Juliusz Słowackis Drama „Mazepa“ im ukrainischen und russischen Kontext

Abstract

Juliusz Słowacki’s play “Mazepa” (1840) does not have much in common with the famous Mazepa-texts of World literature, such as G. Byron’s “Mazeppa” (1819), V. Hugo’s poem of the same title (1829) and A. Pushkin’s “Poltava” (1829); and it does not show any greater affinities to the author’s earlier plays, like “Balladyna” and “Lilla Weneda”, or to his later plays like “Ksiądz Marek” and “Sen srebrny Salomei”. Ne­vertheless, for a better understanding of his “Mazepa”, this play should to be read in a larger context, including as well Słowacki’s own works, as well the texts of World literature on Mazepa.

A crucial question for that kind of contextualization is a new understanding of the central problem of that play. If we read “Mazepa” as a tragedy of delusion, defraud and betrayal, we can very well compare this play with Słowacki’s later works “Ksiądz Marek” and “Sen srebrny Salomei”, which are – still more than “Mazepa” – located in the historical context of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict.

But this kind of interpretation leads to a wider range of comparison: Pushkin’s “Poltava” does not only have a similar constellation of acting persons like Słowacki’s plays (a double love triangle), but is based on delusion and betrayal in various forms, too. There is, however one great difference when comparing it with Słowacki’s “Mazepa”: in this play the main hero is not at trickster at all, while in Pushkin’s poem he is the one who betrays in private as well as in political life an therefore has to fail. Słowacki’s Mazepa survives, because he is an honest man, Pushkin’s Mazepa perishes, because he is a traitor. It turns out that both of the authors, Słowacki and Pushkin, in connection with the historical person of Mazepa, seem to condemn betrayal as a means of political agitation. Setting Słowacki’s play in the larger context of Eastern Slavonic Mazepa-tradition, it is to be seen as a polemic with as well as an affirmation of Pushkin’s point of view, without any regard to the fact if Słowacki had known “Poltava” or not.