Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T06:22:28.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hrushevsky's Constitutional Project of 1905∗

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Thomas M. Prymak
Thomas M. Prymak*
Affiliation:
York University (Canada)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) was one of the most important Ukrainian public figures of modern times. In the realm of scholarship, he was the greatest of Ukrainian historians whose ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus' charted the saga of the Ukrainian people from antiquity to modern times. He was a prolific writer and essayist whose personal bibliography lists over 2,000 titles. He was also the principal organizer of an unofficial Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Austrian Galicia—the Shevchenko Scientific Society—and towards the end of his life became the single most important cultural figure in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 36 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities USSR and East Europe Inc. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. The most thorough study of Hrushevsky's public life is my Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1987). For another synthetic work on Hrushevsky, which stresses the historian's ostensible support for Ukrainian statehood and independence, see Lubomyr Wynar, Naivydotnishy istoryk Ukrainy: Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) (New York, Suchasnist, 1986). On Hrushevsky as an historian, see L. Bilas, “Geschichtsphilosophische und ideologische Voraussetzungen der geschichtlichen und politischen Konzeption M. Hruševskyjs,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. IV (Munich, 1956), pp. 262–292. For an extensive bibliography of works about Hrushevsky, see L. Wynar, “Schriften über Mychajlo Hruševskyj: Ausgewählte Bibliographie,” in Jahrbuch der Ukrainekunde (Munich, 1983), pp. 42–52.Google Scholar

2. Hrushevsky's role in the Ukrainian revolution has been a controversial subject since the 1920s, when Ukrainian nationalism turned sharply to the right, and ideologues like Dmytro Dontsov accused the historian of a naive populism that was not helpful in the construction of a sovereign Ukrainian nation-state. For an outline of the debate about Hrushevsky's role in politics, see my “Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Populist or Statist?”Journal of Ukrainian Studies, no. 10. (Toronto, 1981), pp. 65–78.Google Scholar

3. There is no general history of the Ukrainian national movement in the nineteenth century. For brief surveys, see. E. Borschak, “Ukraine in the Russian Empire 1800–1914,” in Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, vol. I (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1963), pp. 681–689, and Ivan L. Rudnytsky, “The Ukrainians in Galicia under Austrian Rule,” in Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1982), pp. 23–67. On the history of Ukrainian political thought, see Iaroslav Orshan, “Rozvytok Ukrainskoi politychnoi dumky za sto lit (Nacherk kursu),” in Almanakh: Ideia v nastupi (London: Ukrainian National Information Service, 1938), pp. 63–109.Google Scholar

4. See Makovei, O., “Iuvylei 25-litnoi literaturnoi diialnosty Ivana Franka,” Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, vol. IV (Lviv, 1898), pp. 119–122, and Antin Krushelnytsky, Ivan Franko (Kolomyia, n.d.) pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

5. On Hrushevsky's early years, see my Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture, pp. 11–27.Google Scholar

6. The party program was first printed in “Narodna programa,” Dilo (Lviv), no. 281, 28 December 1899. For a detailed discussion of Hrushevsky's role in the formation of the National Democratic Party, see Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture, pp. 55–57.Google Scholar

7. On the Paris conference, see Fischer, George, Russian Liberalism (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958), pp. 169–170, and Richard Pipes, Struve: Liberal on the Left 1870–1905 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970), pp. 363–366. Even the “populist” Russian writer from Ukraine, V. H. Korolenko, rejected the federalist position and limited his Ukrainian sympathies to an extension of the zemstvo system. Oleksander Lototsky, Storinky Mynuloho, 4 vols. (Warsaw: Ukrainskyi Naukovyi Instytut, 1932–1939), vol. II, pp. 443–450, characterized Korolenko as being a man caught “between two souls.” Of the Russian parties, only the Socialist Revolutionaries supported “the organization of relationships among the nationalities on a federative basis insofar as it is possible.” Their “Draft Program”of 5 May 1904 is translated in S. Harcave, First Blood: The Russian Revolution of 1905 (New York, 1964), pp. 268–273.Google Scholar

8. For some general remarks on Fortunatov and Kovalevsky, see Laserson, Max M., The American Impact on Russia 1784–1917: Diplomatic and Ideological (New York, Collier Books, 1962), pp. 459–461, 466–473. On Kovalevsky's support for Ukrainian autonomy, see Lototsky, Storinky mynuloho, vol. II, pp. 454–456, and Ia. D. Isaievych, “M. M. Kovalevsky ta Ukraina,” Ukrainskyi istorchnyi zhurnal no. 4 (Kiev, 1966) pp. 135–137. For a general account of Russian federalism, see Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, Toward a United States of Russia: Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century (London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

