. In 1700, the Treaty of Constantinople between Russia and Turkey was concluded. On February 8 of the same year, Mazepa, second after F.A. Golovin, during a trip to Moscow, received personally from Peter the newly established Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, thus ahead of even the Tsar himself and A.D. in the list of recipients of this most honorable award of Russia. Menshikov. The decree stated: “For his many noble and diligently faithful service in military labors... after 13 years”. The rewards and favors were not limited to this.

Mazepa’s brilliant victories and royal favors represented only the external side of his activities, behind which a very complex internal situation was hidden: denunciations poured in one after another, and open riots were added to them.

In 1691, the “Izvest of Chernetsov” appeared, in which Mazepa was accused of participating in the conspiracy of Sophia and V.V. Golitsina. In 1696 there was a denunciation by the elder Suslov. In 1699, D. Zabelin and A. Solonin sent a denunciation to Moscow. They were handed over to the hetman, tried, but, showing “Christian mercy,” they were left alive. Thus, Peter categorically did not accept any accusations against Mazepa. The foreman said sarcastically that he “I wouldn’t have believed the angel if he reported about the hetman’s abuses.” Nevertheless, knowing the interrogation methods in Moscow and the entire terrible punitive machine, Mazepa could not feel calm.

Petrik's uprising also caused him many unpleasant moments. In 1691, a certain Petro Ivanenko (Petryk), Kochubey’s brother-in-law and senior clerk of the General Military Chancellery, fled to Zaporozhye, where he was elected clerk and began campaigning against the hetman and Moscow. A. Ogloblin considered him the grandson of the Poltava colonel F. Zhuchenko, the son of his daughter, the sister of the wives of Kochubey and Iskra. It was already noted above that all the left bank foreman had very close family ties.

Almost all historians who seriously studied Mazepa's hetmanship considered it impossible that the hetman was behind Petrik's plan. Only A. Ogloblin, in his later emigrant work, stated that he had found evidence in the Moscow archive: “Hetman Mazepa himself sympathized with this action of Petrik, and it is possible that even Mazepa entrusted Petrik with this mission.”. At the same time, in an earlier, detailed work about Petrik, Ogloblin held the opposite, reasoned opinion. While in exile, he could not find any new documents, just as in Moscow there was clearly no evidence of Mazepa’s connection with Petrik. As for the “patriotic statements” of journalist S. Pavlenko regarding the Petrik uprising, as an argument against the thesis about Mazepa’s faithful service to the Tsar, I will leave these pseudoscientific illusions on the conscience of their author.

Any assumptions about Mazepa’s secret plan, in our opinion, are an absurd fiction. Firstly, Petrik focused on the “poor and hungry”, so hated by the hetman. Secondly, it is difficult to imagine that in the war against Moscow Mazepa would rely on the Cossacks who were hostile to him. Thirdly, Petrik was too closely associated with the elders opposed to the hetman, led by the Kochubeys, i.e. he was in no way suitable for the role of Mazepa’s confidant.

Petrik stated that he had the hetman's letters. The technique is well-known: B. Khmelnitsky, having fled to Zaporozhye in 1647, also referred to the legendary “letters of Barabash” - it was this fact that allowed N.M. Kostomarov to compare Petrik with the great Bogdan. In our opinion, this comparison does not stand up to criticism. Petrik had much more in common with Y. Barabash, an ally of Poltava Colonel M. Pushkar, who rebelled against I. Vygovsky. He also shouted about the “letter”, according to which the tsar allegedly ordered Vygovsky to be beaten. Of course, all this was a lie, aimed at convincing the Cossacks of Moscow’s support. Petrik also wanted to give weight to his words. But when the Cossacks “They persistently tried to show them those sheets... Petrik with the last word refused them that he didn’t have any such sheets and didn’t tell him anything about that matter....” On this occasion, the Koshevoy Ataman very reasonably stated: “If only the hetman and the policeman’s army had some kind of tax from Moscow, and he would write to our grassroots army... and not to that fool.”(emphasis added - T.Ya.).

Many historians suspect that in fact the left bank foreman stood behind Petrik. There is a lot of indirect evidence of this. Thus, Mazepa’s informant Rutkovsky, who was in Zaporozhye, wrote to the hetman: “So that your nobleness should be careful in relation to some of his loved ones.” And in July 1692, the same Rutkovsky expressed doubts to Mazepa, "his(i.e. Petrik. - T.Ya.) Is this the meaning and intent of the head? Koshevoy ataman I. Gusak told Mazepa’s envoy: “Tell Mr. Hetman from me... how he won’t cut off the heads of the three people there: the first - Polubotok, the other - Mikhail(To Samoilovich. - T.Ya.), to the third - that he always lives with him; "Whoever thinks of it himself, then he will never have peace in the hetmanate, and there will be no good in Ukraine.". Subsequently, in 1708, Mazepa reproached V. Kochubey for “we forgiven and apologized for your great and many offenses worthy of death, but, as I see, my patience and kindness could not lead to anything good”. This can also be seen as indirect evidence of Mazepa’s suspicion of Kochubey’s involvement in the Petrik uprising.

In any case, Mazepa, whose relationship with the tsar was still far from the most reliable, was nervous, and in letters to Peter I called Petrik’s idea "by the devil's instigation", the clerk himself "stupid" And "thief". As for Petrik’s assertion that the hetman gave him letters, Mazepa announced this "hostile slander" And "a wicked lie... for some of my sins."

While in Crimea, Petrik entered into an agreement with the khan, and in August 1692, 15 thousand Tatars came to the Poltava regiment with Kalga-Sultan and Petrik, who had 12 Cossacks. Only 500 people arrived from Zaporozhye, and at the "rad" "they were sentenced to call Petrushka hetman." Petrik’s plans were very fantastic: when Ukraine succumbed to them (which he had no doubt about), they “The lords and tenants will be beaten... and all sorts of disturbances in the Zaporozhye army will be the same as they were under Bogdan Khmelnitsky.” He also intended to drive the inhabitants of the Sloboda regiments to the other side and "to settle them near Chigirin and other deserted places". It is not surprising that M.S. Grushevsky called Petrik "demagogue" And "the enemy of autonomist elders" .

Petrik's hopes were not justified. The majority of the Cossacks did not support him, the population of the Left Bank met the Tatars with hostility, and Mazepa, in conjunction with Russian troops, managed to repel their advance. In Moscow, Petrik’s tales were not believed, and the hetman’s suppression of the anti-Russian uprising only strengthened the hetman’s position in the eyes of Peter I.

Thus, by 1700 Mazepa was at the height of his fame. In Moscow he was unconditionally trusted and respected. His wealth grew, internal discontent was suppressed. Getman was already 61 years old. Most likely, the endless military campaigns were not easy for him: he was often sick and complained about his health, gouty pain. Mazepa must have dreamed of resting on his laurels after a victorious war and enjoying the fruits of his power and glory, but that was not the case. The young and energetic Peter was eager to reshape Russia, and at the same time the political map of Europe. Without any respite, the Northern War began in 1700.

