Through the spring and summer of 1708, the Cossack Hetman had struggled with a desperate dilemma. A subject of Tsar Peter, caught geographically between forces stronger than his own—the Russians to the north, the Poles to the west, the Tatars to the south—Mazeppa still dreamed the old Cossack dream of independence. He was anxious to insure against all risks and, at the same time, to prepare for all opportunities. And now the advance of the Swedish army and the almost certain defeat of Tsar Peter made the opportunities seem greater than the risks. For the famous Cossack chief, renowned for his exploits in love and war, who had survived for twenty-one years as leader of his tumultuous people, it was the supreme moment of decision. Now sixty-three and stricken with gout, Mazeppa
was shrewd, calculating and cap
tivatingly charming. His life had spanned an era of Cossack history.
Ivan Stepanovich Mazeppa was born in 1645, the son of a petty nobleman in Podolia, a part of the vast Ukrainian borderland west of the Dnieper then held by the Poles. Podolia's Polish masters were Catholic; and Mazeppa's family were Orthodox; one defiant relative had been roasted alive by the Poles half a century before Mazeppa's birth. But the path of advancement in those years lay through Catholic schools and the Polish court, and Mazeppa was enrolled at a Jesuit academy and learned to speak fluent Latin, although he never gave up his Orthodox religion. A handsome and intelligent boy, he was accepted as a page at the court of King Jan Casimir of Poland, where he was subjected to frequent jibes and taunts by his Catholic comrades because of his religion and place of birth. One day, stung to fury, Mazeppa drew his sword. This act inside the palace was a capital offense, but the King moderated the punishment because of the circumstances. Mazeppa was exiled to his mother's estate in Volynia, where, one story goes, he attracted the eye of a local nobleman's wife and subsequently was caught in flagrante by the outraged husband. Stipped naked, tarred and feathered, the intruder was bound to his horse, which was then sent galloping through woods and thickets with its helpless burden on its back. When the animal finally brought its master home, the young man was so cut and torn that he was scarcely recognizable. Unable to return to Polish society after this humiliation, Mazeppa took refuge among the Cossacks of his homeland, the classical haven for society's outcasts.
The Cossacks' hetman was quick to recognize the young man's talents—he was clever and brave, fluent in Polish, Latin, Russian and German—and he became an assistant to the hetman and rose to the position of secretary general of the Cossacks. While still young, he served as emmissary from the Cossacks who lived on the Polish side of the Dnieper to those on the Russian side, and also made a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. On the way home, he was captured by the Zaporozhsky Cossacks, who were loyal to Tsar Alexis, and sent to Moscow for questioning. His interrogator was none other than Artemon Matveev, the chief minister and friend of Alexis, who was impressed by Mazeppa, especially when the young man declared himself favorable to Russian interests. Released and honored by an audience with the Tsar, Mazeppa was sent back to the Ukraine. During the rule of Sophia, Mazeppa ingratiated himself with Prince Vasily Golitsyn, who was as captivated by Mazeppa's charm and education as Matveev had been. In 1687
, when the Cossack hetman Samoy
ovich was deposed as one of the scapegoats for Golitsyn's unsuccessful march to the Crimea, Golitsyn chose Mazeppa as his successor.
In the main, his years of leadership had been successful. He understood and followed faithfully the single most important precept necessary to maintain his position: always to be on the side of the ruling party in Moscow. Two years after his own appointment, during the final trial of strength between Sophia and Peter, he managed to tread the line with superb timing and luck. He had set out for Moscow in June 1689 to declare his support for the Princess and Golitsyn, but, arriving at exactly the moment when it became clear that Peter was going to win, Mazeppa hurried to the Troitsky Monastery to declare his fealty to the youthful Tzar. Although the Cossack chief was one of the last important figures in the realm to side with Peter, he quickly ingratiated himself. The charm of Mazeppa's manner soon inspired Peter with an affection for, and confidence in, the lively and amusing Hetman which remained unshaken despite rumors and accusations against him. In Moscow, Mazeppa ranked with the highest in Peter's court. He was one of the first to receive the coveted Order of St. Andrew, and Peter had arranged for Augustus to award him the Polish Order of the White Eagle.
