Major reasons for Ukrainians’ failure to get independence

1. Absence of a common national idea. Domination of local interests among the upper-class Cossacks (starshyna).

2. Neglect of the peasants’ interests by the starshyna. The hetmans and starshyna wanted to fill the place of former Polish or Polonized szlachta and restore serfdom. The peasants’ interests were consistently ignored during various treaty negotiations, and one of the prices the hetmans paid for their alliance with the Tatars was a permit to take peasants into captivity (yasyr).

3. Absence of a strong monarchical tradition. That stimulated the permanent struggle for power between various blocks of the starshyna that made unions with foreign states.²⁶

4. Sharp social conflicts and anarchical moods of the masses. Ordinary Cossacks and peasants did not want to submit to any government.

5. Foreign states instigated conflicts between various groups of Ukrainians and prevented them from unification.

Achievements of the Great War

1. Ukraine got a limited statehood (autonomy) under Russia’s control that lasted more than 100 years.

2. The system of serfdom was liquidated and did not return until 1783 when Ukraine’s autonomy was abolished.

3. Religious oppression stopped.²⁷

4. Ukraine’s language and culture got a new impulse to develop for a relatively long time.

5. New political elite (starshyna) was formed.

6. National consciousness grew.

The Great War’s Lessons

1. The national idea which could unite the nation should be developed.

2. The elite should pay attention to the interests of the common people.

3. The elite should be unified and place national interests over the individual ones.

Hetman Ivan Mazepa and an attempt to separate Ukraine from Russia

Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709) was one of the most outstanding and controversial Ukrainian political leaders. Born in 1639 into a Ukrainian noble family he received an exceptionally good education. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium, then at the Jesuit Collegium in Warsaw, and then in Holland. Mazepa made an excellent career in the Polish capital. He served in the royal administration in Warsaw and was a friend of the monarch. In 1663 Mazepa suddenly left the royal court and started to serve in the administration of the Polish-ruled Cossacks in Right-Bank Ukraine. Historians offer different explanations for Mazepa’s decision to abandon his lucrative position in the royal administration and move to a far-away province. Ukrainian patriotic historians say that Mazepa decided to move to Ukraine because he missed his native land much. Polish historians explain Mazepa’s “downfall” from the capital to a province by a love affair. They say that Mazepa was a famous womanizer and once he was discovered in bed with the wife of his neighbor who tied a naked Mazepa to a horse and let it free.²⁸ This story became famous in the capital and Mazepa had to move to some distant province to start a new career.

Whatever the truth, Mazepa spent the next few years in the Cossack administration in the Polish-ruled Right-Bank Ukraine. In 1674 he was captured by the Zaporozhians and handed over to the Russian-ruled Cossacks of Left-Bank Ukraine. Since Mazepa had a gift to turn his enemies into friends, it doesn’t look surprising that Mazepa soon became a close friend of Left-Bank hetman Ivan Samoilovych. In 1687, when Moscow deposed Samoilovych, Mazepa managed to persuade Prince Golitsyn, the favorite of Tsarina Sophia, to promote him to hetmanship. When in 1689 Golitsyn and Sophia lost power in their struggle against Peter I, and Mazepa was supposed to lose hetmanship as Golitisyn’s protégé, he managed to convince Peter I that he was the tsar’s true friend. Peter even said later: “If only all my servants were like you I would be the happiest person in the world.” The tsar trusted Mazepa so much that Mazepa’s enemies noted that “the tsar would sooner disbelief an angel than Mazepa.”

Mazepa’s hetmanship lasted for almost 22 years. He supported the starshyna at the expense of the common people whose exploitation increased. Nor did he neglect his own interests. The hetman became one of the richest men in Europe. He also spent part of his money on religious and cultural institutions. Mazepa built and repaired several outstanding churches and financially supported schools, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and printing houses.

A serious trouble for Mazepa came in 1708 during the Northern War (1700-1725) between Russia and Sweden when the victorious Swedish king Charles XII entered Ukraine. The old hetman had to choose whether to remain loyal to the tsar or to side with the powerful Swedish army, which was considered the best in Europe at the time. Mazepa chose to be Charles’ ally. Several thousand Cossacks and many leading members of the starshyna followed him.²⁹ Most historians believe that according to the agreement with Swedish and Polish kings (Poland was Sweden’s ally), Ukraine was to be an autonomous principality in the Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian Commonwealth. This agreement resembled the Hadiach Treaty concluded by hetman Ivan Vyhovsky with the Polish king in 1658. Some historians (predominantly Ukrainian nationalists) disagree with the majority and say that Charles promised Mazepa to help create an independent state. Historians propose different versions because no documents about the agreement between Charles and Mazepa have survived.

Peter I was shocked by the news. He called Mazepa “the new Judas” and arranged a trial where a doll dressed as Mazepa was stripped of all decorations and hanged. Russian troops attacked Baturyn (the hetman capital) and massacred its entire population of 6,000 men, women, and children. The town was well fortified and could be defended for a long time, but a traitor, Ivan Nis, showed the Russian troops an underground passage to the town. Many people in Baturyn did not know about Mazepa’s decision to switch sides, but the Russians decided to use the massacre to frighten Ukrainians and to show them what would happen to those not loyal to the tsar. Heads of Baturyn’s defenders were put on stakes and placed in various towns in Ukraine. Rafts with the hanged corpses of Baturyn’s dwellers (including women and children) sailed down the river to terrify the population. The tsar also started repressions of families of those members of the starshyna who followed Mazepa.³⁰ In contrast, those who remained loyal to the tsar were given the property of those who followed Mazepa (the so-called stick-and-carrot method). These measures made many supporters of Mazepa reconsider their plans.