Already at the end of 1700, Mazepa received an order to send 18 thousand troops to Pskov for protection from the Swedes. In May 170, Mazepa and his troops headed to Livonia.

Indeed, those around Peter Mazepa were respected, his opinion was highly valued. He was entrusted with the responsible task of negotiations with Moldova, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Crimea and even the Poles. He developed the closest business and friendly relations with F.A. Golovin, who wrote: “I will answer him a lot against the hetman’s letters and thank him for his strength on my own.” .

But the Northern War turns out to be a completely different side for the Cossack troops: these are not the usual battles with the Tatars. They are unable to defeat the best regular army in Europe. In this, the author shares the opinion of O. Subtelny. Hence the drill, the transfer of Cossacks under the command of foreign officers, and as a result, an increase in discontent among the Cossacks. And the Northern War, unlike the Azov campaigns, did not bring them any military spoils or glory.

The Cossacks' murmur begins again. They attack new factories for the production of saltpeter, and in 1701 they rob Greek merchants, subjects of Turkey, which almost led to a clash with the Silistrian Pasha. In 1703, “shakyness” began among the Cossacks. Mazepa suggested that Moscow try to resolve them “kindly”: “And if he doesn’t do it anyway, then throw a few ten bombs.” In 1708, part of the Cossacks took part in the Bulavin uprising.

Mazepa’s relationship with another “folk hero”, Semyon Paliy, developed no less complicated. Paliy's main merit was the restoration of the Cossacks on the devastated Right Bank, the creation of "Paliivshchyna" (1686), a territory governed by Cossack laws, where the authority of the Polish king was not recognized. At the beginning, Mazepa patronized the Right Bank colonel and repeatedly supported his appeals to Moscow with a request to move to the Left Bank. However, Peter was afraid of ruining relations with the allied Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and constantly refused. During 1690-1694. Paliy, under the command of Mazepa, took part in joint campaigns with the left bank Cossacks in the Crimea. Because of the Turkish-Tatar threat, Poland at first turned a blind eye to Palia, but in 1699 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth concluded the Peace of Karlowitz with Turkey, and the Sejm decided to disband the Cossacks as unnecessary. Paliy raised an uprising on the Right Bank and took the White Church.

By this time, the relationship between Mazepa and Paliy was changing dramatically. For many Cossacks, Paliy becomes the ideal fighter for their liberties and an alternative to the role of hetman. The Cossacks openly declared: “If Paliy becomes hetman, he will be able to cope with the entire initial foreman... and will be under him, as it was under Khmelnytsky.”. Mazepa could not help but fear the growing popularity of Paliya on the Left Bank. In addition, a mass exodus of dissatisfied people began to the Right Bank, as they once did to Sloboda Ukraine. This weakened the position of the Hetmanate, and in particular Mazepa himself, who pursued a tough policy towards the peasantry, for example, in 1701, for the first time in the history of Ukraine, he introduced a two-day panshchina. The hetman and the foreman had long ago become the richest landowners with the right of hereditary ownership. Mazepa himself had estates, partly purchased, partly donated by Peter, not only in Ukraine, but also in Rylsky district, Krupnitsa region, etc. It is no coincidence that Mazepa said: “The Cossacks are not so terrible as the fact that almost all of Ukraine breathes the same Zaporozhye spirit.” There was a hint of undisguised irritation in his statements; So, he said to the clerk I. Nikiforov: “The Little Russian people (especially the Cossacks... like a cane in a field, bent by the wind, they lean in one direction or the other) are free, and stupid, and fickle.” .

Peter I, primarily because of relations with Poland, took a tough position towards Paly. Strict orders were sent to Mazepa "to place strong and frequent guards near the Dnieper", so that no one goes to the Right Bank. The Poles demanded to stop supporting the Right Bank Cossacks. Finally, in February 1704, Peter issued an ultimatum to Palia to release Bila Tserkva. After this, Mazepa’s troops entered the Right Bank. He summoned the unsuspecting Palius and arrested him on July 31. Paliya was sent to Siberia.

Quite unexpectedly for himself, Mazepa gained some power over the second part of the former hetmanate of Khmelnytsky. Here the question should be asked: how did the hetman himself feel about the idea of ​​“conciliarity” of Ukraine? The opinion of the “hurray-patriots” is clear and unambiguous. V. Shevchuk does not consider Mazepa a supporter of a unified Hetmanate and cites his relationship with Paly as proof of this. The author believes that everything was more complicated. It has already been noted that Mazepa and Paliy are opposites, primarily in their social orientation. But we must not forget that in all the royal charters, starting from the reign of Sophia and ending with the last of Peter the Great (1708), Mazepa was called hetman "Zaporozhian troops on both sides of the Dnieper". There is no evidence that Mazepa thought about a single Hetmanate until the moment when, by the will of fate, or rather Peter, he found himself on the Right Bank, but there is no doubt that from that time on the thought of reuniting Bogdan’s brainchild did not leave him.

In January 1705, Mazepa again visited the Tsar in Moscow. He was showered with further favors. In June, he was given an order to march with 30 thousand Cossacks to Lvov and further to Poland in order to “displace with noble indemnities” the estates of the Pototskys and other magnates unfaithful to Augustus. The task was completed brilliantly by Mazepa. In early August, his troops, following the path of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, reached Lvov, and in early October they took Zamosc. After this, the hetman settled in winter quarters in Dubno. He was tasked with collecting collections in the Right Bank for future military operations. This was the apogee of Mazepa's glory.

However, this is where all the troubles began. A letter arrived in Dubno from the punishable hetman D. Gorlenko about the oppression of the Cossacks by the Russians during their stay near Grodno. At the same time, the royal decree was sent to send the Kyiv and Chernigov regiments to Prussia for their reorganization into regular dragoons. Considering the structure of the Hetmanate, this, in essence, meant the beginning of the liquidation of the senior administration. Mazepa was furious and said: “What kind of good can we now expect for our service?” It was at this time that Mazepa met in Dubno Princess Anna Dolskaya, the widow of K. Vishnevetsky, a supporter of S. Leshchinsky, a protégé of the Swedes. The hetman had with her "day and night conferences". However, as we know, Mazepa liked to listen more than to talk.

N. Andrusyak, who examined Mazepa’s negotiations with the Swedes in more detail, rightly notes that all statements about an alleged agreement with them since 1703 have no evidence. Even in September 1705, when S. Leshchinsky sent his envoy Volsky to the hetman, he extradited him to Moscow along with all the king’s letters and proposals. He also informed Peter about Dolskaya’s proposals: “This stupid woman wants to deceive His Royal Majesty through me... I already told the Emperor about her tomfoolery. His Majesty laughed at it.” .

