Mazeppa-Maseppa: Migration of a Romantic motif
Journal: Tydskrif vir letterkunde
Year: 2012

Mazeppa (1640–1710), The Ukrainian leader and folk-hero, has a controversial history, and a distinct presence in literature and the graphic arts. Byron’s poem (1819) of the legendary figure’s “wild ride” released a mythical energy which absorbed certain French poets and painters of the 19th century. While the Russian tradition, at least from Pushkin’s Poltava (1828), reworked the historical Ukrainian hetman from a Tsarist and nationalist perspective, the myth of the Western Romantic Mazeppa is b