Order of Judas
Ivan Mazepa was the hetman of the Zaporozhian Army, located in the territory of modern central Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Empire. In the autumn of 1708, during the Great Northern War, Mazepa broke off ties with Tsar Peter I and sided with his enemy, the Swedish king Charles XII. Until that moment, the Tsar believed Mazepa unconditionally and awarded him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called: the most honorable award, which until then had only been received by Peter’s closest associate, Field Marshal General Fyodor Golovin. Therefore, the sovereign took this betrayal as a deep personal insult, hated and despised the former hetman until the end of his life and mockingly established for the traitor an order named after another apostle, Judas.
The fact of Mazepa’s personal betrayal is undeniable, and in the post-Soviet space he is generally perceived as a traitor to Russia, and he presents this story as follows. There was a united Russia, divided by the Mongol invasion, and the lands captured by the Principality of Lithuania began to be called Ukraine. An anti-Polish uprising took place in Ukraine under Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and then during the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654 the Russian lands were finally reunified under the rule of the Moscow Tsar. However, 50 years later, Hetman Mazepa went over to the side of the enemy, like Soviet General Andrei Vlasov during the Great Patriotic War.
Division of the Cossacks
This view is popular in historical and political journalism, but it misses some key nuances. Firstly, at the time of the Mongol invasion, Ancient Russia was not a single state, it consisted of many warring principalities, and Moscow was at that time the periphery of the Vladimir principality. The capital was considered the city of Kiev, and after the expulsion of the Mongols, the Moscow rulers of the 16th century made great efforts. proveThat Moscow is the true heir of the “mother of Russian cities.”
Secondly, the Pereyaslav Rada was not a turning point in history like the unification of Germany by Bismarck. The Zaporozhye Cossacks were united with the Russian kingdom only by the Orthodox faith, but they never considered it a lost homeland and did not seek its return.(a nationalist movement whose main aim is to unify with the nominal state, e.g. annexing the Italian-populated territories of Austria to Italy). The uprising before the Rada was started by Khmelnytsky in the hope of reaching an agreement with the Poles. Only when it became clear that negotiations with the new Polish king would not work did he agree to give the Hetmanate under Russian protectorate. Moreover, the decision of the Pereyaslav Rada met with serious opposition in the Kazakh ranks; Many were forced to swear allegiance to the Tsar, which was not unusual at the time.
A few years later, Russia violated an important condition of the agreement with the Hetmanate by allying with Poland for the sake of war with Sweden. Therefore, Khmelnitsky’s successor, Ivan Vygovsky, broke the agreement with Moscow and made the Hetmanate part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the name “Grand Duchy of Russia”. Destruction (civil war) began between pro-Moscow and pro-Polish Cossacks, as a result of which the right bank of the Dnieper went to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the left bank to Russia. The left bank part was ruled by Mazepa.
Why did he respect Peter Mazepa?
It is not known exactly what prompted Mazepa to once again try to wrest the Hetmanate away from Russia. Most pre-revolutionary historians considered the hetman an scheming and selfish person who was always where it was profitable. “It was ingrained in Ivan Stepanovich’s moral code from a young age that, realizing that the power on which he had previously relied was diminishing, he should not engage in any emotions or impulses so as not to contribute to the harm of the diminishing power. this was useful to him before. His betrayal of his benefactors had been proven more than once in his life. So he betrayed Poland by going to his sworn enemy Doroshenko; That’s why he abandoned Doroshenko as soon as he saw that his power was wavering; So, and even more shamelessly, he did it with Samoilovich, who warmed him up and elevated him to the senior rank. He now behaved in the same way towards his greatest benefactor, before whom he had lately flattered and humiliated himself.” Wrote About Mazepa Nikolai Kostomarov.
Intrigue and the pursuit of personal interests are characteristic of politicians of all times, and it is difficult to assess how prominent the hetman was in this regard. But it is unlikely that Mazepa went over to the side of Charles XII solely for personal reasons. There was not a single Cossack uprising during his reign; The Cossacks respected him for his strength and independent policy. Under Mazepa, the economy boomed after the Ruin, trade relations were established with the Black Sea and Danube countries, and he spent the collected taxes on patronage, the construction of churches and the architectural revival of Kiev. He allocated land to the gentry to equip mines, saltpeter factories and forges.
When Peter ascended the throne, Mazepa was already a hetman with extensive experience and was advising the young ruler on relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Northern War, Cossack regiments were integrated into the tsarist army and went to the Baltic coast, suffering great losses (for example, in the defeat of Narva in 1700). In short, Peter not only awarded the hetman the Order and considered him one of his best subjects. among Moscow officials spoke“There was never a more useful and profitable hetman for the tsar than Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa.”
break with Russia
But the alliance with Russia also had a dark side. The Hetmanate was an autonomous entity that entered into an alliance with Russia for protection from enemies, and Peter was building a centralized state. Therefore, the fact that the Cossack army was sent to the north, leaving Ukraine itself defenseless, caused a murmur, because the war on the shores of the Baltic Sea was completely irrelevant to the Cossacks.
The final break occurred in 1707, when the tsar signed the decree “On the annexation of Kiev and other Cherkasy cities to the Belgorod evacuation department.” On the basis of the Hetmanate, they planned to create the Kiev province, eliminating all rights to autonomy. Many Cossacks began to criticize Mazepa for being too conciliatory towards the Moscow Tsar. There were rumors that they were planning to replace the Hetman with a sent official.
It is not clear when the conspiracy matured, but on October 25, 1708, during the next attack of Charles XII, the hetman crossed the Desna with one and a half thousand of his closest supporters and came to its conclusion. agreement With the Swedes. Accordingly, Mazepa became the “legitimate prince of Ukraine” and the principality received all the rights that the hetman wanted to receive from Russia. The Cossacks were divided again: this time into pro-Russian and “pro-Swedish” parts.
Thousands of Cossacks joined Mazepa’s side, but they did not comply with Karl’s style of command, which required the strictest discipline, and deserted en masse. Therefore, in 1709, during the Battle of Poltava, the Cossacks remained in the convoy and, unlike the Swedish army, avoided complete defeat. Sweden suffered a crushing collapse, it was no longer possible to trust it. Mazepa fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he died soon after.
In modern Ukraine, Mazepa is considered one of the most revered historical figures, and in Russia his name is still considered synonymous with treason.