Despite the confidence shown in him by Peter, the official position of hetman was far from easy. Tom between resentment against and dependence on Moscow, the Cossacks were also split between a new class of landowners, which had scrambled into the positions left behind by the departing Poles, and the simple rank and file, who disliked the newly successful upper class. They dreamed of the free-loving Cossack bands such as the Zaporozhe, who lived the old, true Cossack life below the Dnieper rapids and whose example was a constant stimulant to restlessness. The landowners and townspeople of the Ukraine, however, were uneasy with this lingering frontier spirit and wanted more stable conditions so that they could trade and prosper in peace. Just as the simpler Cossacks grumbled that the Hetman now was only Moscow's puppet and yielded too much to the Tsar, so the Cossack townspeople and upper classes now looked to him and the Tsar to control this restlessness and provide order and stability.
With his Polish education and manners, Mazeppa was inclined to favor the landowning class of which he himself was a member, and over the years he had successfully balanced and blended its interests with Moscow's and his own. As hetman, he had amassed great wealth and authority—he even dreamed of making the office of hetman hereditary rather than elective—but in his heart Mazeppa was ambivalent. Allegiance to the Tsar and maintenance of Moscow's confidence and support was the cornerstone of his policy, but his secret desire was that of his people: Ukrainian independence. The union with Russia had laid heavy burdens on the Ukraine, especially during the long years of war. Taxes had increased, new fortifications had been built and large Russian garrisons had been stationed on Cossack territory. Food and wagons were arbitrarily requisitioned and moved in constant
convoys across the steppe to Russian strongholds. The Tsar's officers took recruits, willing or not, from the villages. There were constant protests that the Russians were pillaging Cossack homes, stealing provisions, raping wives and daughters. Mazeppa was blamed by his people for such outrages and for all of Moscow's increasing demands and encroachments. He hated his puppet role, was bitter and jealous of the men around Peter and especially feared Menshikov, who had humiliated him on more than one occasion and who, it was rumored, wanted to become hetman himself. Moreover, Mazeppa, who in cultural and religious matters was an arch-conservative and strictly Orthodox, was frightened and dismayed by Peter's Westernizing policies.
But, caught in many currents, surrounded by enemies actual, potential and imagined, Mazeppa had clung to power by supporting Peter. In the long run, if he supported the Tsar, the Tsar would support him, and that was what would make or break a Cossack hetman. During his long years in office, Mazeppa had given many demonstrations of loyalty, most recently by keeping the Zaporozh-sky Cossacks quiet during the Bulavin revolt. In the light of such fresh proofs of service, Peter's faith in him was firm and stubbornly held. Although from time to time he heard that Mazeppa was plotting treason and was in correspondence with Stanislaus or even with Charles himself, Peter steadfastly refused to listen, dismissing the accusations as the work of Mazeppa's enemies trying to make trouble by undermining his faith in the loyal hetman.
In fact, the accusations'were true. Mazeppa's sole motivation was to be on the winning side. If Charles marched to Moscow and dethroned the Tsar, what would be the future of the Cossacks and their Hetman if he had maintained his loyalty to Peter too long? When Charles placed a new tsar on the Russian throne as he had placed a new king on the Polish throne, might he also place a new hetman over the Ukrainian Cossacks? On the other hand, if Mazeppa declared for Charles at the right moment and Charles was victorious, what new possibilities might open up for an independent Cossack state? And for an hereditary hetman?
Exploring these possibilities, Mazeppa had been in secret contact with Peter's enemies for almost three years. At first, when Stanislaus made approaches, Mazeppa rejected them. In 1705, when a Polish envoy came to the Cossack leader, Mazeppa sent the envoy in chains to Peter, writing flamboyantly:
For I, the Hetman and faithful subject of Your Tsarish Majesty, by my duty and my oath of loyalty confirmed on the Holy Gospels, as
I
served your father and your brother, so now I serve you truly, and as up to this time I have remained before all temptations like a
477
column immovable and like a diamond indestructible, so now I humbly lay my unworthy service at your sovereign feet.
As long as Charles was away, Mazeppa's loyalty to Peter remained hard as a diamond. But as Charles' seemingly invincible army came closer, Mazeppa grew excited and uneasy. Along with most of Europe, he took it for granted that the Swedish King could defeat the Tsar if he decided to do so. Yet if he declared for Charles too soon, a Russian army might descend on the Ukraine and annihilate him.
