This article was written by ADRIAN KARATNYCKY and ALEXANDER J. MOTYL and published on the eve of 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava in Wall Street Journal. Mr. Karatnycky is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council of the U.S. and Mr. Motyl is professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Lord Byron, Pushkin, and Victor Hugo wrote poems about him. Liszt composed a symphonic work in his honor, Tchaikovsky devoted an opera to him, and Gericault painted him tied naked to a horse. In centuries past he was a historical superstar - a poster child for the Romantic era. His name was Ivan Mazepa, a Ukrainian Cossack chieftain who allied with Sweden's Charles XII to fight Russia's Czar Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava, 300 years ago this week…….
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