Poltava

Poltava is a narrative poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1828–29 about the involvement of the Ukrainian Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa in the 1709 Battle of Poltava between Sweden and Russia. This view is echoed by Svetlana Evdokimova (1999), who contrasts what she sees as unabashed patriotism of Poltava with the richer, more ambiguous portrayal of Peter I and Empire in The Bronze Horseman (1833). Pushkin's biographer Henri Troyat suggested that Pushkin deliberately wrote a pro-Imperial poem in order to assuage Tsar Nicholas I, who was suspicious of his political loyalties after his return from exile.