After the Northern Union declared war on Sweden, eighteen-year old King Charles XII stood up to defend his country, led the army created by his father and began a victorious march in the war with the defeat of Denmark (August 1700) and Peter the 1st army near Narva (18 November 1700). In the spring of 1701, Charles XII and his army entered the Polish possessions of Augustus II of Saxony, which resulted in the entry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into the war (1704), dualism in Poland (Charles XII had proclaimed his associate Stanisław Leszczynski as king), and, after the Swedish occupation of Saxony in 1706, the surrender of Augustus II and his abdication of the Polish crown. After the brilliant conclusion of the Polish campaign, Charles XII reached the height of his power and in 1707 set out from Saxony to march on Moscow. However, on its way, the Swedish army encountered the territory of White Ruthenia ravaged by the Muscovites and was forced to temporarily suspend the Moscow campaign in the autumn of 1708.
At the beginning of the war, the twenty-eight year-old Tsar Peter the 1st was actively forming a regular army and navy. While Charles XII was busy conquering Poland, Peter I focused his attention on the Baltic provinces of Sweden and, due to small amount Swedish forces there, completely seized Ingermanland by 1704, founding the northwestern outpost of his state, the future city of St. Petersburg, where the capital of the country was later moved, on 16 May 1703.
Hetman Mazepa, who was sixty-one at the time, provided substantial assistance to Peter the First’s army from the very beginning of the war. The Cossack regiments of the Hetmanate were involved in battles and auxiliary service. Ukraine not only took part in the war with its armed forces, but also suffered economic exploitation and provided human resources for the implementation of Peter the 1st’s construction projects (the Ladoga Canal, St. Petersburg, and the Pechersk Fortress). All of this led to an increase in anti-Moscow sentiment in Ukrainian society and to the elites’ dissatisfaction with the Moscow tsar’s policy towards Ukraine. At that time, Colonel D. Apostol of Myrhorod regiment addressed Mazepa on behalf of the high-ranking Cossacks with an appeal: ‘The eyes of all are on you, and we pray to God that he saves you from death, as without you we will remain in such captivity that even chickens will make fun of us.’
The decisive factor that influenced Mazepa’s decision to oppose Peter the 1st was the coming of Charles XII’s army to Ukraine in the autumn of 1708. This was a consequence of the implementation of the so-called Zhovkva plan of ‘scorched earth’, which the Muscovites used against the Swedish forces on their way to Moscow.
Another reason for Hetman Mazepa’s defection to the side of the Swedish King Charles XII was centralist policy of Moscow Tsardom: constant decrease of Cossack rights and freedoms, restrictions put on the Hetmsn’s administration, tax and economic pressure on the Hetmanate, and the intention to eliminate the regimental system in Ukraine and reorganise the Cossack army into a regular army.
Charles XII, having entered Ukraine, hoped to receive, first of all, winter quarters and food, planning to resume the campaign against Moscow in the spring of 1709.
The exposition of the hall includes portraits of Charles XII, Peter I, August II, and S. Leshchynskyi. Particular attention is paid to the participation of the Ukrainian Cossacks and one of their leaders, D. Apostol, in the war, and pictures of Cossack uniforms are presented. Materials about Peter the 1st’s annexation of the Baltic coast and the participation of Ukrainians in this process are presented, as well as weapons, maps and schemes of troop movements during the first period of the war. The medals and medallions commissioned by Peter the 1st and presented in the exhibition are examples of the Moscow tsar’s powerful information warfare to promote his victories.