HetmanDamask; sewing; painting. 
Height, 193 cm; Upper border length, 412 cm; Lower border length, 182.5 cm; Length of cant, 294 cm. 
Kharkiv Historical Museum. 

The banner, originally with an area of approximately six square meters, is white and yellow damask, richly decorated with paintings and gilded inscriptions and images. 

The center of the banner features a black double-headed eagle with three crowns. On the eagle's chest is the shield of St. George, the dragon slayer. Above the eagle there is a cross often gold stars. The Savior's image in the upper border completes this emblematic vertical line. In addition to the emblems, the banner has many inscriptions enclosed in spectacular gold cartouches. There are two smaller inscriptions on each side of the star cross and a larger one on the ban- ner's tail; two inscriptions located on each side of the Savior create an inte- grated cartouche in the border. Were the tail not present, we would see a complete and perfect composition with figures of proper proportion and scale. The composition is divided into two parts: the upper part religious, the lower secular. The face of the Savior over the star cross and surrounded by Holy writings dominates the first part. The image of the state eagle represents the second, secular part. Three large gold stars, scattered on the cloth, complete the composition. The inscriptions in cartouche are written in ustav and semi-ustav, yet the peripheral text is in a fanciful, exquisite and ornamental vyaz', making an unforgettable impression, since the inscription extends over ten meters. The reverse features the same images, due to special technique called intarsia, only the edging differs, being decorated with a floral ornament. 

The inscriptions on the banner, according to the contemporary practice, include the order of the passing of the banner as well as excerpts from religious essays. The text in cartouche around the Savior is reserved quite well; only the first three words have been lost. The inscription was written in one continuous line on both sides of the Savior and related to the image: «Faithful and veritable and just warrior whose eyes burn like fire and whose head bears many crowns and who is clothed in a blood-colored chasuble and who is called the Word of God: a sharp weapon that will beat the people will proceed from his lips, but some will defend themselves with an iron baton.»

Nine stars (according to old descriptions, ten) are placed above the eagle and form a cross wrapped by red-letter inscription on both sides: «Jesus Christ.» This star cross revives an ancient legend in which the Emperor Constantine saw such a star cross and the inscription «ln hoc signo vinces» (With this sign you will win) in the sky on the eve of his battle with his rival Maxentius. This legend was adopted by the military culture of Europe, and most European armies adopted a cross as the foundation of their military symbolism in both emblems and decorations. It was especially popular as an element in banners. This notion finds support in the text, placed in the cartouche on the right side of the cross, «The just cross, a hope for the pious kings and conquest exile and annihilation of their enemies as it was in ancient times granted to the first Christian King Constantine to annihilate the host of Maxentius.» Text in cartouche to the left of the cross develops another, purely religious (ecclesiastic) version that connects the aHegory of the star cross to Jesus Christ: «We sing praises to your cross, Christ, and sing and glorify your holy resurrection, because you are our God, we recognize none other than you.» Both inscriptions are poorly reserved; we know them only through archival materials published in the 19th century. 

The inscription in cartouche on the tail of the banner has special value because it hides the mystery of the flag's owner. The inscription has two versions. One of them occurs among archival materials of 1687 and 1690: «ln accordance with the will of the Great Sovereign Tsars and Grand Princes loann Alekseevich and Peter Alekseevich and Great Sovereigness and the most orthodox Tzarina and Grand Princess Sophia Alekseevna of all Great, Little, and White Russia Autocrats this banner was written in the year 7195 since Creation on the 27th day of October and bestowed upon a loyal subject of their high Royal Majesties, hetman of the Zaporozhian Host of both banks of the Dnipro Ivan Samoilovych.» The second version is from a later period. It evidences correction of the text associated with reelections of the hetman that happened after the banner was created: «ln accordance with the will of the Great Sovereign Tsars and Grand Princes loann Alekseevich and Peter Alekseevich and Great Sovereigness and the most orthodox Tzarina and Grand Princess Sophia Alekseevna of all Great, Little, and White Russia Autocrats this banner was written in the year 7196 since Creation on January 2 and bestowed upon a loyal subject of their high Royal Majesties, Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa.» The inscription on the banner's border deserves special attention. Its text contains the full titles of the contemporary Tsars Ivan and Peter Alekseevich: «To the Lord, who is consubstantial in three enlightening persons and eternal, the Maker of things, the giver of Gospel, who is everything, who bestows peace upon humankind out of his grace we announce such a good deed: the most enlightened and supreme Great Sovereign Tzars and Grand Princes Ivan Alekseevich and Peter Alekseevich and Grand Princess Sophia Alekseevna of all Great, Little, and White Russia Autocrats, Tsars of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Kazan', Astrakhan', Siberia, Pskov, and the Grand Princes of Smolensk, Tver', Bulgaria and of other lands, Sovereigns and Grand Princes of Novgorod, Nizhegorodsk, Chernigov, Ryazan', Rostov, Yaroslavl', Beloozero, Oudorsk, Obdorsk and Konda, and the Rulers of all northern lands, and the Sovereigns over Iversk land, Kartli and Georgia's kings, and Kabardian lands, Circassian and Highland kings and of plentitude of other countries and lands in the East, and West, and North Fathers, and Lords, and heirs, and Sovereigns, and Possessors." The text was allocated on the border in an unusual way. In spite of documents from the 17th century that state that the text was located «on the right side of the border and from there it followed the banner's perimeter,)) the original flag display states otherwise. The upper corner of the tail served as the starting point for the text, which bifurcated from there and wrapped around the banner flowing to the lower corner of the hoist. It begins with the text «To the Lord, who is consubstantial» and ends after the word «Pskov,» which runs along the tail's lower border and the lower border of the flag. The text continues on the upper border with "and the Grand Princes of Smolensk" are and ends at the bottom of the hoist with «possessors.» Such was the original appearance of the banner's obverse. On the reverse side, all images and inscriptions were replicated except Mazepa's name and the floral patterns that covered the inscription on the border. 

