The fertile Ukraine, rich in cattle and grain, offered Charles what the Swedish army needed: refuge, rest and potential reinforcement. Here, if Charles could persuade the Cossack Hetman Mazeppa to join his cause, the Swedish army could winter in security. Here he might obtain thousands of Cossack horsemen who would make up the losses of the year's campaign. And Baturin, Mazeppa's capital, was stocked with gunpowder. For all these reasons, on the day after news of Lewenhaupt's defeat had been received, Charles sent an express courier to Mazeppa to ask for winter quarters. It was taken for granted that Mazeppa would reply positively: For many months, Mazeppa had been actively and secretly negotiating a Swedish alliance.
To speed his crossing of the Desna into the Ukraine, Charles dispatched an advance guard under Kreutz to secure the town of Novgorod-Seversky and its bridge across the river. Kreutz marched day and night, arriving on October 22, but he was too late: The Russians had been there first and the bridge was destroyed. Now, for the first time, the Russians were gaining the upper hand. They had excellent reconnaisance; they seemed to know which way the Swedes would move, and themselves got there first. It was worrying, even ominous. But still the Swedes marched hopefully and confidently toward, in Jefferyes' words, "a country flowing with milk and honey," the homeland of General Ivan Mazeppa, Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
Through the spring and summer of 1708, the Cossack Hetman had struggled with a desperate dilemma. A subject of Tsar Peter, caught geographically between forces stronger than his own—the Russians to the north, the Poles to the west, the Tatars to the south—Mazeppa still dreamed the old Cossack dream of independence. He was anxious to insure against all risks and, at the same time, to prepare for all opportunities. And now the advance of the Swedish army and the almost certain defeat of Tsar Peter made the opportunities seem greater than the risks. For the famous Cossack chief, renowned for his exploits in love and war, who had survived for twenty-one years as leader of his tumultuous people, it was the supreme moment of decision. Now sixty-three and stricken with gout, Mazeppa was shrewd, calculating and captivatingly charming. His life had spanned an era of Cossack history.
Ivan Stepanovich Mazeppa was born in 1645, the son of a petty nobleman in Podolia, a part of the vast Ukrainian borderland west of the Dnieper then held by the Poles. Podolia's Polish masters were Catholic; and Mazeppa's family were Orthodox; one defiant relative had been roasted alive by the Poles half a century before Mazeppa's birth. But the path of advancement in those years lay through Catholic schools and the Polish court, and Mazeppa was enrolled at a Jesuit academy and learned to speak fluent Latin, although he never gave up his Orthodox religion. A handsome and intelligent boy, he was accepted as a page at the court of King Jan Casimir of Poland, where he was subjected to frequent jibes and taunts by his Catholic comrades because of his religion and place of birth. One day, stung to fury, Mazeppa drew his sword. This act inside the palace was a capital offense, but the King moderated the punishment because of the circumstances. Mazeppa was exiled to his mother's estate in Volynia, where, one story goes, he attracted the eye of a local nobleman's wife and subsequently was caught in flagrante by the outraged husband. Stipped naked, tarred and feathered, the intruder was bound to his horse, which was then sent galloping through woods and thickets with its helpless burden on its back. When the animal finally brought its master home, the young man was so cut and torn that he was scarcely recognizable. Unable to return to Polish society after this humiliation, Mazeppa took refuge among the Cossacks of his homeland, the classical haven for society's outcasts.
The Cossacks' hetman was quick to recognize the young man's talents—he was clever and brave, fluent in Polish, Latin, Russian and German—and he became an assistant to the hetman and rose to the position of secretary general of the Cossacks. While still young, he served as emmissary from the Cossacks who lived on the Polish side of the Dnieper to those on the Russian side, and also made a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. On the way home, he was captured by the Zaporozhsky Cossacks, who were loyal to Tsar Alexis, and sent to Moscow for questioning. His interrogator was none other than Artemon Matveev, the chief minister and friend of Alexis, who was impressed by Mazeppa, especially when the young man declared himself favorable to Russian interests. Released and honored by an audience with the Tsar, Mazeppa was sent back to the Ukraine. During the rule of Sophia, Mazeppa ingratiated himself with Prince Vasily Golitsyn, who was as captivated by Mazeppa's charm and education as Matveev had been. In 1687, when the Cossack hetman Samoyovich was deposed as one of the scapegoats for Golitsyn's unsuccessful march to the Crimea, Golitsyn chose Mazeppa as his successor.
In the main, his years of leadership had been successful. He understood and followed faithfully the single most important precept necessary to maintain his position: always to be on the side of the ruling party in Moscow. Two years after his own appointment, during the final trial of strength between Sophia and Peter, he managed to tread the line with superb timing and luck. He had set out for Moscow in June 1689 to declare his support for the Princess and Golitsyn, but, arriving at exactly the moment when it became clear that Peter was going to win, Mazeppa hurried to the Troitsky Monastery to declare his fealty to the youthful Tzar. Although the Cossack chief was one of the last important figures in the realm to side with Peter, he quickly ingratiated himself. The charm of Mazeppa's manner soon inspired Peter with an affection for, and confidence in, the lively and amusing Hetman which remained unshaken despite rumors and accusations against him. In Moscow, Mazeppa ranked with the highest in Peter's court. He was one of the first to receive the coveted Order of St. Andrew, and Peter had arranged for Augustus to award him the Polish Order of the White Eagle.
Despite the confidence shown in him by Peter, the official position of hetman was far from easy. Tom between resentment against and dependence on Moscow, the Cossacks were also split between a new class of landowners, which had scrambled into the positions left behind by the departing Poles, and the simple rank and file, who disliked the newly successful upper class. They dreamed of the free-loving Cossack bands such as the Zaporozhe, who lived the old, true Cossack life below the Dnieper rapids and whose example was a constant stimulant to restlessness. The landowners and townspeople of the Ukraine, however, were uneasy with this lingering frontier spirit and wanted more stable conditions so that they could trade and prosper in peace. Just as the simpler Cossacks grumbled that the Hetman now was only Moscow's puppet and yielded too much to the Tsar, so the Cossack townspeople and upper classes now looked to him and the Tsar to control this restlessness and provide order and stability.
With his Polish education and manners, Mazeppa was inclined to favor the landowning class of which he himself was a member, and over the years he had successfully balanced and blended its interests with Moscow's and his own. As hetman, he had amassed great wealth and authority—he even dreamed of making the office of hetman hereditary rather than elective—but in his heart Mazeppa was ambivalent. Allegiance to the Tsar and maintenance of Moscow's confidence and support was the cornerstone of his policy, but his secret desire was that of his people: Ukrainian independence. The union with Russia had laid heavy burdens on the Ukraine, especially during the long years of war. Taxes had increased, new fortifications had been built and large Russian garrisons had been stationed on Cossack territory. Food and wagons were arbitrarily requisitioned and moved in constant convoys across the steppe to Russian strongholds. The Tsar's officers took recruits, willing or not, from the villages. There were constant protests that the Russians were pillaging Cossack homes, stealing provisions, raping wives and daughters. Mazeppa was blamed by his people for such outrages and for all of Moscow's increasing demands and encroachments. He hated his puppet role, was bitter and jealous of the men around Peter and especially feared Menshikov, who had humiliated him on more than one occasion and who, it was rumored, wanted to become hetman himself. Moreover, Mazeppa, who in cultural and religious matters was an arch-conservative and strictly Orthodox, was frightened and dismayed by Peter's Westernizing policies.