MYKHAILO HRUSHEVSKY THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL CULTURE Ukraine's foremost historian and one of its most prominent national leaders, M ykhailo Hrushevsky was at the tum of the century a leading figure in the transformation of the Ukrainian national revival into a major political movement. His pivotal role in Ukraine's drive toward national autonomy earned him both the admiration of his countrymen and the vilification of his critics. The first scholarly biography of Hrushevsky, Thomas Prymak's study focuses on three major periods in the historian's life and in Ukraine's modem history. The first, from 1894 to 1917, was one of intensive scholarly and community activity for Hrushevsky and the advancement of his notion of federalism. The second, from 1917 to 1924, features Hrushevsky in the principal role in the Ukrainian revolution, and ends with his promotion of the Ukrainian cause abroad. The third period deals with his controversial return home to Soviet Ukraine, his uneasy yet productive relations with the regime whose ideology he steadfastly refused to endorse, and his mysterious death in 1934. Hrushevsky is still a target of attacks by the Soviet government. This biog­ raphy presents a balanced and judicious evaluation of a figure who remains a villain in the eyes of the Kremlin and a hero to Ukrainian emigres. THOMAS PRYMAK is Research Associate, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. THOMAS M. PRYMAK Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press 1987 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-5737-3 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Prymak, Thomas M., 1948- Mykhailo Hrushevsky (University of Toronto Ukrainian studies~ 3) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-8020-5737-3 1. Hrushevskyi, Mykhailo, 1866-1934. 2. Historians - Ukraine - Biography. 3. Ukraine - Politics and government - 1917- . 4. Ukraine - Intellectual life. 5. Nationaiism - Ukraine. I. Title. II. Series. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For Yassy Obviously, the cooling of raw emotion and substitution of tepid intellectual discourse for the language of attack and defense tends to immerse any historical subject in ambivalent complexities. The most vital history is likely to be written during the period when emotion remains strong enough to be recollected in tranquillity (Wordsworth's definition of the well-spring of true poetry) and before anger or love have been completely obscured by intellectual constructs. William H. McNeill 1980 Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / ix ABBREVIATIONS / X ILLUSTRATIONS/ xi Introduction I 3 I Youth and Education 1866-1894 I 1 1 2 The Young Professor 1894-1897 I 29 3 Galician Piedmont 1897-1905 / 45 4 The Shift Back to Kiev 1905-1914 / 70 5 The Shift Continues 1905-1917 I 93 6 The Struggle for a Ukrainian State 1917-1918 I 125 7 The Ukrainian People's Republic 1918 I 152 viii Contents 8 The Liberation Struggle at Home and Abroad 1918-1924 I 180 9 The All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) 1924-1927 I 208 IO The Party Attacks 1928-1930 I 227 II Last Years and Death 1931-1934 I 247 Conclusion I 263 APPENDIX A. The Fate of the Hrushevsky Family I 269 APPENDIX B. The Fate of Hrushevsky's School and of His Colleagues from the Ukrainian Academy (Some Examples) I 271 APPENDIX c. The Hrushevsky Legend in the Soviet Union 1934 to the Present I 274 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 279 INDEX I 305 Acknowledgments It is fitting to acknowledge the encouragement and help that I have received from various quarters. A number of learned men read the manuscript of my book and suggested improvements. These include my former doctoral program supervisor, Professor Peter Brock of the University of Toronto, and also Professors Paul Magocsi, John Keep, and Bohdan Budurowycz of the same institution, and Professor Ivo Lambi of the University of Saskatchewan. For several years, I also corresponded with Professor Lubomyr Wynar of Kent State University and with the late Ivan L. Rudnytsky of the University of Alberta, each of whom, in his own way, contributed to the formation of my ideas about Hrushevsky. Several institutions, including the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, provided financial assistance during the earlier, thesis, phase of my studies of Hrushevsky, and the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto awarded me an Edward Schreyer Post-doctoral Fellowship and provided me with stenographic help which assisted in turning the work into a book. The Shevchenko Scientific Society of New York City also provided me with a research grant. It has been a long and adventurous journey, and to all those who contributed to the enterprise, especially those who accompanied me for some part of the way, I offer my sincere thanks. THOMAS M. PRYMAK Abbreviations ANURSR Akademiia Nauk Ukrainskoi Radianskoi Sotsiialistychnoi Respubliky. Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic CPbU Komunistychna Partiia (bilshovykiv) Ukrainy. Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine NTSh Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka. Shevchenko Scientific Society RUP Revoliutsiina Ukrainska Partiia. Revolutionary Ukrainian Party svu Soiuz Vyzvolennia Ukrainy. Union for the Liberation of Ukraine svu Spilka Vyzvolennia Ukrainy. League for the Liberation of Ukraine TUP Tovarystvo Ukrainskykh Postupovtsiv. Society of Ukrainian Progressives UNS Ukrainskyi Narodnyi Soiuz. Ukrainian National Union UNT Ukrainske Naukove Tovarystvo. Ukrainian Scientific Society UPSR or Ukrainska Partiia Sotsiialistiv-revoliutsioneriv. Ukrainian Ukrainian SRs Party of Socialist Revolutionaries USDLP or Ukrainska Sotsiial-demokratychna Robitnychna Partiia. Ukrainian Social Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party Democrats VUAN Vse-Ukrainska Akademiia Nauk. The (All-) Ukrainian Academy of Sciences VUTsVK Vse-Ukrainskyi Tsentralnyi Vykonavchyi Komitet. All­ Ukrainian Central Executive Committee Note: For abbreviations of the titles of journals and newspapers, see the bibliography. While still a student at Saint Vladimir University in Kiev (c. 1890), Hrushevsky stood out from his fellows and attracted the attention of his superiors. His long beard, high forehead, and receding hairline gave him a mature, inte1ligent look that caused young friends and colleagues to dub him 'the beard of Saint Onufry.' The dignity and intelli­ gence remained lifelong characteristics; the saintly calm disappeared in the maelstrom of Galician public life . From an undated photograph first printed in M. Hrushevsky, Pro ukrainsku movu i ukrainsku shkolu, 2nd edition (Kiev, 1913), introduction. Saint Vladimir University was founded in I 834 with the purpose of reducing Polish influences in Kiev. Th.e large red-coloured building looked like this in Hrushevsky 's time, but remains little changed to the present. In the 1920s, it was reorganized into the Kiev Institute of Popular Education and in 1939 was renamed the Kiev Taras Shev­ chenko State University. Ivan Nechui-Levytsky promoted the pure Ukrainian language as it was spoken among the countryfolk of central Ukraine. He helped the schoolboy Hrushevsky to publish his first literary efforts but fiercely criticized him after 1905 when the historian promoted Galician linguistic influences on new Dnieper Ukrainian literary production. Portrait by Opanas Slastion, 1890s. The historian Volodymyr Antonovych exercised a powerful influence upon Hrushevsky' s scholarship and arranged for his appointment to the new chair of Ukrainian History at the University of Lviv. Just as Antonovych personified cultural activism in the 189os, so Hrushevsky personified the politicization of the post-1905 Ukrainian national movement. From 0. Lototsky, Storinky mynuloho, n, 199. The combination of fonnal morning-coat and embroidered peasant shirt (sorochka) might seem unusual to a West European, but aptly characterized the progressive and popular­ educational theme of the Ukrainian national movement of the early twentieth century when this picture of Hrushevsky as Professor of History in Lviv was taken in 191 I. From Vistnyk SVU, no. 128 (Vienna, 1916). Courtesy of the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, Winnipeg. Hrushevsky's 1896 marriage to the modest schoolteacher Mariia Voiakovska caused a minor scandal in Galician Ukrainian society, which considered this daughter of a Greek Catholic (U niate) village priest a poor match for the wealthy young professor from Kiev. But the marriage was a happy one and helped to make possible Hrushevsky's enormous scholarly and literary production and solid contribution to public life. In this photograph (c. 1900), Hrushevsky sits on one side and Mariia, who is dressed in white, on the other, and they are surrounded by Mariia's family. From Vistnyk SVU, no. 128 (Vienna, 1916). Courtesy of the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, Winnipeg. In 19<>0, Hrushevsky's daughter, Kateryna, was born, and within a few years she could play on the grass in front of her father's impressive new house in Lviv. The writer Ivan Franko built a smaller home next door to his friend Hrushevsky and, with official approval of the Franko cult in the Soviet Union, it has become a national shrine. But contempor­ ary visitors to the Franko Museum are not told that the stately mansion next door was once the home of the greatest of modern Ukrainian historians and the first president of the Ukrainian People's Republic. From I. Krypiakevych, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, p. 33. Courtesy of the British Library, London. Hrushevsky inherited a large library from his father and steadily added to it in Lviv. Ukrainian artifacts and rugs decorated the interior of his Lviv house. This photograph was taken before 1914. From Symon Narizhnyi, Ukrainska emigratsiia, p. lxxxv. Hrushevsky and Franko amidst the representatives of the western Ukrainian intelligentsia who gathered in Lviv in I 898 to celebrate the centenary of the rebirth of Ukrainian literature. Sitting: Mykhailo Pavlyk, Ievheniia Ievrotynsky, Nataliia Kobrynska, Olha Kobylianska, Danylo Lepky (Marko Murava), Andrii Chaikovsky, Kost Penkivsky.