Poltava -Lord Byron -'Mezappa'
Poetry relating to the Battle of Poltava 1709 C harles XII of Sweden and Ivan Mazepa after The Battle of Poltav- Gustav Cederstrom Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons This is the first post about poetry connected to the Battle of Poltava 1709, starting with Byron’s 1819 poem ‘Mazeppa’ (sic) , named after the Ukrainian Cossack leader Ivan Mazepa ( 1639- 1709 ). “Twas after dread Poltova’s day When fortune left the Royal Swede, Around a slaughter’d army lay No more to combat and to bleed The power and the glory of the war Faithless as their vain votaries men Had pass’d to the triumphant Czar And Moscow’s walls were safe again. “ In 1700 Peter the Great declared war on Sweden. Czar Peter was rather keen to get his 'window on The Baltic, to build a European styled city, commission a