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

Unmaking Imperial Russia Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History

SerhiiPlokhv

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

e University of TorontoPressIncorporated2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN0-8020-3937-5

@ Printed on acid-freepaper

Library and Archives CanadaCataloguingin Publication Plokhy, Serhii, 1957Unmaking imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the writing of Ukrainian history / Serhii Plokhy. ISBN0-8020-3937-5 -1,866-1934. 1. Hrushevskyi, Mykhailo, 2. Ukraine - History, Revolution, 1917-1921- Registersof dead. 3. Historians - Ukraine Biography. 4. Statesmen- Ukraine - Biography. I. Title. DK508.47.H78P562005

947.7',0072'02 C2004-90428r-5

This book has been published with the help of a subvention from the Ukrainian Studies Fund Inc., New York. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financiai assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Gor.ernment of Canada through the Book Publishing Industrv Development Program (BPIDP).

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Contents

Preface ix Maps

xiii

Introduction

3

PART 1: NATIONAND

EMPIRE

77

1 The Historian as Nation-Builder The Shaping of a Populist 25 In the Habsburg Monarchy 37 'Liberation The of Russia' 48 Between Two Revolutions 62 The Birth of Ukraine 72 2 The Delimitation of the Past 92 Challenging the Imperial Narrative The Search for Origins 176 The Contest for Kyivan Rus' 734

23

95

3 The Construction of a National Paradigm Toward a New Narrative 155 Structuring the Past 166 The Story of a Nation 776 The Cossack Mythology 793

153

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Contents

PART2: NATION AND CLASS 2L3 4 Negotiating with the Bolsheviks 215 The Return to Ukraine 21,6 The SovietAcademician 231 The Historian 252 The'Counterrevolutionary' 264 5 Revisiting the Revolution 28L The Revolution 284 The Nation 289 The Hero 300 Massesand Eliies 376 The State 328 6 Classversus Nation 346 Marxist History and the National Narrative 347 PeacefulCoexistence367 The Great Break 382 The Suppressionof the National Paradigm 398 Conclusions 415 Appendix:Whols Hiding theLast Volumeof Hrusheaslcy's History? Notes 431 Bibliography 547 Index 589

423

Preface

As I tried to answer the question of when this book originated and who helped me most in my work on it, my thoughts kept returning to a day in the early 1980s. I was in graduate school at the University of Dnipropetrovsk, and my undergraduate adviser, Iurii Mytsyk, showed up on my doorstep with two books in his bag. One of them was a pre1917 edition of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's Illustrated History of Ukraine, and the other was Mykola Zerov's Lectureson the History of Ukrainian Literature, published in 7977 by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. My guest had reason to believe that he was under investigation by the authorities for anti-Stalinist remarks that he had made at a private meeting. He was expecting a search of his apartment and wanted to get rid of the compromising publications in his home library. I agreed to take both books for safekeeping. I had read Hrushevsky before in the special collections of the Moscow, Kyiv, and Lviv libraries, but this was my first opportunity not merely to gulp down excerpts in the course of short research trips, but to read a whole book carefully at home, thinking about what I was reading. Hrushevsky's book struck me as a revelation about the Ukrainian past - a truth hidden from us by official Soviet historiography and the regime that it supported. It was my first encounter with an alternative account of East Slavic history, one that went far beyond the class-struggle-driven and Russocentric narrative of Soviet historiography. Its scholarly appeal and the fact that it was prohibited in the USSR made it especially attractive in my eyes. From that point on, I knew what the history of Ukraine was and how the Soviet version had to be reconstructed to meet the demands of historical scholarship. In the early 7990s,when the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies,