During the spring of 1708, an episode occurred which, springing from the Hetman's colorful character, almost upset his political intrigues. Mazeppa was as charming among women as men and had, in fact, a lifelong reputation as a seducer. Fiery and amorous all his life, at sixty-three he had fallen in love with his godchild, a beautiful Cossack girl, Matrena Kochubey, who returned his love with wild abandon. Mazeppa proposed marriage, which scandalized her parents, and the desperate girl ran away from home and sought refuge with the Hetman. Mazeppa sent her back, telling her that "although I love no one on earth as much as you, and it would have been for me a happiness and joy to have you come and live with me," the opposition of the church and the enmity of her parents made the situation impossible. Matrena's father, Judge-General of the Cossacks, was horrified and enraged. Believing that his daughter had been ravished and disgraced, he set his heart on destroying the Hetman. He had heard that Mazeppa was plotting with the Poles and Swedes against Peter and he made public these rumors, which, early as March 1708, reached Peter's ears. Still trusting his Hetman, the Tsar was angry at Kochubey's denunciations, considering them a mischievous and dangerous attempt to stir up unrest in the Ukraine at a time of external peril. He wrote to Mazeppa assuring him that he did not believe the accusations and was resolved to end them. Kochubey was arrested, interrogated and, being unable to substantiate his charges with specific proof, he was handed over to Mazeppa. With great relief—although to the horror of Matrena—Mazeppa beheaded her father on July 14, 1708.
At that very moment, Mazeppa was reaching his final decision to throw in his lot with the Swedes. Charles had promised to stay out of the Ukraine if possible and not to make a battleground out of Cossack territory, but he did not promise, as Mazeppa hoped he ultimately would, independence for the Ukraine. Charles wanted to keep a middle position between the Cossacks and Poles. Poland still had claims on the western region of the Ukraine, and Charles did not want to alienate one ally by prematurely satisfying another.
Despite the execution of Kochubey, rumors of these contacts continued to leak, and Peter commanded the Hetman to come before him and explain. Mazeppa was not afraid to go—he still believed in his ability to charm the Tsar—but he wanted to delay until he could better estimate the outcome of the war. If the Tsar seemed the likely victor, the agreement with Sweden could be quietly scuttled. To gain time, he made excuses, feigned serious illness and, to allay the suspicions of Peter's messengers who had been sent to fetch him, even took to what he called his "deathbed" and ordered a priest to give him Last Sacrament. Meanwhile, he was sending two sets of letters: pledges of allegiance to Peter with appeals for help against the Swedish invader, and pledges of faith to Charles with appeals for help against the Tsar.
Charles' sudden decision in September to enter the Ukraine was a monumental blow to Mazeppa. The Hetman had assumed—and Charles had promised'—that the Tsar would be unseated by a direct march on Moscow. When he realized that the King was on the road to the Ukraine, that finally he was faced with the need to commit himself irrevocably to one side or the other and that, whatever happened, war would roll over his people and his lands, Mazeppa was filled with consternation. Two powerful monarchs, both with large armies, were moving in his direction. He was pledged to both. If, in this final moment of choice, he chose the wrong side, he was lost.
Earlier in the summer, Peter had ordered Mazeppa to prepare his cossacks for battle and lead them across the Dnieper to attack the Swedish army in the rear. Mazeppa had replied that he was too ill to lead his troops himself and that he dared not leave the Ukraine—he must remain behind to hold the region firmly for Peter. The Tsar accepted these excuses; he, too, was worried about the unsettling effect of the Swedish advance on the restless Cossacks.
On October 13, Peter again summoned Mazeppa to appear before him, this time at Starodub. Once again, the Hetman made excuses, and Peter agreed that he should remain at Baturin, the Cossack capital, for, as the Tsar wrote to Menshikov, "his great value is in keeping his own people in check, rather than in the war."
But now thousands of soldiers in torn, mud-stained uniforms— the Russians in green and red, the Swedes in blue and yellow— with muskets on their shoulders or slumped in their saddles, moved in heavy columns along the roads to the south. Sheremetev and the main Russian army were moving parallel to Charles, prepared to block any Swedish move to the east, and farther west an independent cavalry force under Menshikov was moving in the same direction. As this cavalry would pass close by Baturin, Peter, believing Mazeppa's lies about being on his "deathbed," asked Menshikov to see the Hetman and consult with the Cossack elders about the election of a loyal successor. Accordingly, Menshikov sent a message to Mazeppa that he was on his way to pay a visit. When the Hetman learned that Menshikov, whom he hated and feared, was coming to see him, he grew convinced that the Tsar knew his plans and that the Prince intended to arrest or kill him. Mazeppa was seized by panic.