In February 1706, Mazepa sets out from Dubno for Lithuania. He wrote to the king: “I want to sense joy and relief from my ailments for a little while in my gouty weakness.”. But even in Lithuania, luck turned against the Cossacks and their hetman. The Swedes attacked the Starodub regiment stationed in Nesvizh, destroyed several hundred Cossacks and killed Colonel Miklashevsky. Then the Swedes besieged Pereyaslavl Colonel I. Mirovich in Lyakhovichi, as a result he was never released, he was captured, where he died. Only the remnants of the Cossacks went to Slutsk. This was a very difficult blow for Mazepa, causing pain and disappointment in Ukraine. In May 1706, the hetman wrote to Peter: “Turning from Lithuania to their homes in your Tsar’s Majesty’s special service, barely alive from many labors, turbulations, sadness and from the illness that happened". At this time, he again rejected Dolskaya’s offer to accept the guarantees of the Swedish king, demanded that she stop this correspondence and “do not imagine that, having served faithfully three sovereigns, in his old age he would inflict on himself the stain of treason”.

In the summer, Peter expressed a desire to come to Kyiv in person. This was the tsar's first visit to Ukraine, and Mazepa considered it a great honor for himself. However, everything turned out differently. First of all, on the way to Kyiv, the hetman’s old comrade-in-arms and friend, Field Marshal F.A., died. Golovin. Then Peter, who was already in Kyiv, received alarming military news and gave an order for A.D. to speak. Menshikov to Volyn against the Swedes, and Mazepa, if necessary, was ordered to assist. The campaign did not take place, but the hetman took this as a blood insult: “This is the reward I will receive in my old age for many years of service!” What hurt Mazepa most was that he was given command to a rootless upstart.

It was Menshikov who was destined to become a fatal figure for Mazepa. "Semi-Powerful Overlord" at this time he was just approaching the peak of his power and glory. From a devoted orderly, he turned into a fearless commander, the closest ally and friend of Peter I. His uncontrollable courage and endless devotion to the Tsar had only one dark side: a pathological passion for profit. Having risen from the very bottom thanks to his ingenuity and talents, he was extremely insatiable for money and titles. Despite outwardly friendly relations, he and Mazepa could not have anything in common.

In July 1706, while staying in Kyiv, Menshikov organized a dinner party, which, in addition to the tsar, was attended by Mazepa and the foreman. At this dinner, a tipsy Menshikov told the hetman about the need to transform the Hetmanate and about the liquidation of the foreman. The irritated Mazepa conveyed these words of the royal favorite to his elder: “They always sing that song to me, both in Moscow and everywhere!” Colonels D. Apostol and D. Gorlenko perceived them especially sharply. The latter exclaimed: “Just as we always pray to God for the soul of Khmelnytsky and bless His name for freeing Ukraine from the yoke of Lyatsky, so in the opposite way we and our children will curse your soul and bones for eternal generations if you force us into such captivity for your hetmanship after death " .

Around the same time, Princess Dolskaya conveyed B.P.’s words to Mazepa. Sheremetev and General Ren that Menshikov intends to become a hetman or prince of Chernigov and is “digging a hole” for Mazepa. We will probably never know how truthful they were, but they certainly added fuel to the fire, and the hetman exclaimed in his hearts: "Lord! Free me from their panic!"

Mazepa was irritated and depressed. Another reason for the growth of discontent against the Russians was the construction of fortifications in Kyiv. The conditions were extremely difficult, the work was supervised by Russian officers who beat the Cossacks, cut off their ears and committed all sorts of oppression. There was a terrible murmur, including among the foreman. In addition, the king decided that the Kiev fortress "has a very bad situation" and ordered a new one to be made in the Pechersk Monastery. The elders demanded that the hetman talk with the tsar, but Mazepa did not dare. Only at the end of September did he finally write to Peter that “seeing your Tsar’s Majesty in Kyiv... with many... things difficult and burdened, we do not dare to ask my army... for your decree about the troops.” And further, without complaints or comments, he reported that his troops “those who have been overburdened by the aforementioned fortification, deprived of their hogged reserves, and their horses, all muzzled and exhausted by the daily watering of the turf, will not be suitable for the greedy service of the V.C.V. under this hour of winter.” .

But Peter did not pay attention to the difficulties, and the growth of discontent against Mazepa did not bother him. He constantly spoke out about the fact that “The Little Russian army is not regular and cannot stand in the field against the enemy,” demanded that the Cossack troops be better armed, ordered Mazepa to buy horses at his own expense - until the money came from Moscow, etc. In June 1707, Peter sent a letter to Ukraine, in which he expressed regret about the hard service of the Little Russians and the disasters , accompanying the crossings of Russian troops through Ukraine, but stated that in “This is how it is now with our enemy. The King of Sweden, in a military case, it is very impossible to get around him, and for this reason you must... demolish him,” A "at the end of this war, those difficulties and losses suffered... will be rewarded" .

In March 1707, Peter summoned Mazepa to a military council in Zhovkva - since "very necessary". The council took place on April 20, Good Friday. Orlik wrote that at the end of the council, Mazepa did not go to dinner with the king, returned to his place upset and did not eat anything all day. He only said to the elders: “If I had served God so faithfully and diligently, I would have received greater rewards, but here, even if I changed into an angel, I would not be able to receive any thanks for my service and faithfulness!” All historians, following N.M. Kostomarov, were at a loss as to what happened there. They believed that it only spoke of a plan to create “companies”, i.e. selecting a fifth of the Cossacks to form a new army and leaving the rest at home. In fact, we were talking about larger-scale transformations.

The author managed to find documents that shed light on this secret, which, of course, became one of the last reasons that pushed Mazepa to the Swedes. At the end of March, decrees were given to the Little Russian and Ambassadorial orders on the transfer from the Little Russian order to the Discharge "the city of Kyiv and other Little Russian cities." This decree was finally postponed, however "until the arrival of Hetman and Cavalier Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa in Zhovkva". Thus, Peter finally decided to include a significant part of the Hetmanate into Russia on general terms and was going to announce this to Mazepa in Zholkva, which he clearly did there. Hence the reaction of the Hetman, who was thus deprived of all real power, and the Hetmanate - the remnants of autonomy. By the way, in a letter from Mazepa I.I. Skoropadsky, written two days after his transfer to the Swedes, also noted that "Moscow potency... without greedy consent with us, conceived the cities of Little Russia to be taken into its region" .

Personal grievances were added to the fundamental disputes. Immediately after the council in Zholkva, Menshikov sent an order to the convivial colonel (commander of the Hetman Guard regiment) Galagin to go on a campaign with him. Mazepa shouted in rage: “Prince Alexander Danilovich sees me every day, always talks to me and has not said a single word to me about it, and without my knowledge and consent he sends out orders to the people of my regiment!... And how can Tansky go without my will with my regiment , to whom I pay? Yes, if he had gone, I would have ordered him to be shot like a dog!”

