During the war between Russia and Sweden (1708-1709), Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of the Ukraine (which at that time belonged to the Russian Empire), signed a pact with the Swedish King Carl XII against the Russian Czar Peter I – also known as “Peter the Great”. Mazepa’s goal is to gain independence for the Ukraine. However, Carl is defeated at the battle of Poltava and loses the war. During the battle, Mazepa and the Czar have a hefty argument, after which the Czar celebrates his defeat of the Swedish army at a victory banquet, which all the captured marshals and generals of the Swedish army are obliged to attend. However, Mazepa and the King of Sweden manage to avoid the Czar’s banquet invitation by escaping. The hunt for Carl XII and the ageing Mazepa begins. Sensing that he is close to death, Mazepa begins to look back upon the various stages of his stormy life full of bold aggression, love affairs, political mystification and intrigue.
These events begin to get mixed up in Mazepa’s feverish fantasies and so, at one moment he is thinking of his love for a young peasant girl named Motrya and, at another, he remembers the burning of a straw effigy in his likeness. He also thinks of the atrocities committed by Ataman Sirko, who arrested Mazepa as a young man while Mazepa was in the process of delivering women to the Khan of Crimea’s harem. He remembers his election to the post of Hetman following the Crimean campaign, but also the bloody destruction of the Hetman city of Baturin and the crucified corpses of the town’s inhabitants floating down the river...
After Mazepa’s death, the Czar breaks into the monastery where he is buried and desecrates Mazepa’s grave. Mazepa’s corpse – or is it just a straw effigy once more? – is bound to a horse and chased away into the steppe...
