This right is ours

The unusual life of Hetman Ivan Mazepa and his long-lasting, effective activity for the good of Ukraine were conducive to the firm conviction among patriotically minded Ukrainians that this colossal figure deserves to be immortalized in a worthy way. Understandably enough, a monument to the “traitor of the Ukrainian nation and its everlasting friendship with the brotherly Russian people,” as Mazepa was branded in Soviet Ukraine, was impossible due to propagandist and ideological reasons. Meanwhile, in the Ukrainian diaspora this idea failed to secure due financial support for a long time. After Ukraine regained its independent status, tribute to Hetman Mazepa became an urgent issue, but a problem of a different kind surfaced, viz., the absence of an established iconographic tradition in portraying the hetman, and it took time to resolve this problem.

There have been three main lines of research. On the one hand, in their works contemporary Ukrainian painters have attempted to return to the legendary-romantic interpretation of Mazepa’s image, a characteristic feature of the 19th century art. On the other hand, the study of Ukraine’s history during Mazepa’s rule, an analysis of scholarly literature on the hetman’s iconography, and painters’ creative works have yielded a series of Mazepa portraits which reflect the perception of contemporary portrait artists. Finally, there have been several attempts to represent the hetman through the medium of sculpture, not only pictures or graphics. The sculptural explorations have proved extremely important because they have made it possible, at last, to create a monument to the great hetman.

The first step in this direction were two memorial signs installed close to the center of the former hetman’s capital Baturyn in 1991. In the small village of Honcharivka, where the hetman’s house used to be, they set up a granite slab with an inscription which reminds of the historical value of this place. Opposite the stone, on a man-made burial mound, a commemorative cross was erected to signify the tragedy of Baturyn and all those who died on Nov. 3, 1708. These signs testified to the fact that Ukrainian people kept alive the memory of seeing their leaders, future, and longing for freedom being crushed. This memory survived the political and ideological pressure of those long periods when Ukraine was governed by foreign countries, rather than having a state of its own. However, this memory survived only in a part of our society. The rest tried to resist political changes in every possible way, not stopping short of waging a war against monuments. Vandalism against the newly erected monuments must have been a reaction to the demand that Soviet monuments be demolished, a national ideology formulated, and the most part of national history and the nation’s prominent figures restored from oblivion. This misfortune befell also the signs set up in Honcharivka. The vandals did not dare to touch the cross but had enough nerve to shoot from close up at the stone bearing Mazepa’s image. It preserves the bullet marks to this day.

When a full-fledged Mazepa monument was erected in the USA, this provided a certain ideological and moral support to the events in Ukraine in the early 1990s. For many in the Ukrainian diaspora the hetman was the quintessence of the long-lasting struggle for Ukraine’s independence. Therefore, the news of Ukraine regaining its sovereignty created favorable conditions for honoring the person who effectively started this struggle. The monument was authored by the sculptor Serhii Lytvynenko and sponsored by the Ukrainian National Association in the USA.

The baton was picked up by the citizens of the newly proclaimed independent state of Ukraine who also sought to pay tribute to the hetman and emphasize his role in the history of the Ukrainian state. The first monument to Mazepa was designed by the sculptor Yeven Horban and set up thanks to the persistence and financial help of the famous Ukrainian donor Marian Kots (USA) in the village of Mazepyntsi (Bila Tserkva raion, Kyiv oblast) where the hetman was born. On Nov. 6, 1994 in the presence of our top officials, foreign ambassadors, and representatives of ceratain political parties and NGOs, the monument was solemnly unveiled. This event was imbued with significance for the entire Ukrainian society because the ceremony was backed up by the official acknowledgment of Hetman Mazepa as a prominent historical figure and by the awareness of his contribution to Ukraine’s history and cultural development.