As for the decree on companies, i.e. on the transformation of the Cossack army, N.M. Kostomarov believed that it did not take place. In fact, on August 10, the Tsar wrote to Mazepa to “about the campaigns, in all the Little Russian regiments, of course, this fall and winter they made a determination and were immediately ready for the future campaign.” The unsuccessful campaign of Mazepa’s nephew Voinarovsky (more than 500 Cossacks escaped from him) only encouraged Peter in this decision: “For of the non-Kumpanei sent today, there is nothing good, unless there is a bad thing, since they don’t have a certain salary, they will just go for robbery and immediately go home.” Mazepa promised in a letter to Peter that “I will strive with all diligence to establish a company in all my regiments.” However, on the same day, in a message to G.I. He noted to Golovkin that the colonels about the decree on companies “They don’t deny it, they just see it as a difficulty.” So for the whole autumn the regiments will be at the construction of the Pechersk fortress, and “in the cold and snow” - “sort out the army, who will be fit and who will not be fit for company service,” difficult, so “It would have been better if everything ordered had been done in the spring” .

An intelligent politician and talented commander, Mazepa could not help but understand that the Cossack regiments had outlived their usefulness. Military reform was needed. He could agree with this, but everything indicated that Peter I did not want to limit himself to military reform. While still accepting the difficult conditions of the Kalamak Articles, Mazepa hoped that his loyalty and personal relationships with the powers that be would allow him to reach a compromise, as in the time of the great Bogdan, when, by tacit agreement of the parties, many points of the Pereyaslav Treaty were not fulfilled. And it seemed that everything happened just like that. Peter not only did not forbid Mazepa to have contacts with foreign sovereigns, but also often asked for his help in diplomatic relations. It was the same with "rands"(taxes) abolished by the Kalamak Articles - the hetman reintroduced them without any resistance from the Russian authorities. He also hoped that the terrible point about the transformation of the Hetmanate from "Hetman Reyment"(governance) into a single Russian state.

But by mid-1707 it became clear that all hopes were dashed. In September 1707, Mazepa, at the request of Peter I, received the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Unlike Menshikov, he was not at all happy about this honor: “They want to satisfy me with the principality of the Roman Empire and take away the hetmanship” .

For some time, Mazepa also hoped to realize his title of hetman. "both banks" especially after Peter himself brought the hetman to the Right Bank and literally forced him to give orders there. The question of the Right Bank is another of the reasons that pushed Mazepa to the Swedes.

As already noted, in the fall of 1705, under the pretext of arresting Paliy, Mazepa entered the Right Bank and received an order to settle there. However, already in December, at negotiations in Grodno, the Russian side accepted the memorial imposed by the Poles: "The Emperor agrees to give up these fortresses, although to the extreme loss of Little Russia". For some time this decision remained secret, but on February 18, 1707, at negotiations in Zholkva, the decision was again made “On the return of Ukraine taken from Paliya.” Then it was decided to send a decree about this to Mazepa, who, however, was himself present at the negotiations. True, in a letter to Mazepa, Peter explained that in fact he was not going to give the Right Bank to the Poles, since he was planning a war with Turkey in the future and did not want to have hostile rear areas, and Peter ordered Mazepa to stall for time.

The Poles, in the face of the offensive of the Swedish troops, again began to put pressure on Peter, and in January 1708 he finally gave an order to Mazepa to return the Right Bank. Even then Mazepa tried to fight. From negotiations with S. Leshchinsky, he knew that the Poles were ready to retreat from the Right Bank, which means that the supporters of Augustus, for whom Peter was the last chance, would have to give in if a firm position on the Ukrainian issue followed from the Russian side. Mazepa wrote in April 1708 to the new chancellor G.I. Golovkin, “If the Poles are in the Belotserkovsky district, then it will never be possible that an internecine fight will not break out between the Cossacks of the regiment of Belotserkovsky, Korsunsky, Umansky, Boguslavsky, Chigirinsky, Cherkasky and Kanevsky and between the Poles, and a truly new war and bloodshed will grow from there ". However, in May, Peter promised the Poles that the return of Ukraine would be accomplished immediately after the return of the king, and ordered “to write now to Hetman Mazepa that if he sees that there can be no such danger and confusion in the Little Russian people, then he would give this Belotserkovskaya district ... to the Pole ... for their pleasure.” .

It is quite obvious that Russian diplomacy was not based on the interests of the Ukrainian hetman, elders, “brotherly” people or the Orthodox faith. The military situation and political plans were at the forefront. Mazepa understood this, as well as the fact that Peter’s games did not guarantee him the Right Bank. In fact, Russia gave it to the Poles back in 1705, and it is possible that the role of Menshikov, so hated by Mazepa, was especially important here. It was he who was at the negotiations in Grodno, and it was for him that those same Polish magnates in 1706 concocted a noble family tree that confirmed his princely title. It is likely that consent to the return of the Right Bank was obtained at the cost of the nobility.

A. D. Menshikov

G.P. Georgievsky, who studied Mazepa’s correspondence with Menshikov, noted that at the beginning of 1708 the hetman’s tone changed dramatically. If before he addressed that "My lord and dear brother" then now "The Most Serene and Excellent Prince of Izhera of the Roman and Russian State, my dear sir, my brother and special benefactor". Georgievsky explained this by Mazepa’s duplicity and his plans for treason. It seems to us that such a tone is a mockery and testifies to the hetman’s secret hatred and contempt for the upstart plebeian Menshikov.

At the same military council in Zholkva, fatal for the history of Russia and Ukraine, Mazepa asked the tsar to send at least 10 thousand regular troops to protect Ukraine from the Swedes, to which Peter replied: “I can’t give only ten thousand and ten people: defend yourself as best you can.”. This was the last straw that broke Mazepa’s patience, since it was essentially a violation of the articles of the Kalamak Rada, which obliged Russia to defend Ukraine. Most of the Cossack troops were scattered along the fronts of the Northern War. O. Subtelny believes that this was a blow for Mazepa and that the hetman saw in this a betrayal of vassal relations, which obliged the sovereign to protect his vassal. Note, a loyal vassal.

Orlik writes that after Zhovkva the foreman rushed to the Pechersk library and began to study the old Gadyach Treaty of I. Vygovsky with the Poles. Mazepa did not participate in this: at that time his elderly mother, whom he idolized, a strong and intelligent woman, the abbess of several monasteries, was dying. In September, A. Dolskaya, in a letter to Mazepa, proposed on behalf of S. Leshchinsky to retreat from the Russian Tsar, promising help from Swedish and Polish troops. For the first time, the hetman not only showed Orlik this document, but also revealed his plans and doubts, taking an oath of allegiance from him. True, he responded negatively to Dolskoy so far, did not sign the agreement, did not send it to the king, but not to the king either. Then he uttered what we think are fundamental words: “Am I a fool to retreat ahead of time until I see an extreme need, until I see that the Tsar’s Majesty will not be able to defend not only Ukraine, but his entire state from the Swedish potential?.. Without extreme, last need, I will not I will change my allegiance to the royal majesty."

