Ivan Mazepa (1687 – 1709)

A decisive phase in the relationship of the Hetmanate to Moscow occurred during the hetmancy of Ivan Mazepa, one of the most outstanding and controversial of all political leaders. Born on the Right Bank in 1639 into a Ukrainian noble family that was “highly esteemed in the [Zaporozhian] Host”, Mazepa received an exceptionally broad education. After studying in the Kyiv Academy, he transferred to a Jesuit college in Warsaw and later entered the service of the Polish king as a gentleman-in-waiting. This provided him with opportunities to travel extensively in Western Europe and to serve as a royal emissary to Cossack Ukraine. After returning to the Right Bank in 1669, Mazepa entered the service of Doroshenko, hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine. On his first diplomatic mission, however, he was captured by the Zaporozhians, who handed him over to the Left-Bank hetman, Ivan Samoilovych. The polished Mazepa managed to turn a potentially disastrous situation into a personal triumph. His international experience and impeccable manners convinced Samoilovych to make him his confidant. These same qualities helped Mazepa establish close contacts with highly placed tsarist officials. In 1687, when Samoilovych was deposed, it was Mazepa who, backed by Russian officials, was elected as his successor.

For most of his twenty-one years in office, Mazepa pursued the traditional policies of the Left-Bank hetmans. With unparalleled consistency he issued over 1000 land grants to the starshyna, thereby greatly strengthening its position. Nor did he neglect his own interests. Thanks to generous grants from the tsar and his own acquisitive instinct, the hetman managed to accumulate nearly 20,000 estates, thus becoming one of the wealthiest men in Europe. A man of intellect and refinement, Mazepa contributed a significant part of his personal wealth toward the support of religious and cultural institutions. An avid patron of Orthodoxy, he built a series of beautiful churches throughout the Hetmanate in the ornate style that some called the Mazepist or Cossack Baroque. His support of the Kyiv Academy made possible the construction of new buildings and increased enrollment to 2000 during his term in office. In addition, he endowed many other schools and printing presses in order that “Ukrainian youths might be able to indulge in any aptitude they had for learning.”

But while Kyivan students and churchmen composed effusive panegyrics in his honor, the peasants and common Cossacks had little good to say about Mazepa. His open, systematic support of the starshyna led to widespread discontent among the masses and the antielitist Zaporozhians. A potentially explosive situation developed in 1692 when Petro Ivanenko Petryk, a well-connected chancellerist, fled to the Sich where he began organizing an uprising against the hetman. Proclaiming that the time had come to rise up against the “blood-sucking” starshyna and to “tear away our fatherland Ukraine from Moscovite rule,” Petryk gained Tatar support for the formation of an independent Ukrainian Principality. However, when his Tatar allies turned against him and attacked the populace instead, Petryk’s popular support dwindled and the revolt petered out.

Task 2. Pronounce the words and learn their meanings:

neighboring [‘neibәriŋ]	foe [fou]
to succeed [sәk’si:d]	cancel [‘kænsl]
regime [rei’ i:m]	woeful [‘wouful]
fore [fo:]	to pursue [pә’sju:]
to envisage [in’visid ]	blood [bl/\d]

Task 3. Give Ukrainian equivalents for the following word combinations and find the sentences with them in the text:

Early modern Europe; to come to the fore; a common goal; to run counter to smth; to receive broad education.

Task 4. Give English equivalents for the following word combinations and find the sentences with them in the text:

Рядове козацтво; спільний ворог; тривала й затята боротьба; надавати можливість; проводити політику; заручатися підтримкою.

Task 5. Give synonyms for:

Uprising; strife to attain; to pursue; to contribute; populace; goal; polished.

Task 6. Give antonyms for:

To reinforce; native; free; failing; success; broad.

Task 7. Find in the text the words with negative meaning beginning with prefixes: un-; de-; in-; dis-; anti-.

Task 8. Explain word-building for:

Seemingly; westernmost; commonwealth; enlightened; gentleman-in-waiting.

Task 9. Test translation:

1. Коли помер Хмельницький, козакам підпорядковувалася (to control) більшість земель на правому та лівому берегах Дніпра.

2. Із часу встановлення над Козацькою Украйною зверхності Москви остання прагнула ввести пряме правління (direct control).

3. Зі свого боку козацька верхівка, ще за доби Руїни розчарована пропольською й про-турецькою політикою (the Polish and Ottoman options), більше не ставила під сумнів необхідність підтримувати зв'язок з Москвою.

Task 10. Make up 5 problematic questions to the text.

Task 11. Make the written translation:

During the period of the Ruin, the newly established Cossack polity in Ukraine experienced a catastrophic reversal of fortune. A powerful, aggressive force in the days of Khmelnytsky, it became in the twenty years following his death the helpless object of civil strife, foreign incursions, and partitions. Among the underlying causes for the setbacks suffered by Ukrainians during the Ruin were the following: (1) the internal contradictions between the elitist and egalitarian tendencies in Cossack society; (2) the intense external pressure applied on the incompletely formed Cossack society by Muscovy, Poland, and the Ottomans – Eastern Europe's three greatest powers; and (3) the Cossacks' lack of well-defined political goals and of adequate institutions to govern effectively all segments of Ukrainian society. As a result, Cossack Ukraine was able to preserve only a part of the gains it had achieved in 1648.

Task 1. Read the text to yourself: