The uprising of Mazepa followers, the coming of Swedes to Ukraine, and the destruction of Baturyn are the main subjects of the book The Invasion of the Hetman State by the Swedish Army in 1708 (St. Petersburg, 2008, 208 pp., in Russian) published by the Institute of Russian History attached to the Russian Academy of Sciences. It consists of three pieces of historical research, in which representatives of the official science try to reconstruct and assess the 1708 events on the basis of new discoveries, previously published works, and various sources. Naturally, their research arouses a keen interest in Ukraine now that we are marking the 300th anniversary of the Mazepians’ action and the downfall of what was then the Hetman state capital. It is the view of Russian historians. What is it like? In what does it differ from the standpoint of the Ukrainian academics who study that period?
Above all, the authors deserve a praise for finding a number of interesting sources which they have first introduced into scholarly use. For example, the supplement includes an anonymous report on the capture of Baturyn, which V. Artamonov found in the State Archives of Stockholm, and a passage in a book by Daniel Defoe on taking the city by storm, based on the notes of a British officer who served in Russia. K. Kochegarov came across an archival file on the taking of Ivan Oliynychenko, deputy commander of the Baturyn company, with 17 mercenary cavalrymen and infantrymen (serdiuks) into Muscovite captivity after Nov. 2, 1708 (pp. 134-135).
A large number of references to sources is in general a good complement to the already existing research findings on this topic. However, in spite of this positive, the historians’ studies are sometimes overloaded with old historiographic cliches. This especially applies to Artamonov’s work. For example, he notes that Ivan Mazepa “changed masters seven times and repeatedly betrayed the ‘Ukrainian idea’” (p. 16). He also calls it treason to study at “the Warsaw Jesuit Collegium” (in reality, the hetman studied at the Krakow academy - Author). Incidentally, it is very difficult to find a highly-educated figure in the late-17th-century Hetman state, who did not gain complete higher education at some popular educational institution of Western Europe. It is a tendentious approach to accuse them of betraying Orthodoxy. Nor is it fair to say that Mazepa’s termination of service with the Polish king or the capture of Hetman Petro Doroshenko’s influential senior officer by the Zaporozhians in 1674 were acts of treason. (It is only Stalin who called all Red Army POWs traitors.)
The decisive factor in the overthrow of Ukraine’s leader Ivan Samoilovych during the Kolomak coup in 1687 was not the “treason” of his senior officers but the position of Prince Golitsyn who wished the hetman to be deposed.
Artamonov goes on to say that in 1708, “seeing a wretched condition of the Swedish army, the hetman tried to commit treason for the seventh time and return again under Russia’s protection and give the head of Charles XII to Peter I in exchange for pardon under the guarantee of European states” (p. 19). The historian alleges that Chancellor G. Golovkin wrote his letters to the hetman in response to the Ukrainian leader’s proposal to “sell out” the king.
But he ignores the following note about this correspondence: “It is wrong that the chancellor wrote to Mazepa about treason.” That the Myrhorod Colonel D. Apostol did not carry any “treacherous” letters from the hetman to Peter I is also confirmed by the interrogation of senior officers as well as the confessional reminiscences of Colonel H. Halahan. Besides, there is an important testimony of the Lubny Colonel Dmytro Zelensky who said during an interrogation on July 14, 1709, that he had come to know about the death of his daughter in November 1708 and asked Mazepa to allow him to go to Lubny to attend the funeral. The Myrhorod colonel supported him and, by his request, Zelensky and he were allowed to go “down the road that led from Hadiach to Romny” (The Times of Hetman Ivan Mazepa in Documents, Kyiv, Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing House, 2007, p. 726). In other words, Apostol first went to help his comrade to organize the funeral. It is almost 70 kilometers straight from the Romny-Hadiach road. What is more, it was in a direction opposite to the tsar’s headquarters in Lebedyn. Zelensky furnishes no details about their trip but notes that the Myrhorod colonel “chose to leave” in the evening. In our opinion, he veered off the main road by about 12 kilometers to go home and see his family. Unfortunately, Apostol was not careful enough in the dusk and got into a trap in Sorochyntsi: a large Russian detachment was stationed there, from which it was impossible to run away. The unit commander, Prince G. Volkonsky, wrote to the tsar on November 21, “The Myrhorod colonel arrived at Sorochyntsi from Hadiach the next day after I had come... But I must admit I am not sure if he, the colonel, is loyal to us, and I am going to treat him the way Your Tsarist Majesty ordains” (Letters and Papers of Peter the Great, Moscow-Leningrad, Vol. 8, issue 2, p. 983). All that the aforesaid and other details of this “case” confirm is that tsarist officials devised provocative schemes to defame the hetman.
