Mykhailo Hrushevsky

Last updated

Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus’ represented a seismic break from the Russocentric paradigm that had previously driven historiography. Russian imperial domination of political history had sought to entrench a narrative advocating a direct continuity between Rus' and the Suzdalia-Muscovy-Russian Empire — an interpretation of medieval history that, for decades, Western scholarship had fully embraced. [2]

Hrushevsky wrote his first academic book, Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, on the history of Bar, Ukraine. [3] As a historian, he authored the first detailed scholarly synthesis of Ukrainian history, his ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus , which was published in the Ukrainian language and covered the period from prehistory to the 1660s. In the work, he balanced a commitment to the ordinary Ukrainian people with an appreciation for native Ukrainian political entities, autonomous polities, which steadily increased in the final volumes of his master work. In general, his approach combined rationalist enlightenment principles with a romantic commitment to the cause of the nation and positivist methodology to produce a highly-authoritative history of his native land and people. Hrushevsky also wrote a multi-volume History of Ukrainian Literature, an Outline History of the Ukrainian People and a very popular Illustrated History of Ukraine, which appeared in both Ukrainian and Russian editions. In addition, he wrote numerous specialised studies in which he displayed a very acute critical acumen. His personal bibliography has over 2000 separate titles.

In Hrushevsky's varied historical writings, certain basic ideas come to the fore. Firstly, he saw continuity in Ukrainian history from ancient times to his own. Thus, he claimed the ancient Ukrainian steppe cultures from Scythia to Kievan Rus' to the Cossacks as part of Ukrainian heritage. He viewed the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia as the sole legitimate heir of Kievan Rus, which opposed the official scheme of Russian history, which claimed Kievan Rus' for the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality and Imperial Russia. Secondly, to give real depth to the continuity, Hrushevsky stressed the role of the common people, the "popular masses" as he called them, throughout the eras. Thus, popular revolts against the various foreign states that ruled Ukraine were also a major theme. Thirdly, Hrushevsky always emphasised native Ukrainian factors rather than international ones as the causes of various phenomena. Thus, he was an anti-Normanist, who stressed the Slavic origins of Rus, internal discord as the primary reason for the fall of Kievan Rus' and the native Ukrainian ethnic makeup and origins of the Ukrainian Cossacks. (He considered runaway serfs especially important in the last regard.) Also, he stressed the national aspect to the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries and considered that the great revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to be largely a national and social phenomenon, rather than simply a religious phenomenon. Thus, continuity nativism, and populism characterised his general histories.

On the role of statehood in Hrushevsky's historical thought, contemporary scholars still do not agree. Some believe that Hrushevsky retained a populist mistrust of the state throughout his career and that it was reflected by his deep democratic convictions, but others believe that Hrushevsky gradually became more and more for Ukrainian statehood in his various writings and that to be is reflected in his political work on the construction of a Ukrainian national state, during the revolution in 1917 and 1918.

Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus’ represented a seismic break from the Russocentric paradigm that had previously driven historiography

Scholar

The board and members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneida, Lviv, 31 October 1898: Sitting in the first row: Mykhaylo Pavlyk, Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Natalia Kobrynska, Olha Kobylianska, Sylvester Lepky, Andriy Chaykovsky, Kost Pankivsky. In the second row: Ivan Kopach, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Osyp Makovej, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Ivan Franko, Oleksandr Kolessa, Bohdan Lepky. Standing in the third row: Ivan Petrushevych, Filaret Kolessa, Yossyp Kyshakevych, Ivan Trush, Denys Lukianovych, Mykola Ivasyuk. Uchasniki z'yizdu ukrayins'kikh pis'mennikiv z nagodi 100-richchia vikhodu v svit <<Eneyidi>>.jpeg
The board and members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneida, Lviv, 31 October 1898: Sitting in the first row: Mykhaylo Pavlyk, Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Natalia Kobrynska, Olha Kobylianska, Sylvester Lepky, Andriy Chaykovsky, Kost Pankivsky. In the second row: Ivan Kopach, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Osyp Makovej, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Ivan Franko, Oleksandr Kolessa, Bohdan Lepky. Standing in the third row: Ivan Petrushevych, Filaret Kolessa, Yossyp Kyshakevych, Ivan Trush, Denys Lukianovych, Mykola Ivasyuk.

As an organiser of scholarship, Hrushevsky oversaw the transformation of the Shevchenko Literary Society, based in the province of Halychyna (Galicia), Austria-Hungary, into a new Shevchenko Scientific Society, which published hundreds of volumes of scholarly literature before the First World War and quickly grew to serve as an unofficial academy of sciences for Ukrainian on both sides of the border with Russia. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Hrushevsky organised the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kyiv in 1907 that served as a prototype to the future Academy of Sciences. After the 1917-1921 revolution, he founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in exile in Vienna. After his return to Ukraine in the 1920s, he became a major figure of the new All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv in 1923.

