Why "Mazeppa"?

In an unjustifiably obscure essay ("the Risen Lord"), D. H. Lawrence argued that the great religious symbols "are only images of our own experiences, of our own state of mind and soul." Tolstoy made a similar observation in his "The Law of Love and The Law of Violence." There, Tolstoy lamented the "evils" which result from a "lack of religious conception corresponding to our epoch." These evils would "disappear," he wrote, "after the adoption of a religious principle that would correspond to our epoch." Lawrence argued that the "Great War" smashed the religious images that had helped Europeans make sense of their lives. He claimed that the image of the "Risen Lord" was the symbol for the future. But not a "Lord" risen to a life of ethereal, supernatural existence but, rather, one risen to a life lived "full in the flesh." Lawrence went on to detail exactly what he meant by this notion of a full life in the flesh--in a way that could not help but scandalize many (if not most) of those who consider themselves Christians. But those of us who recognize the Zarathustran provenance of the notion of resurrection that is shared by Christians, Muslims, and Jews discern within it the palimpsest of the Iranian prophet's celebration of life in the body. This is the lost dogma of Irano-Semitic prophecy--or, rather, the doctrine hidden by the bureaucratic routinizers (Weber) of religion who are always everywhere engaged in supressing the liberating message of the prophets. Those who truly believe in resurrection, hear the call to "Rise up!"

For me, the figure of Mazeppa is a religious symbol that corresponds to our epoch: a youth who runs afoul of the prerogatives of wealth, age, and power, Mazeppa is punished by being stripped of his possessions--even the clothes on his back--and strapped to a runaway steed and sent into the wilderness to be devoured by wolves. This is his "crucifixion"--only he does not die. He survives because the horse finally tires of its flight and wanders into a "Tartar" village where Mazeppa is found, cut free, dressed, fed, and nursed back to health by the villagers who eventually make him headman of their tribe. He is like Rumi's little lame goat who appears to be the "runt of the litter," only to surprise the observer by emerging as leader of the flock.

Lord Byron saw the Romantic potential of the Mazeppa figure and wrote a somewhat operatic poem about it. Since Byron, a Mazeppist is someone who is suspect, subversive of the status quo. He lives, "dies," and rises--not to ascend to an ethereal realm but to struggle yet another day.