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the publisher of the second 'prohibited' book brought to me by -y former professor, invited me to participate in the Hrushevsky Translation Project undertaken by its Peter jacyk Centre, I was given the opportunity to become much more intimatelv acquainted with Hrushevsky and his work and to fully appreciate his talent as a historian. My work on the project - an English translation of Hrushevsky's ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus'- also gave me ample opportunity to put the historical narratir.e that had so impressed me in the early 1980s into a much broader context, comparing it not only with the anemic Soviet narrative of the USSR's last decade of existence but also with a number of other narratives with which it had interacted and competed. In the process, I lost my earlier belief that I knew what the history of Ukraine was supposed to be, but maintained my admiration for Hrushevsky and the historiographic revolution or paradigm shift that he accomplished through his writings. The actual text of this book grew out of my work on the Hrushevsky Translation Project. Thus, my thanks go to Professor Mytsyk in the first instance for entrusting me with one of his prohibited bibliographic treasures. I am also grateful to those r,t'ithwhom I have been working at the Peter Jacyk Centre. In my work on this project, I have benefited greatly from their support and expertise. I particularly appreciate the advice offered me by the director of the Centre, Frank Sysyn, and the cooperation of the managing editor of the Hrushevsky Translation Project, Uliana Pasicznyk. My special thanks go to the senior editor of the project, Myroslav Yurkevich, who edited the original text of my book and helped me handle numerous editorial and bibliographic problems. Without his help, support, and encouragement, this book probably would still be in the making. In the course of my work on the manuscript, I benefited greatly from discussions with my colleagues at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.ZenonKohut read the text and strongly supported the project from the very beginning. John-Paul Himka offered advice on improving the manuscript, while Bohdan Klid and Andriy Zayarnyuk shared their insights into East European social and intellectual history. I would also like to thank Peter Matilainen, who, as always, was verv helpful in dealing with computer glitches, viruses, and the author's inability to grasp some basic principles of the cybernetic work ethic. My stay at the Ukrainian ResearchInstitute of Harvard University in the spring semester of 2002 as Petro Jacyk Distinguished Fellon al-

Preface xr lowed me not only to complete the first draft of the manuscript but also to benefit from the expertise and advice of Roman Szporluk, Lubomyr Hajda, and the Eugene and Daymel Shklar fellowi at the Institute, Volodymyr Kulyk and Olia Hnatiuk. During my tenure as visiting professor at the Department of History of Harvard University in the spring of 2003,I had very helpful discussions on the content of my book with Terry Martin, David Brandenberger, Eric Lohr, and Kathleen McDermott. I am also thankful for the support and encouragement given to me by Dr Roman Procyk. Hiroaki Kuromiya read the manuscript and offered useful advice on impror.ing it. Special thanks are due to Lubomyr Wynar for his help in acquiring unpublished materials, as well as to colleagues in Ukraine who shared their knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian history and historiography. I would like to thank Oleksii Tolochko, Natalia lakovenko, and Vladyslav Verstiuk for their advice. I learned much from my discussions with Ukraine's leading experts on Hrushevsky - Ruslan Pyrih, Iurii Shapoval, Vasyl Ulianovsky, and Ihor Hyrych - as well as with the intellectual leaders and organizers of impressive conferences on Hrushevsky and his historiographic legacy, Iaroslav Dashkevych and Iaroslav Hrytsak. My special thanks go to Hennadii Boriak, Liudmyla Demchenko, and Halyna Svarnyk for their help in gaining accessto archival materials in Kyiv and Lviv. A grant from the Peter jacyk Centre helped cover expenses related to bibliographic research and editing of the volume, while the Jaroslawa Demianchuk-Paclavsky Exchange Fellowship awarded to me bv the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, as well as a grant from the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, were instrumental in helping me finish the project. I am also grateful to the Social Sciencesand Humanities ResearchCouncil of Canada for a publication grant and for financial support for the publication of this book from the Ukrainian Studies Fund Inc. (New York). At the University of Toronto Press, my thanks go to Suzanne Rancourt, Barbara Porter, and Miriam Skey for their advice and assistance.Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife, Olena, who not only encouraged me to undertake the writing of the book and put up with my research trips to Ukraine and long stays at Harvard, taking care of our two teenage children, but also brought order to my chaotic filing system - not the least important prerequisite for writing a scholarly work. My research and writing of this book led me to contemplate not only the historical analyses produced by the scholars I discuss but also the

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ierrible price that many of them were forced to pay for their loyalty to their political beliefs and the conscientious practice of their profession. The book's protagonist, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who was arrested in 1931 and exiled from Ukraine, died under suspicious circumstances in 1934. His daughter, Kateryna Hrushevska, a historical anthropologist, was arrested in 1938 and perished in the GULAG during the Second World War. Hrushevsky's younger brother, the historian Oleksander Hrushevsky, was arrested in 1938 and died in the spring of 1943 while in exile in Kazakhstan. His nephew Serhii Shamrai, also a historian, was arrested twice, in 1933 and7937, and died in the CULAC in 1939. Their fate was shared by many other historians in the USSR people of various nationalities - who had their lives and careers destroyed by Stalin's terror machine. I dedicate this book to their memory.

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