When you consider this series of events of 1706-1707, you wonder not why Mazepa “changed”, i.e., calling a spade a spade, broke the treaty with Russia and concluded a new one with Poland, but why he didn’t do this earlier, until October 1708? If not explicitly, then at least secretly. On the contrary, Mazepa delayed until the last minute, did not sign anything definitively and did not decide anything. Why? After all, the Russian side completely violated the terms of the Kalamak Articles and went to liquidate the Hetmanate and the Hetman’s administration. Apparently, the answer is simple: Mazepa did not believe in the possibility of an alliance with the dying Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which still remained arrogant and intractable, and even less believed in an alliance with the “heretic Swedes”, so far from the realities of Eastern Europe. He knew too well the mood of his own foreman - here the very well-fed, prosperous life of the foreman in the prosperous Left Bank, which he created for her during the 20 years of his reign, played against him. He also knew how his own Cossacks and Cossacks hated him - for being “too” loyal to the Tsar, uncompromisingly fulfilling all of Peter’s demands for sending troops on endless campaigns, strict discipline, etc. And Mazepa’s sober mind did not let him down - further events showed that he was right, stubbornly not wanting to break with the Russian Tsar.

In September 1707, V. Kochubey made his famous denunciation against Mazepa. The reason was the story of the beautiful Matrona, which Kochubey himself confessed to during torture. The general clerk was eager to deal with his competitor, and there was no talk of any political ideals here. At the end of 1707, the Jesuit Zalensky arrived to the hetman with a universal (royal charter) from Leshchinsky. Kochubey reported this again. Mazepa, frightened by denunciations, suspended all contacts with Leshchinsky, cursing himself for his carelessness. He persistently demanded that the Russian government hand over Kochubey and Iskra. Peter again did not believe the informers. Kochubey and Iskra were extradited, and Mazepa executed them, after which on September 3, 1708, a month and a half before Mazepa went over to the Swedes, the hetman was sent a royal letter stating "no slanderers... are given faith" .

In the face of the Swedish offensive and Russian military failures, the situation in Ukraine was extremely difficult. Discontent grew among the Cossacks, many of them took part in the uprising of K. Bulavin. Mazepa, obeying the royal decree, sent a 10,000-strong corps to Poland, thereby exposing his own borders. He rightly wrote that “The Little Russian people have some fear that a significant part of the Little Russian troops has been taken from Ukraine... and there will be no one to defend Ukraine.” True, Peter promised to expel Sheremetev "to rush to the defense of Ukraine with haste" and assured that the Little Russian people "We will not abandon any enemy attacks". To this Mazepa wrote on October 6 in a letter to G.I. Golovkin objected that "there is little hope for the Great Russian infantry... everyone is barefoot and naked." He reported that the Swedes entered the territory of the Starodub regiment, and with it "a small number of troops, which are powerless, have such a great potential for enemy resistance." However, he saw the greatest difficulty in the confusion engulfing the people caused by the advance of enemy troops and rumors of the defeat of the Russians.

Under these conditions, Mazepa decided that there was nothing more to wait for. At first he said he was dying and avoided meeting with Menshikov, and on October 25 he crossed the Desna and united with Charles XII. Peter learned about this from Menshikov and was amazed at what happened. “We received your letter about the unexpected, never-evil case of treason against the Hetman with great surprise.”. This only indicates that Peter did not know the hetman at all, did not understand his true aspirations and aspirations.

Orlik two years later explained the hetman’s action this way:

“The Moscow government... repaid us with evil for good, instead of kindness and justice for our faithful service and losses, for military expenditures that led to our complete ruin, for countless heroic deeds and bloody military exploits - they planned to transform the Cossacks into a regular army, cities take under your power, abolish our rights and freedoms. .

Subsequent events are well known. They developed according to the worst-case scenario, which Mazepa foresaw. Most of the Cossacks fled from him, most of the foreman did not go with him. Menshikov managed to take Baturin, which he burned, completely exterminating all the inhabitants, including women and children, and immediately discouraging the desire to follow Mazepa. As M.S. wrote Grushevsky, the collapse was inevitable, primarily due to the terrible division that existed between the autonomist elders and the masses. Mazepa and his supporters did not take any steps to use any populist methods to win over ordinary Cossacks, exhausted by constant wars, or peasants groaning under the weight of taxes and panshchina. And Peter, on the contrary, the very next day abolished the rands, as stated in the royal universal, imposed by Mazepa "for the sake of enriching oneself". Mazepa, whom many historians accuse almost of the original plans of treason, turned out to be so unprepared for this step that he did not even publish an official universal explaining and justifying his act, like the “Manifesto to the European Powers”, which was published by I. Vyhovsky after the Gadyach Treaty.

As O. Subtelny proved, Mazepa never had an agreement with Charles XII, at least until 1709, when a purely formal agreement was concluded after the fact. There was not even an agreement between Mazepa and Leshchinsky - only references to "privilege" this king, who promised Ukraine equal status with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, i.e. in the image of the repeatedly mentioned Gadyach Treaty of Vygovsky. Not a single historian has been able to find the original agreements - neither in Swedish nor in French, where Orlik's documents ended up, in archives, or even copies - in Russian documents. This can be regarded, on the one hand, as the fact that Mazepa was extremely cautious and carefully kept all his contacts secret, and on the other hand, that the transition to the Swedes was not a pre-planned and decided matter for him. Otherwise, he would not have risked everything by rushing into this pool without any written agreement of the parties.

This oursis is confirmed by another episode, very disliked by both the “jingoists” and Mazepa’s detractors. We are talking about the hetman's plan to extradite Charles XII to Peter. Mirgorod Colonel D. Apostol, one of the people closest to Mazepa, reported him. At the end of November he arrived at the headquarters of the Russian troops in Sorochintsy, from where he was sent to the Tsar and Menshikov. He stayed there for almost a month. As the Apostle himself wrote to the hetman, “By the command of Your Lordship, I accepted this dangerous path... although at first they didn’t give me faith, and they kept me on guard.”. He left Mazepa no earlier than mid-November, i.e. obviously after the burning of Baturin. The very fact of sending the Apostle to the Tsar testifies to the seriousness of the hetman’s intentions: after all, he sent one of the people closest to him. Let us recall that during the Kochubey case, the Russian government insistently sought from Mazepa the extradition of the Apostle, but he defended and defended him in every possible way.

