Poltava (poem)
Encyclopedia
Poltava is a narrative poem
written by Aleksandr Pushkin
in 1828-9 about the involvement of the Ukrainian
Cossack
hetman Ivan Mazepa
in the Battle of Poltava
between Sweden and Russia. The poem intertwines a love plot between Mazepa and Maria with an account of Mazepa's betrayal of Tsar Peter I
and Peter's victory in battle. Although often considered one of Pushkin's lesser works and critiqued as unabashedly imperialistic, a number of critics have praised the poem for its depth of characterization and its ability to synthesize disparate genres. The poem inspired Tchaikovsky's 1884 opera Mazeppa
.
, which depicts the Hetman as a Romantic hero, exiled from Poland for conducting a love affair with a married noblewoman. Pushkin follows this epigraph with a passionate dedication to an anonymous loved one. The first edition carried a foreword [предисловие] in which Puskhin objects to the heroic presentation of Ivan Mazepa in works by other writers and his intention to correct them by depicting him as he actually was.
The poem itself is divided into three parts - or "songs" [песни] - of roughly equal length. Part I opens by setting the scene in the estate of the nobleman Vasily Kochubei
, and describing the beauty of his daughter Maria. Maria has fallen in love with the Hetman Mazepa, who is her godfather
and much older than she is: therefore they keep their love secret. However, they are quickly discovered, and are forced to elope, which brings shame on the family and leaves their parents scared.
The narrative then switches to a description of the political trouble in Ukraine
: there is a significant support for a break with Russia; Mazepa is supporting the rebels. Kochubei vows to take revenge upon Mazepa for breaking the bond of trust between them and eloping with Maria. He has remained loyal to the Tsar sends a messenger to denounce the Hetman to the Tsar.
Most of Part II is written as a dramatic dialogue in the tradition of closet drama
. Mazepa is focused on his plans to rebel against the Tsar, and Maria is worried that he no longer loves her. He asks her to promise that she would always choose him over her father, but declines to tell her of his betrayal of the Tsar.
Meanwhile, Kochubei has been captured by the rebels and he is tortured and interrogated by Orlik. The rebels demand to know where he has hidden his money but he declines to reply. Maria's mother comes to find her and help her save her father; but they arrive too late: Kochubei has already been executed. Mazepa is tormented on discovering Maria's disappearance and sets out to look for her.
Part III switches back to a single third-person narrator. Mazepa's mental and physical health is failing and he falls for the last rites, while King Charles XII of Sweden
is preparing for battle against Peter I. Peter I and his cavalry arrive and defeat the Swedish army and the Ukrainian rebels. Mazepa does little fighting and flees the battlefield as fast as he can. He finds he can no longer sleep and sees Maria again, although the poem leaves it unclear whether this is a hallucination or an actual event. In a memorable passage, Maria no longer recognizes him, because she sees him for what he truly is: a ridiculous and horrible old man.
The poem closes with a reflection by the narrator after one hundred years, claiming that while Mazepa is now forgotten, Peter I, the hero of the battle, has created an enormous monument for himself. The narrator tells us that he does not know the fate of Maria.
.
It is true that Kochubei denounced Mazepa to Peter in 1706 for conspiring against him with Charles XII of Sweden, but it is unclear if Kochubei had evidence of this alleged conspiracy. However, in 1708 Charles and Mazepa did sign a secret treaty, and they did fight against Peter I in the battle of Poltava.
As Pushkin's Foreword makes clear, he had read a number of sympathetic treatments of Ivan Mazepa and was seeking to respond to them. He was responding both to Byron's Mazeppa and to a poem Voinarovskii by the Russian Decembrist poet Konstantin Ryleev which praises Mazepa.
Several critics have made the charge that Poltava
is an apology for Russian Imperialism
. J.P. Pauls (1962) accuses Pushkin of "propagating the Russian imperialistic cause" and "distorting" historical truth. This view is echoed by Svetlana Evdokimova (1999), who contrasts what she sees as unabashed patriotism of Poltava with the richer, more ambiguous portrayal of Peter I and Empire in The Bronze Horseman
(1833). Pushkin's biographer Henri Troyat
suggested that Pushkin deliberately wrote a pro-Imperial poem in order to assuage Tsar Nicholas I, who was suspicious of his political loyalties after his return from exile.
Soviet critics tended to be more sympathetic towards the poem. V.M. Zhirmunskii (1924) sees the poem as the moment of Pushkin's decisive break with Byron, arguing that Pushkin uses a moral and historical perspective to create psychological portraits and evaluations of his characters, while Byron relies on emotion alone. S.M. Bondi argues that Pushkin successfully pulls together historical and personal themes and the poem is a valuable meditation on the place of the Russian state among European powers. However, while Pushkin certainly made the claim that he was writing a historically-accurate poem, Babinski points out "for all his insistence upon historicity, Pushkin slanted the facts."
