Lenin” (1924), became required reading for every Soviet schoolchild and helped create the image of Mayakovsky as a mythic hero of the Soviet Union, a position that Mayakovsky found increasingly untenable in the later 1920s. Mayakovsky remained a relentless foe of bureaucratism and authoritarianism in Soviet society; this
MEDVEDEV, ROY ALEXANDROVICH
earned him official resentment and led to restrictions on travel and other privileges. On April 14, 1930, the combined pressures of Soviet control and a series of disastrous love affairs, most notably with Lili Brik, led to Mayakovsky’s suicide in his apartment in Moscow. See also: BOLSHEVISM; CIRCUS; FUTURISM
Brown, Edward J. (1973). Mayakovsky: A Poet in the Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jangfeldt, Bengt. (1976). Majakovskij and Futurism, 1917-1921. Stockholm: Almqvist amp; Wiksell. Markov, Vladimir. (1969). Russian Futurism: A History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woroszylski, Wiktor. (1970). The Life of Mayakovsky. New York: Orion Press.
(c. 1639-1709), Hetman (Cossack military leader) of Left-Bank Ukraine, 1687 to 1708.
Hetman Ivan Mazepa was raised in Poland and educated in the West, returning to Ukraine in 1663 to enter the service of the Polish-sponsored hetman Peter Doroshenko during the turbulent period of Ukrainian history known as the Ruin. In 1674 he transferred his allegiance to the Moscow-appointed hetman Ivan Samoilovich, whom he replaced when the latter fell from favor during Russia’s campaign against the Crimean Tatars in 1687. He owed his promotion partly to the patronage of Prince Vasily Golitsyn.
In the 1680s to 1700s Mazepa remained loyal to Russia. In 1700 he became one of the first recipients of Peter I’s new Order of St. Andrew. But he did not regard himself as permanently bound, as he governed in princely style and conducted a semi-independent foreign policy. In 1704, during the Great Northern War against Sweden, he occupied part of right-bank (Polish) Ukraine with Peter I’s permission. However, Mazepa was under constant pressure at home to defend Cossack rights and to allay fears about Cossack regiments being reorganized on European lines. The final straw seems to have been Peter’s failure to defend Ukraine against a possible attack by the Swedish-sponsored king of Poland, Stanislas Leszczynski. Mazepa clearly believed that his obligations to the tsar were at an end: “We, having voluntarily acquiesced to the authority of his Tsarist Majesty for the sake of the unified Eastern Faith, now, being a free people, wish to withdraw, with expressions of our gratitude for the tsar’s protection and not wishing to raise our hands in the shedding of Christian blood” (Subtelny).
At some point in 1707 or 1708, Mazepa made a secret agreement to help Charles XII of Sweden invade Russia and to establish a Swedish protectorate over Ukraine. In October 1708 he fled to Charles’s side. Alexander Menshikov responded by storming and burning the hetman’s headquarters at Baturin, a drastic action which deprived both Mazepa and the Swedes of men and supplies. Mazepa brought only 3,000 to 4,000 men to aid the Swedes, who were defeated at Poltava in July 1709. Mazepa fled with Charles to Turkey and died there.
Peter I regarded the defection of his “loyal subject” as a personal insult. Mazepa was “a new Judas,” whom he (unjustly) accused of plans to hand over Orthodox monasteries and churches to the Catholics and Uniates. In his absence, Mazepa was excommunicated, and his effigy was stripped of the St. Andrew cross and hanged. He remains a controversial figure in Ukraine, while elsewhere he is best known from romanticized versions of his life in fiction and opera. See also: COSSACKS; MENSHIKOV, ALEXANDER DANILO-VICH; PETER I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Babinsky, Hubert. (1974). The Mazepa Legend in European Romanticism. New York: Columbia University Press. Mackiv, Theodore. (1983). English Reports on Mazepa, 1687-1709. New York: Ukrainian Historical Association. Subtelny, Orest. (1978). “Mazepa, Peter I, and the Question of Treason.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 2:158-184.
