In today's Ukraine, Hetman Mazepa is one of the revered national symbols, his portrait is on a banknote, monuments are erected to him and streets and avenues are named after him. A person who has become a symbol of profit, betrayal and treason, cursed by the church, awarded the Order of Judas and despised by his contemporaries, is very close to the rulers of Ukraine, who in their actions take an example from this idol.
Contemporaries spoke of Mazepa with the deepest contempt, rewarding him with the epithet "cursed dog Mazepa", not finding a single kind word addressed to him. And this is not accidental, since all his life, betraying his comrades-in-arms and benefactors, he did not disdain any means in the struggle for power, honor and wealth. And Mazepa was dying with bitter loneliness, eagerly looking at the barrels and the chest with the stolen gold, in fear that his own comrades-in-arms would take it all away.
Considering the history of hetmans in Ukraine, of which Mazepa is a prominent representative, it is necessary to take into account the characteristic features of the hetmans of that time. After the expulsion of the Polish gentry from these lands, on the wave of popular anger, a headstrong Cossack foreman came to power, who did not have the knowledge, strength and means to control such a huge territory.
The Cossack foreman, who did not tolerate any power over himself, was nevertheless forced to seek an alliance with his stronger neighbors - Russia, Turkey and Poland. Concluding alliances, they did not really strive to observe them and, betraying their next patron, they wanted to live by their own free will, without bothering themselves with state building. Hetman Mazepa was also a typical representative of his time, whose whole life, due to his character and circumstances, was constantly accompanied by a change of owners.
As a result of the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667, according to the Andrusovo armistice, the hetmanate along the Dnieper was divided into the Left Bank hetmanate, which became part of Russia, and the Right Bank hetmanate, formed in 1663 and oriented towards Poland and Turkey. In both parts, their hetmans were elected. On the Left Bank, Bohdan Khmelnitsky-Vyhovsky - Yuri Khmelnitsky-Bryukhovetsky - Mnogogreshny - Samoilovich - Mazepa were elected hetmans. On the Right Bank - Teterya, then - Doroshenko and a whole galaxy of leaders who sought to sell their fellow tribesmen to the Polish and Turkish rulers.
How faithful the hetmans of the Left Bank were to their oath given to the Russian tsar can be judged by their unenviable fate. B. Khmelnitsky signed an agreement with Russia, Vygovsky - betrayed and fled to the Poles, who executed him, Yuri Khmelnitsky - betrayed and broke the treaty with Russia, went over to the Poles, and then to the Turks, Bryukhovetsky - betrayed, killed by the Cossacks for treason, - betrayed, fled to the right bank, extradited and exiled to Siberia, Samoilovich - on the denunciation of his entourage, accused of treason and exiled to Siberia, Mazepa - betrayed and fled with Charles XII.
By origin, Mazepa was from an Orthodox gentry family on the Right Bank, his ancestors faithfully served the Polish crown. Thanks to the extraordinary mind and connections of his father and grandfather, from his youthful years he was at the court of the Polish king. Closeness to the king allowed him to receive an excellent education, he studied in Holland, Italy, Germany and France, was fluent in Russian, Polish, Tatar, Latin. He also knew Italian, German and French. I read a lot, had an excellent library in many languages.
Educated and brought up in the spirit of Polish culture, Mazepa showed great promise. But after the unpleasant intrigues at the royal court, started by Mazepa, he was removed from the court, because of his meanness and baseness, the road to the upper strata of the Polish gentry was forever closed to him.
In 1663, the king sent Mazepa to the Right Bank to present the military regalia to the Cossacks. Mazepa betrays the Polish king and remains with the right-bank Cossacks, profitably marries the daughter of one of the hetman Doroshenko's close associates. The father-in-law helps Mazepa to advance in the circle of the Cossack foreman, and he soon becomes the hetman's confidant and general clerk, one of the key figures in the hetmanate's system.
In 1674, Hetman Doroshenko, who betrayed Poland and passed under the protectorate of the Turkish Sultan, sent Mazepa with a letter to the Sultan, and in confirmation of the Hetman's loyalty, Mazepa brought 14 captured Zaporozhye Cossacks from the Left Bank to the Sultan as a commodity to the slave market.
The Cossacks intercept the delegation and take Mazepa prisoner, he betrays Doroshenko and agrees to serve their opponents to the left-bank Cossacks who are subordinate to Moscow, he is sent to the left-bank hetman Samoilovich, and Mazepa becomes a Russian subject.
