Ivan Mazepa

Ivan Mazepa became hetman of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1687 and spent most of his tenure rebuilding Ukraine from economic and political collapse, working closely with Tsar Peter I. That partnership fractured as Peter's reforms stripped away the Hetmanate's autonomy, and in 1708 the tsar refused to defend Ukrainian lands against the advancing Swedish army, ordering a scorched-earth campaign instead. Mazepa broke with Russia and allied with Charles XII of Sweden. The Swedes lost at Poltava in 1709; Mazepa fled to Moldavia and died in exile months later. The Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him that same year and still has not lifted the anathema, though Constantinople never recognized it. For generations "Mazepist" was Russian shorthand for Ukrainian separatism, and Soviet historiography buried him. Independent Ukraine has since begun to reclaim his story.