information

information

The Mace (bulava, putschan) presented at the exhibition is preserved in the Cabinet of Curiosities of the Diocesan Library of Linköping in southern Sweden. According to the library catalogue (1958), the Mace is a Sign of Dignity in a form similar to a truncheon, oriental (eastern) type. Made of ferrous metal, decorated with an ornament with an openwork relief and a pattern embossed with silver and gold. Length 62.2 cm. From Turkey or Eastern Europe, late 16th – early 18th centuries. Gift in 1784 of the notary of the consistory Samuel Gustav Garlingson (1740-1810, lecturer, professor): “Turkish head or so-called commander’s stick.” It is still unknown how the mace fell into S.G. Garlingson hands.

According to the opinion of a number of the researchers, this Mace is one of two maces received by Pylyp Orlyk (1672–1742) from the hands of the protector of Ukraine, King Carl XII of Sweden, when he was elected Hetman on April 5 (16), 1710. Due to very large financial challenge, especially after the death of King Carl XII, Hetman Pylyp Orlyk was forced to pledge his mace to merchant Konrad Kampf for 200 imperial thalers to continue his international activities to form a coalition against Moscow.

Unfortunately, there is no documentary or expert evidence that the Mace belonged to Hetman Pylyp Orlyk, as well as its origin from Hetman Ivan Mazepa, although, by the logic of events, the most probable way for the Mace to hit the Sweden was connected with Ivan Mazepa and Mazepa’s emigration which was then headed by Hetman Pylyp Orlyk. The Mace with its history needs further research, but its connection with Ukraine and Ukrainian statehood is quite probable and obvious.

At first, the Mace as a symbol of power granted to the Cossacks by the King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Stephen Bathory in 1576. In 1648 the hetman’s mace became one of the basic state symbols of Ukraine – the Zaporizhian Sich. Among the contemporary attributes of Ukrainian statehood and symbols of the President of Ukraine is the Mace of the President of Ukraine, which symbolizes the longevity of the modern state of Ukraine from the early modern Ukrainian state of the Zaporizhian Sich.