Mazeppa by Lord Byron translated: a poem. With an introductory Address to the Goddess of Milling, and her worshippers, the Fancy. (The defeat of Crack-a-rib. A parody.).
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Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa served as the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host in 1687–1708.
Background
Neither the place nor the date of the birth of Ivan Mazepa can be given with certainty, but there is evidence that he was born a Polish subject in what is now the Ukraine and that his parents were landed gentry of the Eastern Orthodox faith.
Mazepa was probably born on March 30, 1639, in Mazepyntsi, near Bila Tserkva, then part of the Kiev Voivodeship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (today – Drozdy rural council, Bila Tserkva Raion), into a noble Ruthenian-Lithuanian family.
His mother was Maryna Mokievska (1624–1707) (known from 1674–75 by her monastic name Maria Magdalena), and his father was Stefan Adam Mazepa (?-1666). Maryna Mokievska came from the family of a Cossack officer who fought alongside Bohdan Khmelnytsky. She gave birth to two children – Ivan and Oleksandra. Stefan Mazepa served as an Otaman of Bila Tserkva (1654), a Cossack representative of the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Rzecz Pospolita, and a Czernihów podczaszy (Cup-bearer of Chernihiv, 1662).
Education
Ivan Mazepa was educated first in the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, then at a Jesuit college in Warsaw. As a page Mazepa was sent to study "gunnery" in Deventer (Dutch Republic) in 1656–1659, during which time he traveled across Western Europe. He received an excellent education and then went into the service of the Polish king John Casimir as a courtier.
Career
He was rescued and cared for by the Dnieperian Cossacks, and speedily became one of their ablest leaders.
In 1687, during a visit to Moscow, he won the favour of the then all-powerful Vasily Golitsuin, from whom he virtually purchased the hetmanship of the Cossacks (July 25).
He took a very active part in the Azov campaigns of Peter the Great and won the entire confidence of the young tsar by his zeal and energy.
He was also very serviceable to Peter at the beginning of the Great Northern War, especially in 1705 and 1706, when he took part in the Volhynian campaign and helped to construct the fortress of Pechersk.
The power and influence of Mazepa were fully recognized by Peter the Great.
No other Cossack hetman had ever been treated with such deference at Moscow.
He had been made one of the first cavaliers of the newly established order of St Andrew, and Augustus of Poland had bestowed upon him, at Peter's earnest solicitation, the universally coveted order of the White Eagle.
Mazepa had no temptations to be anything but loyal, and loyal he would doubtless have remained had not Charles XII cros'sed the Russian frontier.
Then it was that Mazepa, who had had doubts of the issue of the struggle all along, made up his mind that Charles, not Peter, was going to win, and that it was high time he looked after his own interests.
He did not like the new ways because they interfered with his old ones.
But he proceeded very cautiously.
Indeed, he would have preferred to remain neutral, but he'was not strong enough to stand alone.
The crisis came when Peter ordefed him to co-operate actively with the Russian forces in the Ukraine.
At this very time he was in communication with Charles's first minister, Count Piper, and had agreed to harbour the Swedes in the Ukraine and close it against the Russians (Oct. 1708).
The last doubt disappeared when Menshikov was sent to supervise Mazepa.
At the approach of his rival the old hetman hastened to the Swedish outposts at Horki, in Severia.
Mazepa's treason took Peter completely by surprise.
He instantly commanded Menshikov to get a new hetman elected and raze Baturin, Mazepa's chief stronghold in the Ukraine, to the ground.
WhenCharles, a week later, passed Baturin by, all that remained of the Cossack capital was a heap of smouldering mills and ruined houses.
Henceforth Mazepa, perforce, attached himself to Charles.
What part he took at the battle of Poltava is not quite clear.
After the catastrophe he accompanied Charles to Turkey with some 1500 horsemen (the miserable remnant of his 80, 000 warriors).
The sultan refused to surrender him to the tsar, though Peter offered 300, 000 ducats for his head.
Achievements
Mazepa was famous as a patron of the arts, and also played an important role in the Battle of Poltava (1709), where after learning that Tsar Peter I intended to relieve him as acting Hetman of Zaporizhian Host and to replace him with Alexander Menshikov, he deserted his army and sided with King Charles XII of Sweden.