Peter listened to the Apostle “It’s very secret; and although I deigned to accept it very desirable and cheerfully, I still doubted whether I would tell the truth from Your Excellency.” However, when Shishkevich, the barber of his beloved nephew Voinarovsky, and the eagerly sociable Colonel Galagan arrived after the Apostle from Mazepa with his personal letters - again, all people from his inner circle - "On the part of the Tsar's Majesty, my proposal and your Serene Majesty's intentions were trusted." Some points were signed and security guarantees were agreed upon. G.I. Golovkin wrote a letter to Mazepa on December 22, in which he confirmed that the king, “seeing your good intention and appeal, I accepted it graciously and ordered me to write to you with the strongest hope that if you... work to bring your begun intention to fulfillment, then not only will you accept your mercy in the same order and your mercy, but He will deign to multiply it to you." And further - "not daring to believe the pen any more"- there was a secret code that, before the transition to the Swedes, was used in Mazepa’s correspondence with the tsarist government: “Your Lordship must try, so that about the famous most important person, at your suggestion" .

This amazing agreement had no consequences. Peter's entourage convinced him not to trust the hetman. He was an unnecessary rival for Menshikov. Mazepa either failed to carry out his plan, or he was afraid of inevitable reprisals from Peter. It is possible that the month of mistrust and delays was wasted time.

N.M. Kostomarov did not think that Mazepa’s proposal "couldn't be sincere". O. Subtelny rightly writes that "How serious Mazepa's proposal was, we may never know". It seems to us that it fits completely into the picture of events. Most likely, the hetman was already convinced of his mistake and made a desperate attempt to correct the situation.

In fact, for Russia, Mazepa’s transition to the side of the Swedes did not have negative consequences. And, for example, it cannot be compared with the Chudnovsky disaster of 1660 - the death of the entire Russian army as a result of the battle with the Poles, the capture of all officers and the loss of the Right Bank. Meanwhile, no one cursed Yuri Khmelnitsky for a very long time; they didn’t even dare to call him a traitor; on the contrary, Alexey Mikhailovich had been hoping for his “conversion” for more than a year. Mazepa was accused of all mortal sins, subjected to civil execution and church anathema. M.S. Grushevsky rightly wrote: “Mazepa’s political step was inflated as an unprecedented and extraordinary act. But in reality, there was nothing extraordinary, nothing new in this act of Mazepa and his like-minded people.”. True, and M.S. Grushevsky, and N.M. Kostomarov accused Mazepa that this step became the reason for the liquidation of Ukrainian autonomy. We beg to differ here. The liquidation of autonomy has been ongoing since the Treaty of Pereyaslavl in 1659. It was most actively prepared in 1706-1707, which was one of the reasons for Mazepa’s act. Another thing is that the government of Peter I used the pretext to better cover up its actions and break off contractual relations with the Hetmanate.

As for Mazepa, he lost everything in an instant. For 20 years, juggling over the abyss between enemies, envious people, rebels and informers, he held the hetman's mace in his hands. He has dozens of military campaigns and victories to his name. He was the owner of titles and untold wealth. The Cossacks did not follow him. Most of the elders also preferred home comfort and stability to the fragile ideas of autonomy and freedom. The clergy, to whom he donated huge amounts of money, built dozens of churches and monasteries, anathematized him. His imminent death in Romania became only a symbol of the collapse that had occurred.

Such was the sad end of this outstanding figure. It is high time to abandon political anathemas and curses against him and try to learn a lesson from the tragedies of our ancestors.

We must muster courage and admit that the interests and goals of the young Russian Empire and the weakened Hetmanate - created in the likeness of the dying Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which in 1648, compared to Moscow, was a “European” power, and at the beginning of the 18th century. turned into an anachronism - they were very different. In some ways, Ukraine has become a hostage to Russia’s geopolitical plans. Peter sought to create a new state capable of competing both militarily and economically with the European powers. This policy was possible only with the most severe centralization. The military and economic situation made it possible to unify Ukraine and wrest the Ruins of the Right Bank from the terrible abyss. However, these plans were sacrificed to the diplomatic game. In the face of the Swedish offensive, the Left Bank had to turn into a scorched buffer of military operations. It was these two factors, along with personal grievances, that forced Mazepa to attempt an alliance with Charles XII.

Another factor was the plan to eliminate the Hetmanate and integrate it into the general structure of the Russian Empire. Refraining from politicized slogans such as “hetman-patriot”, suitable only for rallies, we nevertheless note that Mazepa was far from indifferent to this plan, and not only because he did not want to exchange the real power of the hetman’s mace for the empty title of prince . What was really dear to him was what was part of his 20 years of work, otherwise he would have calmly rested on the laurels of his enormous wealth. The truth was that many elders calmly accepted the prospect of becoming peaceful Russian noble landowners, which they later became. It was these people from the elders who did not support Mazepa. But there were also those to whom the Hetmanate, the child of the Khmelnytsky region, was dear, for example D. Apostol, D. Gorlenko, who were sincerely ready to fight for the “ancient liberties.”

We are talking about the “top”, the elite of the Hetmanate. As for the people, they faced the prospect of enslavement and submission to the harsh policies of the Russian authorities. But the people never, even under B. Khmelnitsky, understood or shared the ideas of the autonomist elders.

The most terrible tragedy of the Hetmanate was that it had no alternative. All attempts at agreements with Poland and Crimea ended in failure. Sweden was too far away. Therefore, all the political leaders of the Hetmanate, even including Mazepa, sooner or later were forced to return to the idea of ​​an alliance with Russia, each time hoping for “good conditions” and the “mercy” of the Tsar.

Notes

1. Skoropadsky P. Good luck. Kiev - Philadelphia, 1995, p. 387-388.

2. Soloviev S.M. History of Russia since ancient times, book. VIII-IX. M., 1991; Kostomarov N. Mazepa. Kyiv, 1995, p. 409-436.

3. Ogloblin A. Treaty of Peter Ivanenko (Petryk) with Krim in 1692. - Jubilee 3birnik on poshan ak. D. Bagalia. Kiev, 1927, p. 720-744; Andrusyak N. 3c "languages ​​of Mazepi with Stanislav Leshchinsky and Charles XII. - Notes of the Scientific Partnership named after T. Shevchenko, vol. CLII. Lviv, 1933, pp. 32-61.

4. Subtelny O. Mazepintsi. Ukrainian separatism at the beginning of the 18th century. Kiev, 1994; SmolSH V. 1van Mazepa. Volodar Hetman's mace. - 3-book of scientific principles. Kiev, 1995, p. 385-401.

5. Letter from Jean Baluz about Mazepa. - Ivan Mazepa. Kiev, 1992, p. 76.

6. Ibid., p. 77.

7. Efimenko A. History of the Ukrainian people. Kyiv, 1906, p. 263.

8. Leaves of Ivan Mazepi to Motroni Kochubeivny. - 1van Mazepa, p. 112-115.

9. We are talking about 10 thousand, which Mazepa allegedly gave to V.V. Golitsin from Samoilovich's property.

10. Velichko S. Chronicle of events about South-Western Russia in the 17th century, vol. III. Kyiv, 1855, p. 29-53.

11. Ibid., p. 49.

12. Dreike Yu.V. Sayings, figurative expressions and humor of Peter the Great. SPb., 2002, p. 8-9.

13. Letter from Jean Baluz about Mazepa, p. 76-77.

14. Evarnitsky D. Sources for the history of the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Vladimir, 1906, part 1, No. LVI, p. 297-302. Mazepa's response to the Zaporozhye Cossacks to their complaints.