Western critics who have been kinder to Poltava have focused on its characterization. John Bayley says that Mazepa "has something of the depth of a Shakespeare portrait". David Bethea also suggests that Poltava owes something to Shakespearean characterization. The most sympathetic treatment of the poem is offered in a book-length treatment by Virginia Burns (2005), which praises the poem for its successful characterization, tight structure and the scope of its philosophical inquiry.
was loosely based on Poltava.
Narrative poetry
Narrative poetry is poetry that has a plot. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually nondramatic, with objective regular scheme and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls and lays.Some narrative...
written by Aleksandr Pushkin
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
in 1828-9 about the involvement of the Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
hetman Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa , Cossack Hetman of the Hetmanate in Left-bank Ukraine, from 1687–1708. He was famous as a patron of the arts, and also played an important role in the Battle of Poltava where after learning of Peter I's intent to relieve him as acting Hetman of Ukraine and replace him...
in the Battle of Poltava
Battle of Poltava
The Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709 was the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. It is widely believed to have been the beginning of Sweden's decline as a Great Power; the...
between Sweden and Russia. The poem intertwines a love plot between Mazepa and Maria with an account of Mazepa's betrayal of Tsar Peter I
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
and Peter's victory in battle. Although often considered one of Pushkin's lesser works and critiqued as unabashedly imperialistic, a number of critics have praised the poem for its depth of characterization and its ability to synthesize disparate genres. The poem inspired Tchaikovsky's 1884 opera Mazeppa
Mazeppa (opera)
Mazeppa, properly Mazepa , is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Victor Burenin and is based on Pushkin's poem Poltava....
.
Outline of the poem
The poem opens with an epigraph from Byron's 1819 MazeppaMazeppa (Byron)
This article is about the poem by Lord Byron, for other uses see MazeppaMazeppa is a Romantic narrative poem written by Lord Byron in 1819, based on a popular legend about the early life of Ivan Mazepa , a Ukrainian gentleman who later became Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks...
, which depicts the Hetman as a Romantic hero, exiled from Poland for conducting a love affair with a married noblewoman. Pushkin follows this epigraph with a passionate dedication to an anonymous loved one. The first edition carried a foreword [предисловие] in which Puskhin objects to the heroic presentation of Ivan Mazepa in works by other writers and his intention to correct them by depicting him as he actually was.
The poem itself is divided into three parts - or "songs" [песни] - of roughly equal length. Part I opens by setting the scene in the estate of the nobleman Vasily Kochubei
Vasily Kochubey
Vasily Leontiyovych Kochubey was a Ukrainian nobleman and statesman of Tatar descent. His great-grandson was the eminent imperial statesman Viktor Kochubey. The family name is also spelled Kotchoubey and Kotschoubey Between 1687 and 1704 Kochubey was a close associate of the Ukrainian hetman...
, and describing the beauty of his daughter Maria. Maria has fallen in love with the Hetman Mazepa, who is her godfather
Godparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
and much older than she is: therefore they keep their love secret. However, they are quickly discovered, and are forced to elope, which brings shame on the family and leaves their parents scared.
The narrative then switches to a description of the political trouble in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
: there is a significant support for a break with Russia; Mazepa is supporting the rebels. Kochubei vows to take revenge upon Mazepa for breaking the bond of trust between them and eloping with Maria. He has remained loyal to the Tsar sends a messenger to denounce the Hetman to the Tsar.
Most of Part II is written as a dramatic dialogue in the tradition of closet drama
Closet drama
A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. A related form, the "closet screenplay," developed during the 20th century.-Form:...
. Mazepa is focused on his plans to rebel against the Tsar, and Maria is worried that he no longer loves her. He asks her to promise that she would always choose him over her father, but declines to tell her of his betrayal of the Tsar.
Meanwhile, Kochubei has been captured by the rebels and he is tortured and interrogated by Orlik. The rebels demand to know where he has hidden his money but he declines to reply. Maria's mother comes to find her and help her save her father; but they arrive too late: Kochubei has already been executed. Mazepa is tormented on discovering Maria's disappearance and sets out to look for her.
Part III switches back to a single third-person narrator. Mazepa's mental and physical health is failing and he falls for the last rites, while King Charles XII of Sweden
Charles XII of Sweden
Charles XII also Carl of Sweden, , Latinized to Carolus Rex, Turkish: Demirbaş Şarl, also known as Charles the Habitué was the King of the Swedish Empire from 1697 to 1718...
is preparing for battle against Peter I. Peter I and his cavalry arrive and defeat the Swedish army and the Ukrainian rebels. Mazepa does little fighting and flees the battlefield as fast as he can. He finds he can no longer sleep and sees Maria again, although the poem leaves it unclear whether this is a hallucination or an actual event. In a memorable passage, Maria no longer recognizes him, because she sees him for what he truly is: a ridiculous and horrible old man.