The hetman's banner was manufactured at the Arms Chamber of Moscow Kremlin in 1686-1688. At first it was supposed to be made for the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Samoilovych, however, after his removal from power the flag was given to Hetman Ivan Mazepa. After Mazepa's loss at Poltava, in 1709, the flag was obtained by Hetman Ivan Skoropadskyi. 

After Skoropadskyi's death the banner continued to function as the main regalia during the rule of the First Little Russian Board and even during the early years of Danylo Apostol's hetmanite rule. Apostol dispatched «Mazepa's banner» to a department of the Board of Foreign Affairs in 1730 with the request that it be replaced. Curiously enough, the banner made its way back to the Arms Chamber in 1834, being passed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus, it was returned a century and a half after having been manufactured within the walls of the Chamber's workshops. 

Some important details of the banner's odyssey were included in a brief comment appended to the description and official letter from the Moscow Palace Office on February 23,1834, under No. 602. In particular, the official documents that accompanied the banner to the Arms Chamber stated that a «large part of the words are faded and as a whole it is in utterly poor condition. We found records that Mazepa's banner was received by the archive on May 31,1731, from the Public Department of the State Board of Foreign Affairs. Hetman of Little Russia, Danylo Apostol, dispatched it in 1730 due to its decay and received a new banner in return.» Another Russian officer's remark concern- ing the banner's long service in the Zaporozhian Host was very expressive: «lt is amazing that this banner waved 25 years in Little Russia bearing the name of the traitor Mazepa and that under Hetman Skoropadskyi no one managed to replace it.» 

Although the banner continued to embody the state power of Ivan Mazepa's successors, thereby bewildering the 19th-century governmental officials, it underwent an exercise of ideological censorship by means of almost surgical methods. «The words 'Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa' were cut out. ...The images on the other side were the same, but the word 'Stepanovych' on the third mark was torn off, the word 'Mazepa' was covered with golden paint and a volute painted over it.» The «surgery» was intended to extirpate anything related to Mazepa from the historical memory of the nation. 

However, for 42 years (almost half a century), the banner symbolized the highest Cossack power in Ukraine and became an exceptional witness to its history. The fact that this is one of only three surviving hetman banners (one is kept in Moscow and another in Stockholm) emphasizes the exceptional significance of this historical artifact. Mazepa's banner was destined for a long life. It survived the century and was still in the Arms Chamber at the end of the 19th century, as we know from the last inventory of the 1884 Kremlin's flag collection. 

Recent research has revealed the circumstances in which the banner was moved from Moscow to Kharkiv. It was moved in the 1930s, when the Parity Commission on Exchange of Cultural objects among Soviet Republics (Russian SSR and Ukrainian SSR) initiated a transfer of five articles from the Arms Chamber to the museum collections of the Ukrainian SSR, including several flags. Because Kharkiv was then the capital of Ukraine, historical rarities were first sent to its museum collections. Mazepa's banner became a jewel of the Hryhorii Skovoroda's Museum of Slobidska Ukraine. 

This 15 years (1932-1947) of the banner's life is the most mysterious period of its existence because of an all but complete loss of pre-war documentation.

 Events of World War II brought many challenges to the hetman's symbol of authority. Unfortunately, the evacuation of collections from Kharkiv museums began very late. A few principal incidents uncovered by the historian S. Kot from a series of archived documents should be mentioned here. For example, it was established that the train with two carriages of objects from Hryhorii Skovoroda Museum of Kharkiv and Central Museum of Revolution of Ukrainian SSR was bombarded at 10 a.m. on October 10,1941, at the station Oleksiivka in the Belgorod region. «One of the carriages was completely destroyed by a direct hit of an aerial bomb,» narrates the historian. «The military commandant of the station commissioned soldiers of a fighter battalion to collect surviving antiquities and pieces of art and to dispatch them to Ufa. Eight boxes sufficed to pack all surviving materials of the two museums.» 

Regrettably, it was not the end of the ordeal. The reservation conditions of the unique museum treasures (which included many flags, ras we know from surviving documents) in Ufa were extremely unsaticfactory. The act of handing over the museum objects from the Bashkir bureau of the State Bank to representatives of the People's Commissariat of Education of Ukraine after temporary reservation dated May 2, 1942 testified that the first box contained «...81 items, including 17 silk items, the rest consisted of different sateen items,» another box contained «...51 different banners. Cloth banners were moth-eaten; some of them were heavily torn and deteriorated.)? The hetman banner was apparently born under a lucky star, for it avoided a multitude of dangers. In 1944 it was brought back from the evacuation, at first to Kyiv and finally, on November 5 to Kharkiv. 

Mazepa's banner was restored twice. First, it was glued to tulle in 1861 by the masters of the Arms Chamber of Moscow's Kremlin. This restoration saved the flag. However, the aging process and other incidents caused further deterioration. Prior to the second restoration (2007-2008), which was performed in the Krakow National Museum in Poland, the relic was in a catastrophic condition. The loss of fabric was 46 percent of the original size of the banner and the flag itself consisted of a large number of separate pieces of damask. The second restoration was carried out by an international group of experts from Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Italy coordinated by Janucz Czhop (Krakow National Museum) and Yurii Savchuk (Institute of Ukrainian History of the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine). 

The banner of 1686-1688 is the only one that has survived and is reserved in Ukraine. It is also the only one that survived to see Ukrainian independence, which it once symbolized and memories of which it fostered for centuries.
Yurii Savchuk

Kyiv & Ukraine Private Tur Guides