Mykola Kostomarov: A Biography

Maria Hrycaiko Zaputovich lectures in Chinese, Russian, and Japanese
history at the universities of Guelph and Toronto.

This is an objective and well-written biography of Mykola Kostomarov
(1817–1885), a consummate scholar and leading light of the Ukrainian
national awakening who empathized with the common people and championed
the use of the Ukrainian language in education. An unfortunate practice
in this biography is the use of Russian spelling for Ukrainian place
names. Prymak has also confused the name of a territory, “Slobidska
Ukraine,” with the name of its settlement, “sloboda.”

In researching the biography, Prynak had access to primary sources that
deal with such controversial issues as the non-Slavic origins of the
Russian people; the separate historical, cultural, and linguistic
entities of Russia and Ukraine; and the assertion that Kyivan-Rus’ was
the predecessor of Ukraine, not of Russia. He also documents Ukraine’s
suffering under Polish and Russian occupation. His book is bound to
generate much discussion, and should be included in every university’s
East European curriculum.