15. For details about the Crimean campaigns, see: Zaruba V.N. Ukrainian Cossack army in the fight against Turkish-Tatar aggression. Kharkov, 1993.

16. Acts of Western Russia, vol. V. St. Petersburg, 1853, No. 205, p. 233-236; No. 209, p. 238-239.

17. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Historical collection of lists of holders of four Russian imperial orders. M., 1814, p. 59-60.

18. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources of Little Russian history. - Readings at the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities, 1858, book. 1, vol. 2, p. 1-4, 23-24.

19. Ogloblin A. Treaty of Peter Ivanenko (Petryk) with Krim 1692 rock, p. 724. Petrik himself wrote that “My grandfather will not feel sorry for his wickedness, because he was thrown out of the colonel.” - Evarnitsky D. Decree. cit., vol. 1, p. 324.

20. Grushevsky M. Illustrated history of the Ukrainian people. St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 240; Borschok I. Mazepa. Orlik. Voinarovsky. Lviv, 1991, p. 22; Shevchuk V. Cossack state, studies before the history of the Ukrainian state. - Kiev, 1995, pp. 158-161; Ogloblin A. Treaty of Peter Ivanenko (Petryk) with Krim 1692 rock, p. 724.

21. Ogloblin O. Hetman Ivan Mazepa i Moscow, Ivan Mazepa i Moscow. - Kshv, 1994, p. 32.

22. Pavlenko S. The myth about Mazepa. Chertiv, 1998.

23. Evarnitsky D. Decree. cit., vol. 1, p. 413; No. LXXVIII, p. 394; No. LXIX, p. 324, p. 435.

24. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, vol. 2, p. 131.

25. Evarnitsky D. Decree. cit., vol. 1, no. LXXVIII, p. 390; No. LXXVII, p. 365, p. 367-368.

26. Grushevski N M.S. Vigovsky i Mazepa. - Literary and scientific journal, vol. 46. Kiev - Lviv, 1909, p. 423.

27. Evarnitsky D. Decree. cit., vol. 1, p. 410-411; Zaruba V.N. Ukrainian Cossack army, p. 115.

28. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. 1. St. Petersburg, 1887, No. 296, p. 341; No. 346, No. 375.

29. For example, G.F. Dolgoruky wrote to F.A. Golovin: “Please write secretly to Hetman Mazepa so that he secretly has a correspondence or, through his faithful envoys, communicates with the Kyiv governor Potocki.”- Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. 2. St. Petersburg, 1889, p. 420.

30. Ibid., p. 589.

31. Subtelny O. Decree. cit., p. 23.

32. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. 3. St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 364-365: vol. 2, no. 546, p. 213; vol. VII, no. 2. L., 1946, p. 697-698, etc.

33. People said that Mazepa Palia "executed out of envy, because Palia was called the Cossack father."- Osnova, 1861, November-December, p. 31.

34. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 44.

35. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. 2, p. 437.

36. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 41.

37. Evarnitsky D. Decree. cit., vol. 1, p. 79; Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VIII, no. 1. M-L., 1948, No. 2603, p. Iв17, etc.

38. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. 3, no. 839, p. 356.

40. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky. - Basis, summer 1862, p. 2.

41. Ibid., p. 3.

42. Andrusyak; N. Decree. cit., p. 37-38.

43. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 48-50.

44. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 3.

45. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. IV. St. Petersburg, 1900, part 2, p. 575.

46. ​​Ibid., p. 860.

47. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 5-6.

48. Ibid., p. 7-10.

49. Journal or daily note of Emperor Peter the Great. St. Petersburg, 1770, p. 137.

50. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. IV. St. Petersburg, 1900, p. 1022.

51. Ibid., vol. V, no. 1532, p. 41-42; No. 1548, p. 57; No. 1655, p. 168.

52. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 56-57.

53. Ibid., No. 1613, p. 118.

54. Ibid., vol. V, p. 581-582.

55. Ibid., part 2, p. 173.

56. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 8.

57. Kostomarov N. Decree. cit., p. 583.

58. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VI. SPb., 1912, No. 1901, p. 44, 287, 288, 289.

59. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 162.

60. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Biographies of Russian generalissimos and field marshals, part 1. M., 1991, p. 23.

61. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. V. St. Petersburg, 1907, p. 477, 496.

62. Materials from the Stockholm apxivy to the history of Ukraine, chapter XVII - rev. XVIII centuries - Ukrainian archaeographic collection, vol. III. Kiev, 1930, p. 28-29.

63. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VI, no. 2067, p. 158.

64. Materials from the Stockholm apxivy, p. 36.

65. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VII, no. 2. L., 1946, p. 709, 772, 715.

66. Georgievsky G.P. Mazepa and Menshikov. - Historical magazine, 1940, No. 12, p. 74-75.

67. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 16-17.

68. Subtelny O. Decree cit., p. 31.

69. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 6 etc.

70. Letter from Orlik to Yavorsky, p. 17-20.

71. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 88.

72. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VII, no. 2, p. 373, 780, etc.

73. Ibid., vol. VIII, no. 1, No. 2603, p. Iв17.

74. Ibid., vol. VII, no. 2, p. 697-698; vol. VIII, no. 1, No. 2500, p. 43; No. 2654, p. 153-154.

75. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 164, 165.

76. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VIII, part 1, no. 2442, p. 227.

77. Ibid., No. 2759, p. 237.

78. Correspondence and other papers of the Swedish king Charles XII. - Readings of the Moscow Society of History and Russian Antiquities, 1847, No. 1, p. 2-3.

79. Grushevsky M. Vigovsky i Mazepa, p. 426.

80. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VIII, part 2, p. 875.

81. Subtelny O. Decree. cit., p. 30-31.

82. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 214.

83. Letter from G. Volkovnikov to A. Menshikov. - Georgievsky G.P. Decree. cit., p. 82.

84. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 213.

85. Letters and papers of Emperor Peter the Great, vol. VII, c. 2, p. 715-716; 772-774; 782-783, etc.

86. Bantysh-Kamensky D. Sources, part 2, p. 212-213.

87. Kostomarov N. Decree. cit., p. 673.

88. Subtelny O. Decree. cit., p. 44.

89. Grushevsky M. Illustrated history of the Ukrainian people, p. 253.

He remains one of the most “controversial” figures in Russian-Ukrainian history to this day. Hetman Mazepa. According to tradition coming from Peter I, he is considered to be almost a fiend of hell. Recently, another trend has appeared - towards the glorification of Mazepa; This is especially typical for today’s Ukraine, which is looking for historical bonds. Both are obvious lies. The famous hetman was not a demon in the flesh. But, undoubtedly, there is some pathology in behavior Hetman Mazepa in relation to colleagues can be traced.