A part of Artamonov’s comments on the seizure of Baturyn are also tendentious and not based on the historical truth. For example, he concludes that all the Baturyn residents “remained on the Orthodox tsar’s side” (p. 52), and people “from the nearest locality” hid in the fortress “from the Swedes” (p. 44). Meanwhile, his co-author Kochegarov says just the opposite, “However, most of the besieged... took an openly hostile stand” (p. 126). Aleksandr Menshikov thus reported to the tsar on the aforesaid, “Both the senior officers and the commoners told us unanimously that they would not let us into the town without a new hetman... They seem to be totally ill-disposed to us and are saying they will hold out to the last man.” Moreover, residents of Luknov, Raihorodok, and Atiusha near Baturyn did not hide from the Swedes but gave Charles XII and Mazepa a bread-and-salt welcome (according to Daniel Krman’s diary). Those who gathered in the Baturyn fortress were the inhabitants of this locality, who were scared, first of all, by the rumors of a scorched earth policy. Besides, as of October 25, the Swedes were too far away for somebody to hide, together with household property, in a fortress, while Menshikov’s corps units had already begun taking positions near the Hetman state capital.
A Stockholm archival document on the capture of Baturyn (which has a lot of details mentioned in Menshikov’s message to the tsar dated Oct. 31) says that on Nov. 1, “at four in the afternoon, we deployed a battery in a suitable place and began to bombard the fortress.” Yet the Russian cannoneers failed to make a breach in it. Then we read in this document: “And as night came, we prepared fascines and ladders for an assault. And even though the ladders were too short, we still managed to enter the town with God’s help in spite of heavy enemy fire.” So the fortress was taken without the use of ladders. This only confirms the versions about penetration into the castle through a secret passage. Another confirmation is a report by the English envoy Charles Whitworth: “The Cossacks were taken aback: Colonel Koenigsek, fatally wounded at the very beginning of the action, had not yet managed to properly line up his men.” (Proceedings of the Russian Imperial Historical Society, St. Petersburg, 1886, Vol. 50, pp. 110-114).
Artamonov believes that “11-14 thousand killed [in Baturyn] is an exaggerated figure.” He cites here a 1726 description of Baturyn, which says 647 households were assigned to it (p. 73). But, in reality, this figure also included estates from Matiivka and the nearby hamlets. In fact only 444 of them can be considered as belonging to Baturyn, and only 428 were lived in. Besides, 17 of the latter were occupied by newcomers. So only 411 (very often incomplete) families survived the massacre and remained behind in their old Baturyn homes.
We believe there were an estimated 1,000-1,100 households in Baturyn in 1708 (incidentally, there are 1,135 of them now, which confirms the above-mentioned version because this number of estate-type housings within the limits of the former Hetman state capital reflects a true territorial capacity of this town). This means the massacre of Baturyn by the Russian troops on Nov. 2 left 600-700 housings ruined. Also noteworthy is the following detail. While there were 360 Cossack households in Baturyn according to the 1654 census, there were 460 of them in 1666 and only 105 in 1726. Therefore, the fire of Nov. 2, 1708, engulfed as many as 355 Cossack families.
