Aсt I

Young girls are telling their fortunes. Maria, Kochubey’s daughter, runs in, excited that the hetman Mazeppa has arrived. The young girl has fallen in love with him and cannot imagine life without him. Andrei, a young Cossack, is in love with Maria and tells her of his deep love. But Maria’s thoughts are only of Mazeppa. Andrei comes to realize the futility of his hopes.

After the grand feast in Mazeppa’s honor, Mazeppa asks Kochubey for his youngest daughter’s hand in marriage. Kochubey is stunned: Maria is the hetman’s god daughter, and he is much older than she. Mazeppa presses the issue and Kochubey demands that he leave the house. Their quarrel attracts the attention of the other guests and Kochubey’s retainers. Finally Mazeppa suggests that Maria make the choice: her father or him? Maria choses the hetman, and runs off with him.

Kochubey’s wife, Lyubov, is in despair. Weeping for her daughter who has abandoned her father’s house, she calls on her husband to take decisive action against Mazeppa. Kochubey has long wanted to tell Peter the Great of Mazeppa’s secret plans to make the Ukraine an independent state, allied with the Swedish King Charles XII. Iskra, Kochubey’s friend, suggests that Kochubey send a rider to the capital at once, to give warning of the hetman’s planned treachery. Andrei is entrusted with the letter to the Czar.