Figuratively speaking, history is memory boundlessly unfurled. So those who have suffered a temporary or final, disastrous, defeat on the historical battlefield and are keenly aware of this boundlessness, naturally strive to explain (either to their descendants or to Eternity) the causes of their defeat and discover (perhaps, above all, for their own sake) the root of the evil that the defeat entailed. Naturally, this desire to analytically “replay” the completed chess game of history, which is absolutely normal per se, very often hides other motives: not only to discover the historical truth or part of it but also to embellish one’s own image in the future gallery of historical portraits; if not to whitewash oneself then at least to explain one’s true stance.
These are the kinds of thoughts that occur when you read a fascinating, even unique, Ukrainian historical document of the tragic post-Poltava era — a letter written by Pylyp Orlyk, the famous hetman in exile, who was the creator of Europe’s first democratic constitution, to Stefan Yavorsky, Metropolitan of Riazan, the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne and head of the Holy Synod, i.e., officially the supreme hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1721. While the figure of Orlyk, a noble, highly-educated, and genuinely devoted patriot of Ukraine, has been highlighted to a certain extent in our historiography (although many aspects remain unexplored), the personality of the philosopher Stefan Yavorsky, who was a noted religious and sociopolitical figure of Ukraine and Russia in the late 17th — early 18th centuries and a prominent educator, is far less known. In order to understand the subject of the correspondence exchanged between these two gifted, yet markedly different, people, we must familiarize ourselves briefly with Yavorsky’s life story.
We see a dramatic and contradictory destiny set against the backdrop of a tragic and crucial epoch, which destroyed human souls and essentially devalued human life. At the same time this era offered virtually unheard-of opportunities for carving out a career. Yavorsky was an outstanding scholar and a professor at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, who had written celebrated works on theology, the history of philosophy, logic, and psychology (Introduction to Logic, or, In Simpler Terms, Dialectics; The Contest of Peripatetics; The Stone of Faith, et al.). A close personal friend and follower of Ivan Mazepa in the first years of his hetmanship, Yavorsky received an order in 1700 from Tsar Peter I, who held his talents in high esteem, to leave Kyiv and take over as Metropolitan of Riazan and Murom. It was practically impossible to refuse. Subsequently, the metropolitan attained the highest positions in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Yavorsky made some tragic decisions, some of which were unpardonable, in the view of many of our contemporaries: in 1708, for example, the tsar sent a secret instruction on behalf of the patriarch’s locum tenens to all dioceses and parishes. One of its clauses allowed for secrets of the confessional to be divulged in the interests of political investigation. It was Yavorsky who conducted the ceremony of proclaiming the church’s anathema on his former friend Mazepa in 1708 at the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral. But it is equally true that Yavorsky later helped some of Mazepa’s followers who had returned to their homeland.
Hetman Pylyp Orlyk wrote his letter to Yavorsky in July 1721, when the latter was gravely ill and destined to live just one more year. This document was first published in the famous St. Petersburg-based journal Osnova in 1862. There are grounds to believe that it was prepared for print by Mykola Kostomarov. Even today it is the fullest account of what brought about the 1705-1708 events in Ukraine and what caused Mazepa to side with the Swedish king, Carl XII. It should be noted that by the time Orlyk wrote this letter in Poland, he had been betrayed many times by his unreliable allies, the Turks and Tatars, and was no longer confident in the success of his cause. (For instance, in the spring of 1711, when the coveted goal — the liberation of Ukraine, or at least the Right Bank, from the Muscovite yoke — seemed as close as never before, the Tatars, who supported Orlyk, began looting in Podillia and the Dnipro valley, which led to a major disaster.) Historians are still arguing whether the reason why Orlyk wrote the letter was to secure the tsar’s pardon or to explain his personal role in the conspiracy to his old benefactor, Yavorsky. One way or another, although this unique document undoubtedly needs critical analysis, we should remember that Orlyk continued fighting for Ukraine’s independence by diplomatic means until his death in 1742.
