Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History

Myroslav Shkandrij is head of the Department of German and Slavic
Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the editor of The Cultural
Renaissance in Ukraine: Polemical Pamphlets, 1925–1926.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) achieved a paradigm shift in the
writing of East Slavic history. He deconstructed the traditional scheme
that collapsed every event into a narrative of Russian imperial growth,
and introduced a Ukrainian narrative. The project was crucial for a
modern national self-identity. After Hrushevsky, the Ukrainian movement
was no longer seen as vying for a place within the all-Russian ethnic
hierarchy, but rejected that hierarchy and saw itself as a separate
national identity. Serhii Plokhy, who has worked on the mammoth task of
translating and editing Hrushevsky’s 10-volume history into English,
gives an account of the great historian’s life, his ideas, and their
resonance.

Hrushevsky became the Ukrainian government’s head of state after the
1917 revolution. When the Bolsheviks drove out the national forces, he
emigrated, but then returned in 1924 to continue his academic work. His
great scholarly achievement is the History of Ukraine-Rus, which he was
still continuing at the time of his death. In the late 1920s, he came
under increasing attack and persecution, dying in suspicious
circumstances in 1934. His ideas, which challenged contemporary accepted
wisdom on many issues, in a great many cases have stood the test of
time, while those of his critics have not. Plokhy provides a careful,
considered analysis of his most productive theses. One is that the Antes
(Antae) of the 4th to 7th centuries AD were of Slavic origin and came
from Ukraine. They were, in fact, the ancestors of the Ukrainians.
Another is that the Kyivan state was the creation of one nationality,
the Ukrainian-Ruthenian.

There were, of course, strong political overtones to these scholarly
debates. They ensured that Hrushevsky’s works and ideas were banned as
“bourgeois nationalist” when Stalin took control of the USSR in the
1930s. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, Hrushevsky’s works have
gone through large and repeated reprintings, and there has been a boom
in research on him. His challenge to the concept of a Russian identity
as including Great Russian, Little Russian (Ukrainian), and Belarusian
is still relevant in the contemporary situation. Many are still
reluctant to let go of this scheme and would like to see it
re-established as a prelude to reconstitution of a “pan-Russian”
identity. Plokhy’s book therefore provides important insights into the
tensions shaping cultural relations between Ukrainians and Russians. In
contrast to the controversial tone of polemics around these issues,
Plokhy’s exposition is erudite, shows an awareness of nuances, and is
able to span and synthesize various viewpoints. It is an excellent
introduction not only to Hrushevsky, but to historiographic debates
among the Eastern Slavs.