(b. 1925), dissident historian.
Roy Medvedev is renowned as the author of the monumental dissident history of Stalinism, Let
History Judge, first published in English in 1972. The son of a prominent Soviet Marxist scholar who was murdered by Stalin in the 1930s, Medvedev pursued a teaching career before becoming a researcher in the Soviet Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Josef V. Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress (1956) spurred his interest in the Soviet past. Medvedev joined the Communist Party at this time. The further repudiation of Stalin at the Twenty-Second Congress (1961) impelled him to begin writing his anti-Stalinist tome, which was completed in 1968. Fearful that Stalin would be rehabilitated and repression renewed, Medvedev decided to publish it abroad. Let History Judge reflected the dissident thinking that emerged in the 1960s among intellectuals who, like Medvedev, sought a reformed, democratic socialism and a return to Leninism. Meanwhile, his opposition to any rehabilitation of Stalin led to his expulsion from the party. Medvedev was often subject to house arrest and KGB harassment under Leonid Brezhnev, but he managed to publish abroad numerous critical writings on Soviet history and politics. The liberalization under Mikhail Gorbachev allowed publication of a new edition of Let History Judge and Medvedev’s return to the party and political life. The demise of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party allowed him to found a new socialist party and continue as a prolific, critical writer on Russian political life. See also: DE-STALINIZATION; DISSIDENT MOVEMENT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Medvedev, Roy. (1972). Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, ed. David Joravsky, tr. Colleen Taylor. London: Macmillan. Medvedev, Roy. (1989). Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, rev. and expanded edition, ed. and tr. George Shriver. New York: Oxford University Press.
(1641-1691), author, poet, and polemicist.
Simeon Agafonikovich Medvedev (monastic name: Sylvester) began his career as a secretary (podyachy) in one of the Muscovite chancelleries. In that capacity, he participated in diplomatic missions, until in the early 1670s he became a monk. A student of Simeon Polotsky, he acted as his teacher’s secretary and editor, and acquired connections in the court of Fyodor Alexeyevich (r. 1676-1682). After Polotsky’s death, he assumed the mantle of his teacher as the court poet, first of Fyodor, and then of Sofia Alexeyevna (regent, 1682-1689). After 1678, he also worked as editor (spravshchik) in the Printing Office. During the 1680s, he was occupied with three main activities: working in the Printing Office, authoring polemics on the moment of tran-substantiation (Eucharist conflict), and teaching in a school in the Zaikonospassky monastery. He repeatedly urged Sophia Alexeyevna to establish an Academy in Moscow, based on a plan (privilegia) that Polotsky may well have drawn up. When such an Academy was established in 1685 (the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy), it was the Greek Ioannikios and Sophronios Leichoudes, and not Medvedev, who were chosen to head it. This, together with the Eucharist conflict, created enormous animosity between Sylvester and the Greek teachers. Patriarch of Moscow Joakim (in office 1672-1690) gradually but systematically undermined Medvedev, a monk who refused to obey him in the Eucharist conflict. While Sofia was in power, Medvedev felt well protected. After Peter I’s coup in August 1689, Medvedev fled Moscow. He was arrested, brought to the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery, tortured, and obliged to sign a confession renouncing his previous errors regarding the Eucharist in 1690. Joakim’s victory was complete. After a year of detention, Sylvester was also accused as a collaborator in a conspiracy against Peter the Great, Joakim, and their supporters. He was condemned to death and beheaded in 1691. Author of several polemical works on the transub-stantiation moment, he also composed orations, poetry, and panegyrics. To him are also attributed works on Russian bibliography and an account of the musketeer rebellion of 1682. See also: FYODOR ALEXEYEVICH; JOAKIM, PATRIARCH; ORTHODOXY; SLAVO-GRECO-LATIN ACADEMY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hughes, Lindsey. (1990). Sophia, Regent of Russia, 1657-1704. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
