Mykhailo Hrushevsky

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In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Serhiiovych and the family name is Hrushevsky.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Михайло Грушевський
Oleksandr Barvinsky
Succeeded byStepan Tomashivskyi
Personal details
Born
Mykhailo Serhiiovych Hrushevsky

29 September [
History of Ukraine-Rus'
Signature

Mykhailo Serhiiovych Hrushevsky

Ukrainian SSR
during the 1920s.

Early life

Hrushevskyi museum in Kryvorivnia.

Hrushevsky was born on 29 September 1866 to a Ukrainian noble family in Kholm (

Podillia, in the area of the village of Sestrynivka, Podillia Governorate. There, his mother, Glafira Zakharivna Okopova, was born into a family of Orthodox priests. Glafira married Serhii Fedorovych Hrushevsky, who had come to Kholm to teach Russian language at a Greco-Catholic gymnasium in 1865. Serhii Fedorovych's father, Fedir Hrushevsky was a highly-decorated official (his awards included the two Orders of Saint Anna and the Bronze Cross, and a title of nobility). Upon enrolling into Saint Volodymyr University, in Kyiv
, Mykhailo has received blessings from his grandfather who has graduated from the History Department of this University. Mykhailo spoke warmly of his parents and described them as real patriots of Ukraine, who managed to instill a sense of national pride in their children.

Plaque in Vienna marking the home in which he lived during his exile.

Historian

In the 2021 Grand Prix for Excellence in Translation, it was said that:

Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus’ represented a seismic break from the Russocentric paradigm that had previously driven historiography. Russian imperial domination of political history had sought to entrench a narrative advocating a direct continuity between Rus' and the Suzdalia-Muscovy-Russian Empire — an interpretation of medieval history that, for decades, Western scholarship had fully embraced.[2]

Hrushevsky wrote his first academic book, Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, on the history of

Ukrainian people with an appreciation for native Ukrainian political entities, autonomous polities, which steadily increased in the final volumes of his master work. In general, his approach combined rationalist enlightenment principles with a romantic commitment to the cause of the nation and positivist methodology to produce a highly-authoritative history of his native land and people. Hrushevsky also wrote a multi-volume History of Ukrainian Literature, an Outline History of the Ukrainian People and a very popular Illustrated History of Ukraine, which appeared in both Ukrainian and Russian
editions. In addition, he wrote numerous specialised studies in which he displayed a very acute critical acumen. His personal bibliography has over 2000 separate titles.

In Hrushevsky's varied historical writings, certain basic ideas come to the fore. Firstly, he saw continuity in Ukrainian history from ancient times to his own. Thus, he claimed the ancient Ukrainian steppe cultures from

Ukrainian Cossacks. (He considered runaway serfs especially important in the last regard.) Also, he stressed the national aspect to the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries and considered that the great revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
to be largely a national and social phenomenon, rather than simply a religious phenomenon. Thus, continuity nativism, and populism characterised his general histories.

On the role of statehood in Hrushevsky's historical thought, contemporary scholars still do not agree. Some believe that Hrushevsky retained a populist mistrust of the state throughout his career and that it was reflected by his deep democratic convictions, but others believe that Hrushevsky gradually became more and more for Ukrainian statehood in his various writings and that to be is reflected in his political work on the construction of a Ukrainian national state, during the revolution in 1917 and 1918.

Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus’ represented a seismic break from the Russocentric paradigm that had previously driven historiography

Scholar

The board and members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneida, Lviv, 31 October 1898: Sitting in the first row: Mykhaylo Pavlyk, Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Natalia Kobrynska, Olha Kobylianska, Sylvester Lepky, Andriy Chaykovsky, Kost Pankivsky. In the second row: Ivan Kopach, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Osyp Makovej, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Ivan Franko, Oleksandr Kolessa, Bohdan Lepky. Standing in the third row: Ivan Petrushevych, Filaret Kolessa, Yossyp Kyshakevych, Ivan Trush, Denys Lukianovych, Mykola Ivasyuk.

As an organiser of scholarship, Hrushevsky oversaw the transformation of the Shevchenko Literary Society, based in the province of Halychyna (

1917-1921 revolution, he founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in exile in Vienna. After his return to Ukraine in the 1920s, he became a major figure of the new All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences
in Kyiv in 1923.

Politician

Before 1917

As a political leader, Hrushevsky first became active in Austrian Halychyna, where he spoke out against Polish political predominance and Ruthenian particularism and supported a national Ukrainian identity that would unite both eastern and western parts of the country. In 1899, he was a cofounder of the Galician-based National Democratic Party, which looked forward to eventual Ukrainian independence. After 1905, Hrushevsky advised the Ukrainian Club in the Russian State Duma, or Parliament.

