Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture

Myroslav Shkandrij is an associate professor of Slavic studies at the
University of Manitoba.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky was “the most famous and most vilified Ukrainian in the Russian Empire.” He remained an ostracized figure in the Soviet period. Even during the relatively tolerant “Shelest” years, his name could not be entered into a biographical dictionary of Soviet historians. Only on July 21, 1988, did Literaturna Ukraina finally publish a lengthy article which looks favourably upon his achievements.

Myths and decades of “disinformation” surround the author of the monumental History of Ukraine-Rus’, the organizer of the unofficial National Academy of Sciences in Lvov and the president of the short-lived independent Ukrainian state of 1918. Thomas Prymak’s is the first extensive scholarly study of a man whose national status rivals that of Shevchenko, Franko, and Drahomanov. Balanced and restrained in its judgments, it draws on a wide spectrum of sources and opinions, and presents the facts lucidly and engagingly.

Hrushevsky’s close and cordial relations with Franko are documented thoroughly. The democratic and tolerant policies he advocated are presented in useful summaries of his main articles and books. Prymak attempts to illustrate the gradual and inevitable development of political separatism from a cultural programme of “Ukrainstvo.” He follows the fortunes of the man who in 1905 announced the entry of “Ukrainstvo” (Ukrainian cultural self-affirmation) into Russian public life, who headed the national cultural movement but always avoided calling himself a nationalist, who stood for the entry of “non-state peoples into public life” (p. 123), and who, paradoxically, uttered his country’s declaration of independence in 1918.

The final part of the book deals with the historian’s return to Ukraine and his work within Soviet academic institutions until his death under suspicious circumstances in 1934. Did the surgeon’s knife purposely slip? Prymak assesses the facts carefully, recognizing that the archives of the Soviet political police are not at our disposal and that, in any case, “the full truth may never be known with certainty” (p.262).

This is a well prepared volume, complete with illustrations and a detailed index, that provides both an admirable scholarly treatment and a readable account of a great national awakener.