Title: Pushkin's Poltava: On History, the Cossacks, and the Russian Nation Author: Anna Kovalchuk, University of Oregon Email: [email protected]

Pushkin’s narrative poem Poltava, completed on October 3, 1828, culminates in Peter the Great’s decisive victory against the Ukrainian Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Sweden’s King Charles XII. During the Great Northern War, the Battle of Poltava was a defining moment that elevated Russia’s imperial status in the eyes of Voltaire and the West. After the war, Tsar Peter formally accepted the appellation of emperor. When tasked with articulating a vision of the Russian nation, or narodnost’, within the structures of the empire and its historiography, Pushkin turned toward the Battle of Poltava. Early critics of Poltava struggled to reconcile the fact that the poem contains two subplots along with both epic and romantic modes, while enduring scholarship on the poem has fixated on its national character and the search for narodnost’. I emphasize that the poem fixates on Ukraine as an alternative, and ultimately unsuccessful, model of narodnost’ characterized by an incestuous and unviable union between power and people symbolized by Maria, her family, and the young Cossack. Mazepa, the illegitimate patriarch, is juxtaposed to Peter, whose autocratic, imperial power makes possible the longevity needed for the development of national history, culture, and literature. This essay argues that Pushkin’s Poltava reaffirms the role of the imperial autocrat in an era of rising nationalism by juxtaposing Russian military success to the divided Ukrainian family. Therefore, the generally perceived lack of unity in the poem stems from the problematic welding of national and imperial historiographical ideals.