Description

This is the sixth annual richly illustrated booklet on the history and antiquities of Baturyn presented by Canadian and Ukrainian archaeologists within the scope of the Baturyn Research Project sponsored by the CIUS. The brochure overviews the history of the town from the Princely to the Hetman eras and shows the development of its fortification system and settlement pattern. The storming and complete destruction of Baturyn by the Russian army in 1708 during Mazepa’s anti-Moscow revolt is described on the basis of the 18th-century History of the Rus’ People, which contains the lengthiest and most reliable account of this punitive action.
The authors examine the attractive multicoloured glazed ceramic façade decorations of the ruined Mazepa palace in Baturyn. The archaeologists have excavated its remnants and restored these decorative details using computer graphic techniques and compared them to counterparts in the Kyivan baroque architecture. The publication discusses the results of the 2016 excavations at Baturyn. These yielded Cossack arms, accoutrements, and ornaments, as well as the fragments of late baroque patterned glazed ceramic stove tiles, both imported from Holland and produced locally, in addition to costly German porcelain sculpture. Such finds provide insight into the prosperity, culture, and lifestyle of the hetmans, Cossack officers, gentry, and burghers in Baturyn, as well as the stimulating Western European trade imports and artistic influences on the town in the 17th-18th centuries. The booklet also informs about new archaeological research on the graves of victims of the sack of Mazepa’s capital by Russian troops in 1708. Thanks to the annual excavations in Baturyn for past 20 years, the city has become the best archaeologically investigated settlement of Cossack Ukraine.