Revisiting an Early Nineteenth-Century Debate Author(S): Serhii Plokhy Source: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes, Vol
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Canadian Slavonic Papers Ukraine or Little Russia? Revisiting an Early Nineteenth-Century Debate Author(s): Serhii Plokhy Source: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 48, No. 3/4 (September-December 2006), pp. 335-353 Published by: Canadian Association of Slavists Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40871115 . Accessed: 10/06/2014 14:45 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Canadian Association of Slavists and Canadian Slavonic Papers are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.76.57 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:45:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SerhiiPlokhy Ukraine or Little Russia? Revisiting an Early Nineteenth-CenturyDebate Abstract: Thisarticle contributes to theexisting literature on the"History of the Rus'," at once the mostmysterious and the mostinfluential product of UkrainianCossack historiography,in three major respects. First, it challengesthe dominant historiographie trendthat treats the "History" as a manifestationof growingnational self-awareness of Ukrainianelites. Second, it contributesto the perennialsearch for the authorof the "History"by claimingthat the manuscriptwas writtensoon after1800, effectively locatingthe work in therealm of nineteenth-centuryhistoriography. Third, it attemptsto identifythe authorand titleof thework that provoked the "Historyof theRus'" - an approachoverlooked or deemed impossible of realization by all studentsof the "History." Morethan anything else, however, this article takes the debate out of the Procrustean bed intowhich it was forcedby the national narratives of a laterera, both Ukrainian and all- Russian.It emphasizesthe simple fact that historians have littlecontrol over the use of theirnarratives. Few factorsare as crucialto theformation of modernnational identities as the creationand disseminationof commonhistorical myths that explain the origins of a givenethnic or nationalgroup and provideit witha sense of common belonging.1The lateeighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries were a periodof mass productionof nationalmyths, given the highdemand for them on the burgeoningEuropean market of ideas.Historical writing was successfullytaken over by nationalprojects and turnedinto a vehiclefor the popularizationof nationalmythologies at a timewhen history was just beginning to establishitself as a scholarlydiscipline.2 A shortcutto theproduction of elaboratemythologies that"proved" the ancientorigins of modernnations and providedthem with respectablepasts was theforging of ancientdocuments as well as literaryand historicalworks allegedly lost at some timeand now "rediscovered"to the astonishmentand approval of a gratefulpublic. More often than not, the authors of such "rediscovered"treasures were in pursuitof literarysuccess and/or On therole of historicalmyth in theprocess of modernnation building, see Anthony Smith,The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) 174-208. 2 See StefanBerger, Mark Donovan, and Kevin Passmore,"Apologias for the Nation- State in WesternEurope since 1800," in idem, WritingNational Histories: Western Europesince 1800 (London and New York:Routledge, 1999) 3-14. CanadianSlavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes Vol. XLVIII, Nos. 3-4,September-December 2006 This content downloaded from 62.122.76.57 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:45:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 336 SerhiiPlokhy money.They did notsuspect that they were fulfilling a social demand,serving as agentsof history, or acting as buildersof as yetnonexistent modern nations.3 JamesMacpherson (1736-1796), a Scottishpoet littleknown in his own right,produced the best-known literary mystification of the era. In the1760s he publishedwhat he claimedto be Englishtranslations of poems by a third- centurybard named Ossian. These were in factold Irishballads of Scottish originthat Macpherson turned into "old Scottishepics," contributingin the processto theformation of modernScottish identity. Although the translations wereshown to be forgeriessoon after Macpherson' s death, his poemsappealed to thereading public far beyond Scotland and contributedto therise of literary 4 romanticismand nationalmovements all over Europe. Soon afterthe appearanceof the first Russian translation of "Ossian,"lovers of literature in the RussianEmpire discovered, to theirsurprise and delight, that they had their own Ossian. His