Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa (also spelled Mazeppa; , ; ) was a Ukrainian military, political, and civic leader who served as the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host in 1687–1708. He was awarded a title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1707 for his efforts for the Holy League. The historical events of Mazepa's life have inspired many literary, artistic and musical works. He was famous as a patron of the arts. Mazepa played an important role in the Battle of Poltava (1709), where after learning that Tsar Peter I intended to relieve him as acting Hetman (military leader) of Zaporozhian Host (a Cossack state) and to replace him with Alexander Menshikov, he defected from his army and sided with King Charles XII of Sweden. The political consequences and interpretation of this defection have resonated in the national histories both of Russia and of Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church laid an anathema (excommunication) on Mazepa's name in 1708 and still refuses to revoke it. The anathema was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which considers it uncanonical and imposed with political motives as a means of political and ideological repression, with no religious, theological or canonical reasons. Pro-independence and anti-Russian elements in Ukraine from the 18th century onwards were derogatorily referred to as Mazepintsy (). The alienation of Mazepa from Ukrainian historiography continued during the Soviet period, but post-1991 in independent Ukraine Mazepa's image has been gradually rehabilitated. The Ukrainian corvette Hetman Ivan Mazepa of the Ukrainian Navy is named after him. Early life Mazepa was probably born on 30 March 1639, in Mazepyntsi, near Bila Tserkva, then part of the Kyiv Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (today – Drozdy rural council, Bila Tserkva Raion), into a noble Ruthenian-Lithuanian family. His mother was Maryna Mokievska (1624–1707) (known from 1674 to 1675 by her monastic name Maria Magdalena), and his father was Stefan Adam Mazepa (?-1666). Maryna Mokievska came from the family of a Cossack officer who fought alongside Bohdan Khmelnytsky. She gave birth to two children – Ivan and Oleksandra. Stefan Mazepa served as an Otaman of Bila Tserkva (1654), a Cossack representative of the King of the Polish–Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita, and a Czernihów podczaszy (Cup-bearer of Chernihiv, 1662). Ivan Mazepa was educated first in the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, then at a Jesuit college in Warsaw. In addition to the Ukrainian language, Russian and Polish, he was fluent in Latin (according