 Several critics have also speculated that Byron was familiar with the "Mémoires d'Azéma" (1764) by the French writer André Guillaume Contant Dorville, as there are significant similarities between the plot of that novel and of Byron's poem.Byron's references to Mazepa's participation in the Great Northern War alongside Charles XII, and their eventual defeat, are historically accurate.Many critics see "Mazeppa" as a transitional work in Byron's "œuvre".