Politician

Before 1917

As a political leader, Hrushevsky first became active in Austrian Halychyna, where he spoke out against Polish political predominance and Ruthenian particularism and supported a national Ukrainian identity that would unite both eastern and western parts of the country. In 1899, he was a cofounder of the Galician-based National Democratic Party, which looked forward to eventual Ukrainian independence. After 1905, Hrushevsky advised the Ukrainian Club in the Russian State Duma, or Parliament.

Ukrainian Revolution

Hrushevsky as leader of the Central Rada at a military parade in Kyiv in 1917 Grushevskiy parad.jpg
Hrushevsky as leader of the Central Rada at a military parade in Kyiv in 1917

In 1917, Hrushevsky was elected head of the revolutionary parliament, the Ukrainian Central Rada, in Kyiv and gradually guided it from Ukrainian national autonomy within a democratic Russia through to complete independence. He chaired the Congress of the Peoples of Russia. Hrushevsky was then clearly revealed to be a radical democrat and a socialist. On February 17, 1918, The New York Times published an article by Hrushevsky that outlined Ukraine's struggle for self-government. [4] Following the German-supported coup of General Pavlo Skoropadskyi, he went into hiding. Hrushevsky felt that Skoropadsky had perverted the cause of Ukrainian statehood by associating it with social conservatism. Hrushevsky returned to public politics after the overthrow of Skoropadsky by the Directory. He did not, however, approve of the Directory and soon found himself in conflict with it. In 1919, he emigrated to Vienna, Austria, having acquired a mandate from the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries to co-ordinate the activities of its representatives abroad.

Emigration and return to Ukraine

While an émigré, Hrushevsky began to become pro-Bolshevik. Along with other members of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, he formed the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, which advocated reconciliation with the Bolshevik government. Though the group was critical of the Bolsheviks, especially because of their centralism and repressive activities in Ukraine, it felt that the criticisms had to be put aside because the Bolsheviks were the leaders of the international revolution. Hrushevsky and his group petitioned the Ukrainian SSR government to legalise the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries and to allow the members of the Foreign Delegation to return. The Ukrainian SSR government was unwilling to do so. By 1921, the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries had ended its activity, but all of its members returned to Ukraine, including Hrushevsky, who did so in 1924. [5]

Later life and death

Back in Ukraine, Hrushevsky concentrated on academic work. Above all, he continued writing his monumental History of Ukraine-Rusʹ . Although political conditions prevented his return to public politics, he was caught up in the Stalinist purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In 1931, after a long campaign against Hrushevsky in the Soviet press, he was exiled to Moscow, where his health deteriorated due to difficult conditions and persecution. [6] In 1934, while vacationing at the Academy of Sciences resort in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, [7] he died soon after a routine minor surgery at the age of 68. He was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv. [6]

At the time of his death, he was being shadowed by the Soviet GPU secret police after reports (probably fabricated by the GPU in Ukraine) were sent to Moscow that had been considering defection to the West, and afterwards the government resolution and approval of his official obituary were published remarkably promptly, as if already prepared: the suspicious circumstances effectively made him a martyr for the Ukrainian cause. [7]

Legacy

Hrushevskyi portrait on UAH 50 bill, 2019 50-uah-2019-1.png
Hrushevskyi portrait on ₴ 50 bill, 2019

Hrushevsky is presently regarded as Ukraine's greatest 20th-century scholar and one of the most prominent Ukrainian statesmen in Ukraine's history, and he is still famous in Ukraine. [9] [10] Hrushevsky has been more lionized than Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Symon Petliura were, despite both playing more important roles during the Ukrainian People's Republic, but Vynnychenko was too left wing and Petliura too associated with violence to make a good symbolic figure. [11]

Mykhailo Hrushevsky monument in Kyiv HrushevskyMonument.jpg
Mykhailo Hrushevsky monument in Kyiv

Hrushevsky's portrait appears on the 50 hryvnia note. A museum in Kyiv and another in Lviv are devoted to his memory, and monuments to him have been erected in both cities. A street in Kyiv bears his name and houses the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and many governmental offices. The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences recently initiated the publication of his Collected Works, in 50 volumes.

Family

Mykhailo Hrushevsky had two siblings: a brother, Oleksandr, and a sister, Hanna.

His wife, Maria-Ivanna Hrushevska (November 8, 1868 – September 19, 1948), was from 1917 was a member of the Central Rada and a treasurer for the Ukrainian National Theatre.

