WHO WAS MAZEPPA?

Otago Witness, Issue 1847, 15 April 1887, Page 31

WHO WAS MAZEPPA?

A portrait of Mazeppa, painted from life, has been discovered at Kief, in Southern Russia, and is bejng engrayed'by the' Russian . academician, Deme'tri Itpwkoski; It will surprise nearly everyone r wh6 hears .that Mazeppa was a real,' living m^th, who, could sit for his portrait— h§ seams' so like a purely mythical being/like Belleroption or like one of the Amazons. He is associated in our minds altogether wjth,the,.yery unreal, world of the circus ring, with bare-backed riders and ; trained horses. ' Indeed,'he may be said to resemble a centaur, for h.e' and the fiery steed can hardly be though V of apart. Yet he was a real man, and cut quite a figure in one* part of the world 200 years ago. This portrait probably represents, ' not a swaggering youth with curly locks and budding moustache, but a grizzled warrior in ftussian uniform and decorated, with military orders. John Stephanovitch Mazeppa was a Cossack, who made successful war upon the savage Tartars who' "desolated- Southern Russia, driving them, back to the Caspian. This so recommended him to Peter the Great that he invited the Cossack to his court and covered with honours and gifts. But, when Peter sent him against the invading Swedes under Charles XII', he betrayed the Russians and went over with his followers to the enemy. Peter defeated them both and drove them into Turkish territory, where, fearing to fall ihtp the. hands of his former relentless master, Mazeppa killed himself. He had before this hidden in caverns in the hills around Kief, all the treasures which he had amassed in his wars and through gifts from those he bad served.. The portrait now discovered was probably hidden at this time, The incident by which alone we know him actually did occur. He was, as we have said, by birth a Cossack, but when very young he was sent to serve as a page in the court of the Polish King. There his beauty and bravery won him great favour, especially from the ladies. With one of them, the wife of a certain noble, he was suspected of too great an intimacy, and the jealous husband, in revenge, ordered him to be bound naked to the back of a wild horse that had never been ridden. The horse was a Tartar horse, from the Steppes, and, when loosed rushed madly back to his native country with the unwilling rider bound to his' back ' The Cossacks received the unhappy -youth, when nearly dead from exhaustion, and he grew up among them, remarkable for strength and bravery. Byron got • his story out of Voltaire's "Life of Charles XII," and worked it up into -• his dashing and attractive poem. A story so dramatic was at once seized upon for adap. tation to the stage, and it was presented in America as early as 1825 by an Englishman named Hunter. He also was a very handsome man and made a great stir. The picture of Mazeppa bound to the horse's back, which everybody knows so well, was painted by Horace Vernet,' one of the greatest, of French artists. Vernet, of course, got his inspiration from Byron, to whom we all owe whatever knowledge we may have of the brilliant Cossack rider and soldier. Mazeppa's real motives for betting Peter are not certainly known. The Poles, who look upon him as a hero, have always maintained that he had in view the welfare of the Polish nation, and they point to the fact that he stipulated with the Swedish King for the independence of Poland. If this be the truth it gives a certain dignity to the act, but the Russian story, that he was led to go over to the' enemy by the blandishments of a Polish princess, seems more probable. This would better correspond with the rest of his adventurous career. Few men, however who are simply adventurers have their actions recorded by a historian like Voltaire, and celebrated by a poet' like* Byron, and painted by a master like Vernet, and- get to be known by all schoolboys who speak the English language, not from any act of daring, but from one of suffering merely. <