Hetman Ivan Mazepa, early years

Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa came from an Orthodox noble family. He was born in 1639 on the Mazepintsy family estate near Bila Tserkva. According to his status, he received an excellent education - first at the Kiev-Mohyla College, then at the Jesuit College in Warsaw, and subsequently studied in Italy, Holland, France and Germany. Fluent in European languages ​​and Latin.

It is known that in his youth, Hetman Mazepa was at the court of the Polish king John Casimir, where he was listed among the “rest nobles.” The court fate of the young “schismatic” was, of course, unenviable. N.I. Kostomarov writes:

“His peers and comrades, the courtiers of the Catholic faith, mocked him, teased him to the point that against one of them Mazepa in his ardor drew his sword, and drawing a weapon in the royal palace was considered a crime worthy of death. But King John Casimir decided that Mazepa had acted unintentionally, and did not execute him, but only removed him from the court. Mazepa went to his mother’s estate in Volyn.”

Careerist

In Volyn, according to Kostomarov, Ivan Mazepa had a romantic adventure. He entered into a relationship with the young wife of a certain elderly Mr. Falbovsky, for which he was cruelly taught a lesson. Falbovsky waylaid his opponent, stripped him naked, tied him to the back of a horse and, having whipped him, set him off at a gallop. The horse, without discerning its path, rushed through the bushes towards the house, and after a while Mazepa’s stunned servants took their bloodied master off it. Subsequently, this plot inspired painters more than once.

Whether this incident actually took place, we do not know. Mazepa's further personal fate was developing quite safely and sensibly - until the fatal story with Motrey Kochubey. In 1665, after the death of his father, he received the position of chief of Chernigov, in 1668 he married the widow of the Belaya Tserkov colonel Anna Fridkevich, without losing sight, probably, of the benefit that his father-in-law, general transport train Semyon Polovets, could bring him in his career. The calculation turned out to be correct. It was under the patronage of Polovets that Mazepa entered the inner circle of Hetman Petro Doroshenko and relatively soon rose to the rank of general clerk.

In 1674, Doroshenko sent Mazepa to Constantinople to ask for help from the Turkish Sultan (and a few months earlier, on his instructions, Ivan Mazepa was in Pereyaslavl at the Cossack Rada, where he testified about the hetman’s desire to go under the arm of the Moscow Tsar; such a “school of treason” ).

Mazepa changes his tall friends

A sharp change in Mazepa’s biography was associated with the trip to the Turetsk region. True, he never made it to Constantinople. Kostomarov says:

“The Koshevoy Ataman Ivan Sirko caught Mazepa on the road, took Doroshenko’s letters from him and sent the messenger himself to Moscow. Mazepa was taken for interrogation to the Little Russian Prikaz, which was then headed by the famous boyar Artamon Sergeevich Matveev. Mazepa, with his testimony during interrogation, managed to please the boyar Matveev: he presented himself as personally disposed towards Russia, tried to justify and shield Doroshenko himself before the Moscow government, was admitted to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and then released from Moscow with letters of conscription to Doroshenko and the Chigirin Cossacks. Mazepa did not go to Doroshenko, but stayed with Hetman Samoilovich, having received permission to live on the eastern side of the Dnieper, along with his family. Soon after that he lost his wife.”

He also knew how to gain confidence in Samoilovich. He appointed him to oversee the upbringing of his sons, and then granted him the rank of general captain. On orders from Hetman, Mazepa visited Moscow more than once, where he made close acquaintance with. Golitsyn, with his polyphilism, could not, of course, help but be charmed by the hetman’s educated and courteous envoy in the Polish manner. And it was to him that Mazepa owed his election to hetman. When, after the unsuccessful Crimean campaign (the first), Samoilovich found himself “to blame for everything,” Golitsyn arranged for the hetman to be exiled to Siberia and his courteous friend promoted to his place. Did Mazepa himself intrigue against Samoilovich, who, to be honest, had once benefited him? Unknown. But he took advantage of the fruits of intrigue. And, as far as one can judge, not without pleasure.

On his next visit to Moscow, Hetman Mazepa discovered changes here. And, easily renouncing the Golitsyn-Sofia party, he charmed young Peter.

"Mazepa knows love"

Already from these successes of Hetman Mazepa one can conclude something about his character. But on Peter he seemed to calm down. However, only for the time being.

As for the situation in Little Russia, completely subject to Mazepa, it was very difficult. Mazepa “panned”, the people grumbled. Denunciations were constantly made against the hetman. But the king did not have faith in them, relying entirely on his comrade-in-arms. He skillfully supported his belief in his own indispensability, constantly emphasizing the cunning and unreliability of the Cossacks. Even Kochubey’s denunciation turned out to be harmless for him.

To be fair, it should be said that anyone would have doubts about the veracity of this denunciation: the enmity between Mazepa and Kochubey was all too well known, whose daughter Matryona (in Pushkin’s “Poltava” - Maria) fled in 1704 to the hetman “without a crown.” The hetman was not averse to getting married, but Motrya was his goddaughter. He sent the girl to her parents, but continued to write love letters, where he called her his “heart.” It was clear that the disgraced Kochubey would do anything to take revenge. But revenge backfired on him: in 1708, the former general clerk of the Zaporozhian Army was executed by beheading after torture.

Hetman Mazepa - Knight of the Order of Judas

In 1708, Hetman Mazepa, taking with him the hetman's treasury, fled to Charles XII, who was camped near Novgorod-Seversky. For Peter I, who was expecting military assistance from the hetman, the news of his betrayal was a deafening blow. Until the troops met in a decisive battle, information warfare techniques were used. Having brutally ravaged the hetman's capital Baturin with the hands of Menshikov, Peter appointed elections for a new hetman in Glukhov. It was publicly announced that:

“John Mazepa betrayed and adhered to the heretical king of Sweden, alienated the Little Russian fatherland, although under the yoke of the work of the Lyadsk succumb and the temples of God were converted to the damned,”

Mazepa, in turn, taught Charles XII to spread the rumor that Peter himself was negotiating with Rome about the eradication of the right faith and the implantation of “Latinism.” But few people believed in this.

In general, Mazepa’s union with Karl turned out to be unhappy for both. The people, who had never seen anything good from the hetman, did not follow him. Those few Cossacks who pestered him quickly came to their senses and came to Peter with repentance. Almost only the most desperate Cossacks remained under the former hetman. But no one could expect any good from them. It is known that during lunch in Mazepa’s tent (almost in the presence of the king), some of them got so drunk that they began to rob the dishes from the table. Someone reprimanded them. And he was immediately stabbed to death.

After the Battle of Poltava, Mazepa fled with Charles XII to Bendery, where he soon died. He, without a doubt, knew that Peter was trying to ransom him from the Ottomans, wanting to put him to shameful execution. He also knew that the silver Order of Judas was made especially for him in a single copy...