Ukrainian Revolution

The leader of the Ukrainian Central Rada, Myhailo Grushevskiy, at a military parade in Kyiv in 1917

In 1917, Hrushevsky was elected head of the revolutionary parliament, the Ukrainian

Congress of the Peoples of Russia. Hrushevsky was then clearly revealed to be a radical democrat and a socialist. On February 17, 1918, The New York Times published an article by Hrushevsky that outlined Ukraine's struggle for self-government.[4] Following the German-supported coup of General Pavlo Skoropadskyi, he went into hiding. Hrushevsky felt that Skoropadsky had perverted the cause of Ukrainian statehood by associating it with social conservatism. Hrushevsky returned to public politics after the overthrow of Skoropadsky by the Directory
. He did not, however, approve of the Directory and soon found himself in conflict with it. In 1919, he emigrated to Vienna, Austria, having acquired a mandate from the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries to co-ordinate the activities of its representatives abroad.

Emigration and return to Ukraine

While an émigré, Hrushevsky began to become pro-Bolshevik. Along with other members of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, he formed the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, which advocated reconciliation with the Bolshevik government. Though the group was critical of the Bolsheviks, especially because of their centralism and repressive activities in Ukraine, it felt that the criticisms had to be put aside because the Bolsheviks were the leaders of the international revolution. Hrushevsky and his group petitioned the

Ukrainian SSR government was unwilling to do so. By 1921, the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries had ended its activity, but all of its members returned to Ukraine, including Hrushevsky, who did so in 1924.[5]

Later life and death

Back in Ukraine, Hrushevsky concentrated on academic work. Above all, he continued writing his monumental History of Ukraine-Rusʹ. Although political conditions prevented his return to public politics, he was caught up in the Stalinist purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In 1931, after a long campaign against Hrushevsky in the Soviet press, he was exiled to Moscow, where his health deteriorated due to difficult conditions and persecution.[6] In 1934, while vacationing at the Academy of Sciences resort in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus,[7] he died soon after a routine minor surgery at the age of 68. He was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.[6]

At the time of his death, he was being shadowed by the Soviet GPU secret police after reports (probably fabricated by the GPU in Ukraine) were sent to Moscow that had been considering defection to the West, and afterwards the government resolution and approval of his official obituary were published remarkably promptly, as if already prepared: the suspicious circumstances effectively made him a martyr for the Ukrainian cause.[7]

Legacy

Hrushevskyi portrait on ₴ 50 bill, 2019[8]

Hrushevsky is presently regarded as Ukraine's greatest 20th-century scholar and one of the most prominent Ukrainian statesmen in Ukraine's history, and he is still famous in Ukraine.

left wing and Petliura too associated with violence to make a good symbolic figure.[11]

Mykhailo Hrushevsky monument in Kyiv

Hrushevsky's portrait appears on the 50 hryvnia note. A museum in Kyiv and another in Lviv are devoted to his memory, and monuments to him have been erected in both cities. A street in Kyiv bears his name and houses the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and many governmental offices. The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences recently initiated the publication of his Collected Works, in 50 volumes.

Family

Mykhailo Hrushevsky had two siblings: a brother, Oleksandr, and a sister, Hanna.

  • Oleksandr Hrushevsky (1877–1943) was married to Olha Hrushevska (Parfenenko) (1876–1961).
  • Hanna Shamraieva had two children, Serhii and Olha.

His wife, Maria-Ivanna Hrushevska (November 8, 1868 – September 19, 1948), was from 1917 was a member of the Central Rada and a treasurer for the Ukrainian National Theatre.

Bibliography

  • Hrushevsky, M., Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, St. Volodymyr University Publishing House, Velyka-Vasyl'kivska, Building no. 29-31, Kyiv, Ukraine, 1894; Lviv, Ukraine,
    ISBN 978-5-12-004335-9
    , pp. 1 – 623, 1996.

Notes

  1. standard romanization

References

  1. ^ "1917 - засідання Української Центральної Ради, яке очолив Михайло Грушевський" [1917 – a meeting of the Ukrainian Central Rada, chaired by Mykhailo Hrushevskyi] (in Ukrainian). Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UIMP). Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  2. ^ Press, Ian. "History of Ukraine-Rus' Volume 2". Peterson Literary Fund.
  3. ISBN 978-5-12-004335-9
    , pp. 1 – 623, 1996.
  4. ^ Michaelo, Hrushevsky (17 February 1918). "Ukraine's Struggle for Self-Government". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  5. ^ Christopher Gilley, ‘The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 54, 2006, No. 3, pp. 345-74
  6. ^ a b Ohloblyn, Oleksander; Wynar, Lubomyr. "Hrushevsky, Mykhailo". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  7. ^
    OCLC 879109029
    .
  8. ^ "National bank of Ukraine. Banknotes. 50 UAH. Portrait details". March 2017.
  9. Sociological group "RATING"
    (2012/05/28)
  10. ^ Top 11-100 Archived 2013-03-24 at the Wayback Machine, Velyki Ukraïntsi
  11. ISBN 978-0-19-530546-3

Further reading

External links
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