name was Boian, and he was a characterin the Igor Tale, purportedlya twelfth-century epic poemonce lost and now happily rediscovered, provingthat the so-called"Russians" had an ancientand gloriousliterary traditionof theirown.5 The Tale describeda campaignagainst the Polovtsians by a twelfth-centuryprince of Novhorod-Sivers'kyi,a town thatwas fully incorporatedinto the Russian Empire only a fewdecades before the publication ofthe newly "rediscovered" text in 1800.Apparently the publishers and readers of theTale saw nothingunusual in thefact that their national literature had its beginningsin one of thecentres of theUkrainian Hetmanate, a Cossack state createdin the mid-seventeenthcentury and fullyabsorbed by the Russian Empirein the 1780s. But the inhabitantsof Novhorod-Sivers'kyiand the surroundingarea wereless thansatisfied with the kind of historicalmythology producedin imperialcapitals. Indeed, they were on the huntfor their own On theconnection between literary and criminalforgery in theAge of Enlightenment, see Paul Baines, The House of Forgeryin Eighteenth-CenturyBritain (Burlington: Ashgate,1999). On the functionof historicalforgeries in East CentralEurope and Ukraine,see HryhoriiHrabovych, "Slidamy natsional'nykh mistyfikatsii," Krytyka 5.6 (June2001): 14-23. See Hugh Trevor-Roper,"The Inventionof Tradition:The HighlandTradition in Scotland,"in The Inventionof Tradition,ed. Eric Hobsbawmand TerenceRanger (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997) 15^1, here17-18. For theimpact of Macpherson's poetry on therise of theRomantic Movement, see HowardGaskill, ed., Receptionof Ossian in Europe (Cardiff: Continuum, 2004). On thereception of Ossian in theRussian Empire, see IuriiLevin, Ossian v russkoiliterature: konets XVHI-pervaia tret'XIX veka (Leningrad:Nauka, 1980). On the inventionof historicalsources in eighteenth-centuryRussia, see Aleksei Tolochko, (iIstoriiaRossiiskaia" Vasiliia Tatishcheva:istochniki i izvestiia (Moscow and Kyiv:Novoe literaturnoeobozrenie and Krytyka,2005), especially pp. 504-523. On the Igor Tale as a late eighteenth-centurytext, see EdwardL. Keenan,Josef Dobrovskyand the Originsof the Roman (Cambridge,Mass.: UkrainianResearch Instituteand Davis Center,2003). This content downloaded from 62.122.76.57 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:45:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Revisitingan Early Nineteenth-CenturyDebate 337 ancientmanuscripts that would help themmake sense of theirless distant Cossackpast. Not surprisingly, they found one. The manuscript,entitled "History of the Rusf,"began to circulatein the formerHetmanate in themid- 1820s. It tracedthe history of thelocal Cossacks, whomthe author calls theRus', to theera of the Kyivan princes, and fromthem, via the historyof Slavic settlementin EasternEurope, all the way back to biblicaltimes. As an exercisein mystification,it was a muchless ambitious undertakingthen either Ossian or the Igor Tale. The introductionto the "History of theRus'" claimedthat the manuscript had beenproduced by generationsof monksworking at the Orthodoxmonastery in Mahilioüand completedin 1769- a merefifty-six years before we encounterthe first clear evidence of the existenceof thework. The anonymousauthor covered his tracksby claiming thatthe work had passed through the hands of two highly respected and, by now, safely dead individuals,the Orthodoxarchbishop of Mahilioü, Heorhii Konys'kyi(1717-1795), and the best-knownUkrainian delegate to Catherine IPs ConstitutionalAssembly of 1767-1768,Hryhorii Poletyka (1723/25-1784). Konys'kyihad allegedlygiven the manuscriptto Poletyka,leading readers to assumethat it was finally"rediscovered" in Poletyka's libraryand thusbecame availableto thepublic. The "History"was an unqualifiedsuccess, copied and recopiedagain and again before it finallysaw printin 1846.6 By thattime it had shapedthe views of scoresof professionaland amateurhistorians, as well as Russianand Ukrainianauthors - includingAleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol' (MykolaHohol') and Taras Shevchenko- aboutthe Ukrainian past. Romantic authorsof the era were excited by the discovery of an "ancient"manuscript that wentbeyond the dry facts presented in theRus' chronicles.It narratedthe heroic deedsof the Cossacks in imagesthat fired the imagination of theliterary public. Whilethe fascination of Russianliterary figures with the "History of theRus'" turnedout to be short-lived,it had a spectacularcareer in Ukrainian historiographyand literature,shaping generations of Ukrainianpatriots both directlyand through the medium of Taras Shevchenko' s works.7 Like all influentialmystifications,