Thanks to his talents to please the powers that be, Mazepa paves the way to Samoilovich's heart, he even entrusts Mazepa with raising his children and confers on him the title of a military comrade. The Cossack foreman recognizes him as the hetman's "close man" and a few years later Mazepa receives the rank of general esaul and becomes the second man on the Left Bank.
On behalf of Samoilovich, Mazepa regularly visits Moscow, where, with flattery and humiliation, he achieves the location of Prince Golitsyn, the favorite of Princess Sophia, in whose hands virtually all power was.
Meanness and cynicism in an effort to slander and betray their friend, subordinate or benefactor, fully manifested themselves in Mazepa during the unsuccessful Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689, organized by Prince Golitsyn.
At Mazepa's slander, through the efforts of Prince Golitsyn, Hetman Samoilovich was found guilty of the failure of the first Crimean campaign, he was accused of treason and exiled to Siberia, and his son, who was raised by Mazepa, was beheaded. Half of the confiscated property of Hetman Mazepa appropriated to himself.
After the fall of Samoilovich, Golitsyn, who received a bribe from Mazepa and respected his education, which distinguished him and shone, had a decisive influence on the election of Mazepa in 1687 as hetman of the Left Bank. There is a petition to Peter I, in which Mazepa writes that he was forced for the post of hetman to bribe Golitsyn in the amount of 11 thousand chervontsy "partly from the belongings of the renounced hetman Samoilovich, and partly from his own" name ". He rewarded the Cossack foreman who had elected Mazepa hetman with the distribution of estates, colonel and other posts.
Soon after the fall of Tsarevna Sophia and the transfer of power to Peter I, Mazepa wrote a denunciation to the Tsar about Golitsyn, whom he accused of the failure of the second Crimean campaign, in which Mazepa himself took part, being already the hetman of the Left Bank. As a result, Golitsyn was stripped of all his regalia and was exiled to the Arkhangelsk Territory.
The historian Kostomarov very clearly characterized Mazepa's moral career:
“A trait took root in the moral rules of Ivan Stepanovich from a young age that, noticing the decline of the force on which he had previously relied, he was not hindered by any sensations and impulses in order not to contribute to the harm of the previously beneficial force that was falling for him. Treason to his benefactors has already been shown more than once in his life. So he betrayed Poland, going over to her sworn enemy Doroshenka; so he left Doroshenka as soon as he saw that his power was wavering; so, and even more shamelessly, he did to Samoilovich, who warmed him up and raised him to the height of the rank of sergeant. He did the same now with his greatest benefactor, before whom he flattered and humiliated until recently."
A cunning politician and diplomat, a clever flatterer and courtier, Mazepa skillfully won his sympathy and established the necessary connections. "No one could better than Mazepa enchant the right person and win him over to his side," wrote his closest associate, the false hetman Orlik, about Mazepa.
So Mazepa won the full confidence of Peter I, seeking unlimited power on the Left Bank for unhindered personal enrichment. To satisfy his never-ending greed, Mazepa used everything from embezzlement, extortion and bribery, to the forced "purchase" of land from peasants, Cossacks and his associates, often accompanied by the use of military force.
General Judge Kochubei wrote about Mazepa's willfulness in one of his letters to Peter I: "The hetman arbitrarily disposes of the military treasury, takes as much as he wants and gives to whom he wants." In total, during his reign, Mazepa managed to amass fabulous capital, appropriate and receive from the tsar for faithful service the land on which about 100 thousand Little Russians and 20 thousand Russian peasants lived, Mazepa became one of the richest landowners in Russia. (With his thirst for power and greed, today's president of Ukraine, Poroshenko, is very reminiscent of Mazepa. He has someone to take an example from.)
Mazepa's innumerable wealth was legendary. They are partially confirmed by contemporaries. In the memoirs of Gustav Zoldan, an approximate of Charles XII, it is described how he went into the room of the dying Mazepa, and he asked him to “carefully look after his things … namely, the chest and two barrels full of ducats, and a pair of travel bags which were all his jewelry and a large number of gold medals."
All these riches were squeezed out with incredible cruelty by the hetman administration from the population of the Left Bank and his unlucky associates, on whose property and lands Mazepa laid eyes. Unable to withstand oppression, bullying and countless extortions, the peasants fled in droves not only to Russia, Zaporozhye or the Don, but also to the Right Bank, which was under Polish rule. Death also threatened those who hid the fugitives and helped them escape from Mazepa's atrocities.
Ukrainian adherents of Mazepa are trying to present him as a pious and devout man, for his charity in the construction of temples and monasteries. In reality, these are only external manifestations of piety, for which he used not personal, but stolen funds.
The end follows …
