Hryhorii ORLYK:Hryhorii ORLYK: diplomat, intelligence officer, fighter

MATURATION

The winter of 1713 was full of problems for a small detachment of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who, with Ivan Mazepa at the head, entered into an alliance with Swedish King Charles XII, were defeated by the Russian troops near Poltava, and found temporary shelter in Moldavian lands under the Turkish sultan’s protection. After the death of Mazepa, his closest comrade-in-arms, chancellor-general of the…

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The Battle of Poltava was the defining battle of the Great Northern War (1700 - 1721), fought on June 27, 1709, between the Swedish and Russian armies along the River Vorskla to the north of the Ukrainian city of Poltava.
After the rejection of a Russian peace offer in 1707, the Swedish King Karl (Charles) XII spent much of the summer of 1708 in Lithuania… →|

A monument to Charles XII of Sweden, whose army was defeated by Russians in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, will be erected some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the central Ukrainian city, local officials said.


The monument to the Swedish king and his ally Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa, which will mark the 300th anniversary of the battle on June 27, was proposed by the Ukrainian… →|