The authors quote the diplomat Whitworth as saying that 6,000 people were killed. But he obviously meant losses among the populace, when he said, “The town of Baturyn was captured and burned down, and about 6,000 people of all ages and both sexes were executed.” The London Gazette wrote on Dec. 29, 1708, that Menshikov “ordered a 6,000-strong detachment to be cut to death” in Baturyn. According to The Daily Courant of January 3, 1709, “he ordered 5 to 7 thousand Cossacks to be cut to death after taking the town.” In other words, various sources assess the detachment’s strength and military losses as well as civilian casualties. For example, when Krman visited Baturyn, he learned that “about three hundred people escaped through castle walls.” Indeed, Kornii Semenenko said during an interrogation that “the four mercenary infantry regiments lacked 300 men” after November 2. Artamonov quotes a Swedish propaganda leaflet as saying that 1,000 people crossed the Seim and escaped (P. 69).
We estimate that the military detachment consisted of 7.5 to 8 thousand servicemen (four mercenary infantry regiments - up to 2,600 soldiers, the Baturyn company - up to 460 Cossacks, the Myrhorod, Lubny and Pryluky regiments - at least 4,500 Cossacks). Prince Boris Kurakin, who brought, under escort, Metropolitan Y. Krokovsky from Kyiv to the tsar in Hlukhiv in November 1708, noted in his memoirs that “by the good efforts of a commander (Menshikov - Author), a town was captured, where there were 10,000 warriors, out of which just a few survived, while the rest were killed during the assault” (“The Russian-Swedish War. Memoirs. 1700-1710 //Prince B. A. Kurakin’s Archive, Book 1, St. Petersburg, 1890, p. 315). The latter figure may be somewhat exaggerated, but if you take into account that townsmen and peasants were also considered defenders of Baturyn, then it looks realistic.
Many sources report on the relentless killing of women and children. Therefore, these losses should be added to the toll of 5,000-6,000 military Cossacks. We have no precise statistics about the killed populace, but their number was obviously not smaller than that of Cossacks and serdiuks (if we take into account that there were 600-700 fewer households in Baturyn after Nov. 2). In addition, the Hetman state capital provided shelter to residents of the nearby hamlets and villages. This means that, during the assault and the nighttime massacre, the attacking troops killed, drove to and drowned in the Seim at least 6,000 people of various ages and both genders.
Tellingly, the multivolume history of the 44th Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment says that it took part in “the sanguinary storming of Baturyn and extermination of its entire population” (History of His Imperial Highness’s, Heir Apparent’s,44th Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment. Written by V. Potto with assistance from Prince P. Dolgorukov, St. Petersburg, 1892, Vol. 1, pp. 36, 37).
Kochegarov devoted several pages to defending the idea that the destruction of Baturyn was not meant as “a deterrent for Ukraine” (p. 143). Then what about Peter I’s order to Menshikov: “...and Baturin should be burnt to the ground as a reminder to the traitors?” Is the destruction of the total populace and Cossacks of Mayachna, Nekhvoroshcha, Stary and Novy Kodak, Perevolochna not an undisguised policy of the Russian command but just “abuse of power by some military commanders” (p. 140)? Why then did Colonel P. Yakovlev order on May 14, 1709, after capturing the Sich, several Cossacks to be hanged on rafts and the rafts to be allowed to drift down the Dnieper? Was he amusing himself or frightening the other Ukrainians in this way?
Artamonov is clinging to the old historical stereotype: “An active guerrilla war broke out in the Hetman state against the Swedes and Mazepians almost immediately after the foreign invasion in spite of the ruination of Baturyn” (pp. 100-101). In reality, the Ukrainian “guerrillas” were the units of Kalmucks and Don Cossacks, as well as servicemen of the Okhtyrka, Kharkiv, Izium, and Sumy regiments, who were not subordinated to the hetman. Monographs on their history is ample proof of this. According to the documents of January-March 1709, the newly-elected Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky had no Ukrainian Cossacks under his command. He was accompanied by Russian infantrymen and dragoons. The Russian command relocated the Stary Dub Regiment, which he had commanded before the hetmanship, to Bykhiv.
Almost 40,000 Ukrainians took part in the struggle for Ukraine’s freedom in 1708-09. The Russian command cruelly punished the rebellious villages and towns for supporting the Mazepians in their bid to win freedom for their people. We must not forget this.
Serhii Pavlenko is editor of the journal Siverianski litopys
