In 1708-09, the leader of Cossack Ukraine, Hetman Ivan Mazepa, launched a national struggle for his nation’s freedom against the rising Tsarist Russian Empire – a lasting movement that culminated in the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

 

The League of Ukrainian Canadians will continue to uphold Mazepa’s legacy of freedom, and to dissuade undue criticism laid upon him by past Imperial Russian and Soviet propaganda, by the current leadership of the Russian Federation, and by biased historians.

 

Lord G. Byron, V. Hugo, Voltaire, P. Tchaikovsky, E. Delacroix and many other world renowned writers, poets, artists and musicians have honoured Mazepa through their work. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to foster his legacy, which inspired Symon Petliura and Stepan Bandera - contemporary Ukrainian leaders, whose names, like Mazepa’s, also became synonymous with Ukraine’s struggle for independence in the XX^th century.