The poem closes with a reflection by the narrator after one hundred years, claiming that while Mazepa is now forgotten, Peter I, the hero of the battle, has created an enormous monument for himself. The narrator tells us that he does not know the fate of Maria.
Historical Sources and Inspiration
Ivan Mazepa, Vasily Kochubei, and Kochubei's daughter Maria (Matryona) are historical figures. According to historians, it is true that Mazepa had a romantic interest in Maria and she went to live in his home, but whether they were involved in a relationship is unclear. In reality, Mazepa and Maria did not elope: Kochubei removed her from Mazepa's home and sent her to a conventConvent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
.
It is true that Kochubei denounced Mazepa to Peter in 1706 for conspiring against him with Charles XII of Sweden, but it is unclear if Kochubei had evidence of this alleged conspiracy. However, in 1708 Charles and Mazepa did sign a secret treaty, and they did fight against Peter I in the battle of Poltava.
As Pushkin's Foreword makes clear, he had read a number of sympathetic treatments of Ivan Mazepa and was seeking to respond to them. He was responding both to Byron's Mazeppa and to a poem Voinarovskii by the Russian Decembrist poet Konstantin Ryleev which praises Mazepa.
Analysis
This poem has received considerably less attention than Pushkin's other narrative poems, and its reception has been mixed. A.D.P. Briggs sees Pushkin's fusion genres and subject matter as unsuccessful, calls it overly-long - at nearly 1500 lines it is one of the longest of Pushkin's narrative poems - and protests the lack of variety in rhyme. Babinski also makes the charge that the disparate elements in the poem are not well-integrated, suggesting the poem is "not a continuous narrative… barely a narrative poem at all, more like a three-act play with an all-purpose narrator to keep the material together."Several critics have made the charge that Poltava
Poltava
Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....
is an apology for Russian Imperialism
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. J.P. Pauls (1962) accuses Pushkin of "propagating the Russian imperialistic cause" and "distorting" historical truth. This view is echoed by Svetlana Evdokimova (1999), who contrasts what she sees as unabashed patriotism of Poltava with the richer, more ambiguous portrayal of Peter I and Empire in The Bronze Horseman
The Bronze Horseman (poem)
The Bronze Horseman: A Petersburg Tale is a narrative poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1833 about the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. Widely considered to be Pushkin's most successful narrative poem, "The Bronze Horseman" has had a lasting impact on Russian...
(1833). Pushkin's biographer Henri Troyat
Henri Troyat
Henri Troyat was a Russian born French author, biographer, historian and novelist.-Biography:Troyat was born Lev Aslanovich Tarasov, in Moscow to parents of mixed heritage, including Armenian, Russian, German and Georgian...
suggested that Pushkin deliberately wrote a pro-Imperial poem in order to assuage Tsar Nicholas I, who was suspicious of his political loyalties after his return from exile.
Soviet critics tended to be more sympathetic towards the poem. V.M. Zhirmunskii (1924) sees the poem as the moment of Pushkin's decisive break with Byron, arguing that Pushkin uses a moral and historical perspective to create psychological portraits and evaluations of his characters, while Byron relies on emotion alone. S.M. Bondi argues that Pushkin successfully pulls together historical and personal themes and the poem is a valuable meditation on the place of the Russian state among European powers. However, while Pushkin certainly made the claim that he was writing a historically-accurate poem, Babinski points out "for all his insistence upon historicity, Pushkin slanted the facts."
Western critics who have been kinder to Poltava have focused on its characterization. John Bayley says that Mazepa "has something of the depth of a Shakespeare portrait". David Bethea also suggests that Poltava owes something to Shakespearean characterization. The most sympathetic treatment of the poem is offered in a book-length treatment by Virginia Burns (2005), which praises the poem for its successful characterization, tight structure and the scope of its philosophical inquiry.
Composition and publication
Pushkin's notebooks show that he began Poltava on April 5, 1828, and completed the rest of it in October: Song I on October 3, Song II on October 9, Song III on October 16 and the Dedication on October 27. He finished the Foreword on 31 January 1829 and the poem was published later that year.Influence
Tchaikovsky's 1884 opera MazeppaMazeppa (opera)
Mazeppa, properly Mazepa , is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Victor Burenin and is based on Pushkin's poem Poltava....
was loosely based on Poltava.
Sources
- Pushkin, A.S., tr. Walter Arndt. (1984) Collected Narrative and Lyric Poetry. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis. (Inc. recent translation of Poltava)
- Pushkin, A.S. (1949) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh. Moscow and Leningrad: Izd. Akademiia Nauk SSSR.
- Burns, Virginia. (2005) Pushkin's Poltava: a literary structuralist interpretation. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
- Babinski, H. F. (1974). The Mazeppa legend in European Romanticism. New York, Columbia University Press.
External links
The text of Poltava at Russian WikisourceWikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has...
- Ivan Eubanks' translation of Poltava (2008) at the Pushkin Review