Moreover, the Orthodox Church under the tsar’s pressure started to excommunicate Mazepa’s supporters. That was an efficient measure since excommunicated people could not attend church, marry, baptize their children, burry their relatives in cemeteries and hope to get to paradise after death. Meanwhile, Peter I ordered the starshyna that had not followed Mazepa to elect a new hetman and, on 11 November 1708, they chose Ivan Skoropadsky.

Peter I issued a manifesto that read: “Our responsibility is to take care of the Little Russian³¹ territory. We are stretching our fatherly hand over it. We will save Little Russia from slavery and ruins… That is why we ask all of the Cossack officers and colonels not to listen to the treacherous hetman.”

Frightened by the terrible example of the Baturyn massacre and terror, much of Ukrainian populace refused to join Mazepa. Religious factor also played an important role. The Swedes were Protestants and many Orthodox believers considered them heretics, or devil’s servants. Mazepa was not popular with the common people who did not trust him. One of the hetman’s biggest faults was his indifference to the living conditions of the common people. No wonder they did not support him in the war. Surprisingly, the Zaporozhians, who were often the hetman’s enemies during his reign, decided to support him against Russia. They regarded Mazepa as a lesser evil compared to the tsar.

On 28 June 1709, the Battle of Poltava – one of the most decisive battles in European history – took place. In the battle Peter I defeated Charles XII. As a result, Russia became one of the great powers of Europe. The defeated Mazepa and Charles XII escaped to Moldavia which was under Turkish control. Soon a depressed 70-year-old Mazepa died near the town of Bender on 21 September 1709. Charles XII arranged a solemn funeral for his ally.

Russian and Ukrainian historians assess Mazepa’s actions during the Russo-Swedish war differently. Russian historians consider him a traitor and Ukrainian historians a hero.³² For many Ukrainians Mazepa became a symbol of the Ukrainian independence movement. Most Ukrainian historians justify Mazepa’s secret agreement with the Swedes. They say that the major priority of politicians and diplomats are the interests of their country. And it looks quite natural that Mazepa preferred more powerful Sweden to Russia. According to international practice, Ukraine’s actions also look natural.³³ Mazepa’s personality was reflected in the works of such famous art figures as Lord Byron, P. Marime, V. Hugo, A. Pushkin, P. Tchaikovsky, F. Liszt, and others.

About 3,000 Cossacks and a significant part of the starshyna escaped to Turkish territories with Mazepa. After his death the Cossacks elected a new hetman – Pylyp Orlyk. The starhsyna wanted to limit the hetman’s powers as much as possible and thus to secure their own rights. Their desires were reflected in the so-called Pylyp Orlyk Constitution (1710) – an agreement between the hetman and the starshyna. The Constitution was noted for its democratic character as it limited the rights of a hetman and guaranteed the rights of the Cossack starshyna. The document was mostly based on Polish political traditions which were widely known among the Cossack starshyna. Similar to Polish models, the power of monarch (hetman) was limited by law. Like in Poland, monarchs (hetmans) were to be elected and controlled by the upper class (starshyna). Hetmans could not judge the starshyna; it could be done by the general court (that meant independence of the judicial branch of power). Hetmans could not appoint their protégées to the highest state positions; all important positions were filled through elections. Hetman’s powers were limited by a kind of parliament – General Council, made up mostly of representatives of the starshyna and a very limited numbers of Cossacks. In contrast to Polish practices, which advocated religious tolerance, Orlyk’s Constitution banned all religions in Ukraine except for the Orthodoxy. The Constitution also had an important social article which envisaged the protection of Cossacks’ widows and orphans. As to Ukrainian territories, they were limited to Right-Bank and Left-Bank Ukraine, and thus did not include the lands of Western Ukraine. Despite its numerous advantages the Constitution did not take into account the interests of other groups of Ukrainians – peasants, townspeople, clergy, and szlachta. It was designed primarily to the benefit of the Cossacks and, especially, the Cossack starshyna. That is why some historians say that Pylyp Olryk’s document cannot be called a constitution, but rather a typical agreement between the hetman and the starhsyna. Several similar agreements were concluded between hetmans and the starshyna before 1710.

In spite of the fact that the Constitution (or the Pylyp Orlyk agreement) was never implemented, it showed that the Cossacks’ political principles were much more democratic than those of Ukraine’s neighbors – the Russian and the Ottoman empires. Orlyk’s document clearly revealed that Ukrainians valued political rights and freedoms much more than Russians and Turks. It also showed that Cossacks definitely chose a European way of political development.

In 1710 Orlyk’s Cossacks together with Tatar allies made a raid on Ukraine but were defeated. In the following years until his death in 1742 Orlyk tried to form coalitions of European states against Russia and liberate Ukraine. Peter I promised for the head of Orlyk as much gold as it weighed.