In early October 1708, the Swedish army of Charles XII entered Ukraine. It was also joined by Hetman Mazepa’s troops. On 29-30 October 1708, a Ukrainian-Swedish treaty was signed in Hirky near Novhorod-Siverskyi.
This caused immediate retaliation by Peter the 1st. On 2 November 1708, Moscow forces destroyed the Hetman’s residence in Baturyn, where, according to contemporary Ukrainian historians, almost 7,500 defenders of the fortress and the same number of civilians were killed. At the same time, Peter I addressed the Ukrainian people with a manifesto in which he accused Mazepa of intending to ‘sell’ Ukraine to Poland, replace the orthodox church with the Greek-catholic one. Peter declared himself the sole defender of the Orthodox faith and the ‘rights and freedoms of the Hetmanate’. By order of Peter I, the Moscow Church proclaimed anathema on I. Mazepa, and I. Skoropadskyi was appointed as the new Hetman. Both Hetman I. Mazepa and Charles XII addressed Ukrainians with manifestos,but intimidated by the events in Baturyn, Hlukhiv, and Lebedyn, was suspicious towards these appeals. The so-called ‘war of manifestos’ was lost by the Mazepa and Charles.
The Cossack armed forces were divided into two groups. According to contemporary Ukrainian historian O.Sokyrko, I. Mazepa was supported by three to four thousand of Cossacks, alongside with 7-8 thousands of K. Hordiienko’s Zaporozhzhians. I. Skoropadskyi had up to eight thousand Cossacks.
A wave of arrests of active supporters of the Hetman swept across Ukraine, they were taken to Hlukhiv and Lebedyn, where they were executed en masse after brutal tortures to make an example for Ukrainian population.
The Swedish army in Ukraine, supported by Hetman Mazepa and his subordinates, met with a tolerant attitude of the population, which supplied Charles XII’s army with provisions. At the same time, Swedish troops were constantly attacked by irregular Moscow units.
Most Ukrainian cities preferred to remain neutral, letting the troops that came first into their fortresses and cities.
This was the decision made by Colonel I. Levenets of Poltava, who tried to retain good relations with both sides. In the absence of the main part of the Poltava regiment, Moscow troops entered Poltava unhindered on 3 December 1708, making the city one of Peter the 1st’s main outposts in Left-Bank Ukraine. The Poltava fortress housed more than four thousand Moscow garrison, led by Colonel O. Kelin.
Most of the Poltava Cossacks, including regimental and hundredth officers, supported Mazepa’s anti-Moscow protest. I. Levenets failed in his schemes and alongside with his family was exiled to Kharkiv as unreliable.
In January-February 1709, Charles XII tried to resume his march on Moscow through Sloboda Ukraine. However, the scorched earth tactics used by Peter I, when the population was expelled under penalty of death and cities and towns were burned, and the early thaw forced the Swedish monarch to cease the offensive and fall back. In March 1709, the Cossacks of the Zaporozhzhian Sich, led by K. Hordiienko, joined the alliance of Charles XII and I. Mazepa. The way for the Cossacks to join the Swedish-Ukrainian forces was provided by the southern hundreds of the Poltava Regiment. On 27 March 1709, a new Ukrainian-Swedish treaty was signed in Velyki Budyshchi, the essence of which was to unite the Right and Left Bank parts of Ukraine and transfer it to the Swedish protectorate, without the right of its monarch to claim the title of hetman. Peter I’s reaction to Mazepa’s accession to the Sich Cossacks, whom he hoped to use on his side, was the destruction of the Chortomlyk Sich by the troops of G. Yakovlev and G. Galagan on 14 May 1709.
In the second half of April 1709, the allied forces began to concentrate near Poltava. The blockade of the city lasted from 1 May until 27 June. Charles XII was expecting help from his allies (S. Leszczynski from Poland and Devlet Geray from the Crimea). The blockade of the fortress was uneventful, with almost no activity. This was used by the Moscow command, which strengthened the garrison of Poltava by bringing Brigadier F. Golovin’s unit (1200 soldiers) into the city on 15 May 1709.
At the end of May 1709, all possible armed forces of Peter the 1st were concentrated near Poltava, and he arrived there on 4 June himself.
Since then, the Moscow tsar, who had offered Charles XII a peace agreement on 2 May, began to prepare for a possible battle.
The hall’s exposition recreates the Poltava fortress of the early 18th century, featuring weapons, uniforms, and illustrative cartographic material about the Great Northern War in Ukraine and Poltava region.