What is the letter about? The main thing that prompted Mazepa to initiate secret talks initially with representatives of the Polish King Stanislaus Leszczynski, who was supported by the Swedes, and then with Carl XII himself, was Tsar Peter’s unwillingness to meet his commitments to defend Ukraine from external enemies in wartime. As Orlyk stresses this in no uncertain terms, a question arises: was it not naive to mention such things in a letter ostensibly written in order to obtain a pardon?
This is what the exiled hetman recounts. In 1708, when Orlyk, who was General Chancellor at the time, began suggesting to Mazepa various ways to deal with the current situation (the Swedish army was marching on Ukraine), the hetman replied, somewhat irritably, “His Tsarist Majesty will be unable to defend not only Ukraine but also his own state from the Swedish onslaught. I have already informed His Majesty in Zhokva that if the king of Sweden’s and Stanislaus’s troops separate and the former will march on the Muscovite state and the latter on Ukraine, our army, weakened and ruined by frequent expeditions and wars, will be unable to defend itself against the Swedish and Polish troops. So I have requested His Majesty in Zhokva to kindly provide 10,000 of his regular troops in our support, but His Majesty refused to do so and said, ‘I cannot give you not only 10,000 but even ten people. Defend yourselves as best as you can’.”
So Peter I violated the unwritten rule that the suzerain, i.e., he, must defend his vassal (Mazepa) who had sworn allegiance to him. Under European law (for example, the jus resistendi principle of which Mazepa was very well aware), the hetman had every cause in this situation, when his rights were being infringed, to consider himself free of all commitments and even resort to armed resistance. This is the crux of the myth of the hetman’s alleged “treason.”
Of course, we must make allowance for the hetman’s cautious nature, which even included some Machiavellian elements (he was very familiar with the great Italian’s works). Orlyk recounts in detail how Mazepa gradually, calculatedly, as though stepping on brittle ice, contemplated switching allegiances. In the fall of 1705, when the hetman and his army were stationed in Zamostia (Poland), King Carl XII’s protОgО Stanislaus Leszczynski sent the priest, Franciszek Wolski, to him with a proposal for a secret alliance against Peter I. Mazepa ordered Stanislaus’s messenger to be tortured and then handed him (and his secret proposals) over to the tsarist army command in token of his unswerving loyalty to Peter.
Yet, as Orlyk writes further, the Poles’ next attempt to “throw a bridge” to Mazepa was far more successful. The “mediation” of Princess Anna Dolska, who was a first-class intriguer, also played a major role. Preliminary contacts with Carl XII then ensued. In fact, Mazepa had no other way out: the hetman had every reason to believe that, should Peter win, he would restrict his power or even liquidate him (the one tipped for his office was the cruel and sinister Aleksandr Menshikov whose name Ukraine would forever curse for the atrocious sacking of Baturyn in November 1708, when 6,000 men, women, and children were massacred). However, the hetman was also aware of Carl’s great chances of victory. Therefore, the hetman wanted to secure a safe future for himself in any possible scenario. Interestingly, he kept Peter informed “in advance” about all the offers to collaborate made by the enemies in order to strengthen the tsar’s trust and bluntly warned Orlyk: ‘Don’t dare disclose my intentions, for I am a rich man and the tsar holds me in high esteem; he will not believe your denunciations, and you will die.’
Yet, Mazepa, one of Europe’s wealthiest men (even Adam Smith mentions this in one of his works), made the following mistake: no matter how closely a secret plot may be guarded, it is not enough to liberate Ukraine unless you have managed to win over the broad masses of Cossacks and town dwellers. Moreover, the well-organized secrecy in fact became a negative, even fatal, factor because the common people, who clearly remembered the hetman’s 20 years of loyal service to the tsar, were, so to speak, taken unawares and refused to believe him. They were also greatly intimidated by Peter’s reprisals. This is obviously the chief lesson that today’s historians and politicians can draw from Orlyk’s letter.
