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War & Peace Podnotes, A Study GuideAuthor: Sean Roman Language: en-us Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Mazepa!
Episode 5
Thursday, 11 June, 2026
After Oleksandr Usyk defeated Tyson Fury in late 2024 for the heavyweight championship, the Ukrainian boxer held up a sabre that once belonged to the 17th Century Ukrainian Cossack Hetman, Ivan Mapeza, who this episode is dedicated to. Usyk’s fortitude spoke to Ukraine’s resilience against a larger foe who initiated the type of vainglorious War Tolstoy condemns, with all of his soul, in W&P.Showcasing the weapon was a transcendent moment of Usyk bringing history to Life. This ability is something Tolstoy shares given who often he reaches into the past to make literary points. In W&P, for example, Tolstoy cites the Classical world and more recent influences. He skillfully adapts the famous quote from Voltaire: "If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The Frenchman also had a well-known correspondence with Catherine II, who some of W&P’s characters look to as illustrative of an idealized past. Yet part of her reputation involves keeping so many under serfdom. Voltaire urged her to release her serfs.Quite forgotten is how Voltaire contributed to Mazepa becoming an icon of the Romantic age. Victor Hugo, Lord Byron & Franz List, also elevated Mazepa to a status Tolstoy himself briefly references in his 1857 work “Youth.” Tolstoy wrote that if he reaches the age of 70, he envisions that a lovely young woman could love him as easily as she could love….a Mazeppa.Mazepa was born to a noble Cossack family near Kyiv. His father was a town otaman (leader) and his mother instilled in her son a deep devotion to God and Cossack culture. Mazepa received a European education and served at the Polish royal court. While quite young, he is said to have fallen in love with the wife of a Polish nobleman and to have been punished through being tied to a wild horse and carried back to the Land of the Cossacks, where he was adopted by one of their communities and rose to leader. He was Hetman from 1687 – 1709. Mazepa remains a key figure in Ukrainian-Russian relations given he decided to turn his allegiance to Sweden over the Czar during the Great Northern War. This conflict was fought between Sweden and an anti-Swedish coalition led by Moscow. This intermittent affair lasted about 20 years and involved control over Northern Europe and the Baltics. Sweden initially did well causing Peter to move his troops inward and draw Charles to invade.The conflict made its way to Mazepa’s Cossacks, whose status and allegiance greatly changed over the previous generation. Since 1654, many were uneasy allies with the Czar after withdrawing support for Poland. They now felt subject to excessive demands for troops to be used in projects like building canals and fortresses, where they could be worked to sickness and death and used as proverbial “cannon fodder”Thus, in 1708, Mazepa aligned with Charles, giving him 5,000 Cossacks. Mazepa felt he was choosing the lesser of two evils. Later that year, there was a race of belligerents to Mazepa’s home city of Baturyn. 20,000 Russian soldiers commanded by Alexander Menshikov overwhelmed this military arsenal and food store. When the city fell, there was this infamous slaughter of the civilian population. A number were tied to makeshift crosses or boards and floated down the local river.The next summer, on June 27, 1709, the armies faced off near Poltava, where Peter & Charles were on-hand directing troops. The Czar prevailed and this turn in history explains why Sweden never became a great power. This battle also had a major role in propelling Russia to their status. Yet that fire in the hearts of Ukrainians for independence was not extinguished over the next few centuries. Today, a Ukrainian state exists which exacts quite the toll on Russian aggression. Ukrainians revere Mazepa for making the best choice he could.Mazepa was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church and Czar Peter also ordered all portraits of the man destroyed. Similarly, Tolstoy, was separated from the Orthodox Church in 1901 through a Church Proclamation. Tolstoy’s writing on religion led to the church to declare him as a “false teacher” imbued with “intellectual pride.” This leads me to the second reference to I have found from Tolstoy on Mazppa, which is the book “Life of Tolstoy” by Tolstoy’s long-time English friend and translator, Alymer Maude. Maude describes how Tolstoy studied the life of Mazepa upon a friendly wager as a law student.