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ Also Hrushevskyi in standard romanization

Related Research Articles

The history of Ukraine spans back for over thousands of years. Prehistoric Ukraine, as a part of the Pontic steppe in Eastern Europe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural events, including the spread of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, Indo-European migrations, and the domestication of the horse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coat of arms of Ukraine</span>

The coat of arms of Ukraine is a blue shield with a golden trident. It is colloquially known as the tryzub.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Rada</span> Legislature of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic

The Central Rada of Ukraine, also called the Central Council, was the All-Ukrainian council that united deputies of soldiers, workers, and peasants deputies as well as few members of political, public, cultural and professional organizations of the Ukrainian People's Republic. After the All-Ukrainian National Congress, the Council became the revolutionary parliament in the interbellum lasting until the Ukrainian-Soviet War. Unlike with many other councils in the Russian Republic, Bolshevization of the Rada failed completely, prompting the Ukrainian Bolsheviks to form a rival government in Kharkov.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mykola Kostomarov</span> Russian–Ukrainian historian (1817–1885)

Mykola Ivanovych Kostomarov or Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was one of the most distinguished Russian–Ukrainian historians, one of the first anti-Normanists, and the father of modern Ukrainian historiography. He was a professor of Russian history at the St. Vladimir University of Kiev and later at the St. Petersburg University, an Active State Councillor of Russia, an author of many books, including his biography of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, research on Stepan Razin, and his fundamental three-volume Russian history in the biographies of its most important figures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volodymyr Vynnychenko</span> Prime Minister of Ukraine in 1917 and 1918

Volodymyr Kyrylovych Vynnychenko was a Ukrainian statesman, political activist, writer, playwright and artist who served as the first prime minister of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omeljan Pritsak</span> Ukrainian-American history professor (1919–2006)

Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dmytro Doroshenko</span> Ukrainian historian and politician (1882–1951)

Dmytro Ivanovych Doroshenko was a prominent Ukrainian political figure during the revolution of 1917–1918 and a leading Ukrainian emigre historian during the inter-war period. Doroshenko was a supporter of federal ties with the Russian Republic and a member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Federalists.

Oleksander Petrovych Ohloblyn was a Ukrainian politician and historian who served as mayor of Kyiv while it was under the occupation of Nazi Germany in 1941. He was one of the most important Ukrainian émigré historians of the Cold War era.

Various factions fought over Ukrainian territory after the collapse of the Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and after the First World War ended in 1918, resulting in the collapse of Austria-Hungary, which had ruled Ukrainian Galicia. The crumbling of the empires had a great effect on the Ukrainian nationalist movement, and in a short period of four years a number of Ukrainian governments sprang up. This period was characterized by optimism and by nation-building, as well as by chaos and civil war. Matters stabilized somewhat in 1921 with the territory of modern-day Ukraine divided between Soviet Ukraine and Poland, and with small ethnic-Ukrainian regions belonging to Czechoslovakia and to Romania.

Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party was a political party in Ukraine and the Russian Republic founded in April 1917, based on separate groups and circles of SRs that existed on the territory of Ukraine since 1905. The left faction of the party dissolved it in 1918 forming a new party, while the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party was recreated in January 1919 by its moderate faction members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serhiy Yefremov</span> Ukrainian literary journalist (1876–1939)

Serhiy Oleksandrovych Yefremov was a Ukrainian literary journalist, historian, critic, political activist, statesman, and academician. He was a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Science (1919) and Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Secretariat of Ukraine</span> Former autonomous Ukrainian executive government of the Russian republic

The General Secretariat of Ukraine was the autonomous Ukrainian executive government of the Russian Republic from June 28, 1917, to January 22, 1918. For most of its existence it was headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavlo Khrystiuk</span> Ukrainian historian, journalist, activist, and politician (1890–1941)

Pavlo Onkiiovych Khrystiuk was a Ukrainian cooperativist, historian, journalist, political activist, and statesman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serhii Plokhy</span> Ukrainian-American historian

Serhii Mykolayovych Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University, where he also serves as the director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ukrainian–Soviet War</span> 20th-century conflict between the Ukrainian Peoples Republic and the Bolsheviks

The Ukrainian–Soviet War is the term commonly used in post-Soviet Ukraine for the events taking place between 1917 and 1921, nowadays regarded essentially as a war between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Bolsheviks. The war ensued soon after the October Revolution when Lenin dispatched Antonov's expeditionary group to Ukraine and Southern Russia.

