Author: Fred Whishaw

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-01-19

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780483383586

Excerpt from Mazeppa Nevertheless, when Mazeppa was sent as page to the Polish Court, my father being dead by that time, my mother wished that I should go also, in order to acquaint myself with the ways of princes and courtiers, and attain a knowledge of life in high places. The King being at this time anxious to oblige the Cossack nation, there was little difficulty in securing employment for us. Neither Mazeppa nor l were popular among the Polish youths at Court, though I may say that the ladies were less disposed to cavil at us. We were Russian, we were told, though we stoutly denied the fact, and Russians were to the Poles at this time as the sun to the ice. The Cossacks, emancipated by our great leader, with my father and others, had lately found it difficult to stand alone, and being obliged to choose for support between Russian, Turk and Pole, had chosen the former. We were therefore, strictly speaking, under allegiance to the Tsar. Moreover, we were of the Orthodox religion; hence, though actually and jealously Cossack in nationality, we were, in a sense, and as our Polish companions loved to assure us, Russians. This was a constant source of quarrel between us and them, and in the end was the immediate cause of our departure from the Court of John Casimir. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.