No less important and solemn was the May 5, 1004 unveiling of the hetman’s monument in the Romanian city of Galati where he died, crushed by the burdened of his years and illness and the thought that his ideas and aspirations had failed. The sculptor Gheorghe Tanase was commissioned by Romania’s Ministry of Culture and Arts to make the monument. Unlike the busts set up in the U.S. and Ukraine, this was a half-length statue. The hetman’s figure seemed to emerge from the rock which served as its pedestal and bore a bilingual carving: “Ivan Mazepa/ Hetman of Ukraine/ 03.20.1639-10.10.1709.” The area around the monument was turned into a park which opened on Nov. 26, 2004 under the name Freedom Park. This designation is consonant with Mazepa’s creed: all his life he strove for freedom and independence for his own people.

What sets the work of the Romanian sculptor apart from the previous monuments is an original interpretation of the Mazepa’s image. For Tanase he is a person pursuing great, ambitious plans; he is full of vigor and capable of passionate, noble impulses. The sculptor dressed the hetman in the national Romanian costume to add local color to the statue. The monument overlooks the central square near the entrance to the park, attracting the attention of the city- dwellers and reminding the city’s guests about one of the most famous Ukrainian statesmen whose life’s journey ended on Romanian soil.

At first sight, the decision to erect a monument to Mazepa in one of the raion centers in Eastern Ukraine looked somewhat surprising. Initiated by Oleksii Shynkarenko, a history teacher and regional ethnographer, this event was to be linked to the 320th anniversary of Mazepa’s election as hetman. His accession to hetmanship took place on July 25, 1687 at a military council near the Kolomak river, in a place which is now part of Kharkiv oblast. In an effort to commemorate the event, the local authorities in the settlement of Kolomak passed a decision to install first a memorial sign (in 2006) and then a monument. The unveiling was scheduled precisely for July 25, 2007 and could have become a landmark event for the local population and the entire region. Unfortunately, it did not, due to financial difficulties.

Rather than remaining an empty declaration, the right of people to decide precisely which historical events and figures deserve public homage may eventually become real. In addition we need to note that the first two Mazepa plaques and monuments were effectively installed spontaneously and were a reaction to the political events of the time, whereas the monument in the Danube port city Galati and the idea of building another one in Kharkiv were a calculated, thoughtful step backed up by a conscious public stance. For the residents of Galati and Kharkiv, quite understandably, it is more about commemorating the events associated with their “small Fatherland,” i.e., their city or region, rather than a matter of comprehending the role played by the Ukrainian hetman in Ukraine’s and world history.

In view of this it is hard to understand the position of the Kyiv city authorities and mayor’s office who, in all years after independence, failed to pass a resolution to commemorate Mazepa in our country’s capital. Unfortunately, such ignorance casts a shadow on our government and local authorities. This is also a good indicator of the true attitude of our authorities toward society and its life, as well as to such notions as respect for the past, care for the future, nurturing patriotic feelings, and national dignity.

Such indifference must spur the public to be more proactive and even more so because the design for the monument has already been implemented in several noteworthy works. One of the them is a sculpture by Mark Halenko and Yuliia Oliinyk. It is designed to embody all of his best human traits and most ambitious political plans, a battle of feelings and impulses, and Mazepa’s understanding of the essence of his time and his own historical role.

Location is important for this monument. It would be best placed on the banks of the Dnipro, not far from the Kyivan Cave Monastery of which Mazepa took constant care while he was hetman. Another appropriate place would be on the territory belonging to the Museum of Hetmanship located in the so- called Mazepa Building in Podil near the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, which is another one of his sponsorship projects.

To sum up, several Mazepa monuments in three countries of the world in the last 16 years is already a positive tendency. Meanwhile, the quiet ignorance of the need to set up a similar monument in Kyiv may indicate that the state policy and national ideology have been reprioritized. Alternatively, this may mean that the authorities merely declare vigilance for national interests while in reality failing to meet the challenges of the present times. Time has come for the Kyiv community, historians, and artists to speak up for the monument rather than wait for the decision to be passed down to above. The right to pay tribute to the memory of our leading historical figures is ours.