The Little Russian identity was a cultural, political, and ethnic self-identification of a population of Ukraine who aligned themselves as one of the constituent parts of the triune Russian nationality. The Little Russian identity combined the cultures of Imperial Russia and Cossack Hetmanate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hrushevsky Street (Kyiv)</span> Street in Pecherskyi District, Ukraine

Mykhailo Hrushevskyi Street or simply Hrushevskyi Street is a street in central Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All-Ukrainian National Congress</span> 1917 meeting of Ukrainian independence activists

All-Ukrainian National Congress became the first representative forum of the Ukrainian national movement in Ukraine and the first step towards the creation of Ukrainian National State. The congress was organized by the Ukrainian Central Rada and took place on 19–21 April [O.S. 6–8 April] 1917. The congress took place about a month after the creation of the Central Council of Ukraine and the 1917 March events in Petrograd. There were 1,500 delegates that participated in the congress and included 700 delegates with a decisive vote rights, 200 had consultative vote rights, and the rest were guests and invited participants. The key purpose of the congress was to recognize the Central Council of Ukraine as the All-Ukrainian National representative authority and widen its competency over the whole territory of Ukraine.

<i>History of Ukraine-Rusʹ</i>

History of Ukraine-Rusʹ is a monumental 10-volume monographic series by Mykhailo Hrushevsky. The work is generally considered a magnum opus and a foundation of the contemporary history of Ukraine. It covers the period from ancient times to the second half of the 17th century. It was written between 1895 and 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council</span>

The Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council is a state-political act, universal of the Central Council of Ukraine, proclaiming the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Accepted 20 November [O.S. 7 November] 1917 in November in Kyiv.

References

  1. ↑ "1917 - засідання Української Центральної Ради, яке очолив Михайло Грушевський" [1917 – a meeting of the Ukrainian Central Rada, chaired by Mykhailo Hrushevskyi] (in Ukrainian). Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UIMP). Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  2. ↑ Press, Ian. "History of Ukraine-Rus' Volume 2". Peterson Literary Fund.
  3. ↑ Hrushevsky, M., Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, St. Volodymyr University Publishing House, Velyka-Vasyl'kivska, Building no. 29-31, Kyiv, Ukraine, 1894; Lviv, Ukraine, ISBN   978-5-12-004335-9, pp. 1 – 623, 1996.
  4. ↑ Michaelo, Hrushevsky (17 February 1918). "Ukraine's Struggle for Self-Government". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  5. ↑ Christopher Gilley, ‘The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 54, 2006, No. 3, pp. 345-74
  6. 1 2 Ohloblyn, Oleksander; Wynar, Lubomyr. "Hrushevsky, Mykhailo". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  7. 1 2 Plokhy, Serhii (2005). Unmaking Imperial Russia : Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the writing of Ukrainian history. University of Toronto Press. pp. 6, 275, 510 (note 233). ISBN   0-8020-3937-5. OCLC   879109029.
  8. ↑ "National bank of Ukraine. Banknotes. 50 UAH. Portrait details". March 2017.
  9. ↑ Famous Ukrainians of all times Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine , Sociological group "RATING" (2012/05/28)
  10. ↑ Top 11-100 Archived 2013-03-24 at the Wayback Machine , Velyki Ukraïntsi
  11. ↑ Serhy Yekelchyk, Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation, Oxford University Press (2007), ISBN   978-0-19-530546-3

Further reading

  • Dmytro Doroshenko, "A Survey of Ukrainian Historiography," Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US, V-VI, 4 (1957), 262-74: online.
  • Thomas M. Prymak, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987). ISBN   978-0-8020-5737-2.
  • Lubomyr R. Wynar, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Ukrainian-Russian Confrontation in Historiography (Toronto-New York-Munich: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1988).
  • Thomas M. Prymak, "Mykhailo Hrushevsky in History and Legend," Ukrainian Quarterly,LX, 3-4 (2004), pp. 216–30. A brief summary of this author's views.
  • Serhii Plokhy, Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). ISBN   978-0-8020-3937-8.
  • Pyrig, Ruslan. Mykhailo Grushevsky and the Bolshevik Rule: The Price of Compromises in Zerkalo Nedeli , September 30, 2006. Available in Russian and Ukraine
  • Christopher Gilley, The 'Change of Signposts' in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s, Ibidem: Stuttgart, 2009, Chapter 4.
Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Михайло Грушевський
Hrushevskyi Mykhailo XX.jpg
President of the Central Council of Ukraine
In office
28 March [ O.S. 15 September] 1917 [1]  –29 April 1918
Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920)
West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918–1919)
Hetmanate (1918)
Ukrainian People's Republic 1 (1920–1992)
Ukrainian National Council 2 (1941)
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 3 (1922–1991)
Ukraine (since 1991)
  • 1Presidents of the Ukrainian People's Republic in exile.   2 Chairman of the Ukrainian National Council.   3During the Soviet period the republican leader was the 1st secretary of the party, while a head of state de jure was the chairman of the parliament's presidium.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.