9. See Hrushevsky, M., Avtobiohrafiia (Toronto: Ukrainians Canadian Students' Union, 1965), pp. 11–12, and the note in Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, vol. XXII (1903), p. 224. Also see Iu. S. Vorob'eva, “Russkaia vysshaia shkola obshchestvennykh nauk v Parizhe,” in Istoricheskie zapiski, vol. CVII (Moscow, 1982), pp. 333–334.Google Scholar

10. Hrushevsky, , Avtobiohrafia, pp. 12–13; Lototsky, Storinky mynuloho, vol. II pp. 348–381. The enormous importance that the Ukrainians attached to the academy's report is shown by its immediate translation and publication in Austrian Galicia. It was published with an introduction by Hrushevsky as Peterburska Akademiia Nauk v spravi znesenia zaborony ukrainskoho slova (Lviv: Ukrainsko-ruska Vydavnycha Spilka, 1905; reprinted Munich: Ukrainskyi Vilnyi Universytet, 1976). The report was also reprinted in the Soviet Ukraine during the brief cultural flowering that occurred under the protection of the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Petro Shelest. It contains a new introduction with valuable annotation. See P. D. Tymoshenko, Khrestomatiia materialiv z istorii ukrainskoi literaturnoi movy, part 2 (Kiev: Radianska shkola, 1961), pp. 296–335.Google Scholar

11. Hrushevsky, M., “Ukrainstvo i pytannia dnia v Rosii,” Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, vol. XXX (1905), 1–10, and reprinted in his Z bizhuchoi khvyli: stati i zamitky na ternu dnia 1905–1906 (Kiev: S. V. Kulzhenko, 1907), pp. 5–15.Google Scholar

12. Ibid. Google Scholar

13. Hrushevsky, M., “Konstytutsiine pytannie i Ukrainstvo v Rosii,” Literaturnonaukovyki vistnyk, vol. XXX (1905), pp. 245–258; reprinted in Z bizhuchoi khvyli, pp. 16–32, (from which citations in the present article are taken) and in an abridged Russian edition as “Na Konstytutsionyia temy,” in his Osvobozhedenie Rosii i Ukrainskii vopros (Saint Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia polza, 1907), pp. 121–131.Google Scholar

14. “Konstytutsiine pytannie,” pp. 16–18. Hrushevsky referred specifically to the “Kishenev events”of April 1903, which were a significant “pogrom” in which it is believed 49 Jews were killed and 2,000 families were left homeless. Korolenko, Gorky, and Leo Tolstoy all protested the action. See Theodore Lavi, “Kishinev” Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. X (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 1064–1066.Google Scholar

15. The Congress of Journalists convened in Saint Petersburg on April 5–8, 1905, and Ievhen Chykalenko, the representative of the Russian language “Ukrainophile” scholarly journal, Kievskaia starina, was the principal (and perhaps the only) Ukrainian delegate at this gathering. See his Spohady (1861–1907) (New York: Ukrainska Vilna Academiia Nauk u SShA, 1955), pp. 374–377, in which he describes his good relations with Georgians, Estonians, Latvians, and other non-Russians at the meeting.Google Scholar

16. “Konstytutsiine pytannie,” p. 23.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

18. A few years later, the Chief Censor of Ukrainian books in Kiev, Shchegolev, S. N., discussed Hrushevsky's journalistic activities during 1905. In his Ukrainskoe dvizhenie kak sovremennyi etap iuzhnorusskago separatizma (Kiev, 1912), p. 157, Shchegolev remarked: “From April to August, 1905, Professor M. Hrushevsky placed a series of articles in the Petersburg Syn otechestva. Skillfully dancing around the censor's pen, he pronounced ‘the unavoidable necessity for a basic restructuring of Russia’.” It was only during the revolution of 1917 that Hrushevsky clearly revealed that he thought the most desirable political arrangement for the Ukraine would be “a full political autonomy approaching complete independence.” See his Iakoi my khochemo avtonomii i federatsii (Kiev, 1917); reprinted in his Vybrani pratsi, ed. Mykola Haliy (New York: Association of Ukrainians of Revolutionary-Democratic Persuasions in the U.S.A., 1960), pp. 142–149.Google Scholar

19. “Konstytutsiine pytannie,” p. 31. The question of the rights of scattered minorities was of special concern to the Jews who, in general, felt that the territorial or constituency system threatened to disenfranchize them. Most Jews seemed to prefer some form of proportional representation and “extraterritorial” or “personal-culture”autonomy. Hrushevsky seems to have felt that local autonomies within the regional ones and the limited form of proportional representation to the regional soim, which he advocated, would be sufficient to protect minority voters and that the replacement of general territorial autonomy by a general personal-cultural autonomy would be unworkable. He held to this position as late as 1913. See his “Na natsionalnyia temy: K voprosu o natsionalno-territorialnoi avtonomii,” Russkoe bogatsvo, no. 1 (Saint Petersburg, 1913), pp. 223–243. In early 1918, however, the revolutionary Ukrainian parliament, the Central Rada headed by Hrushevsky, did, in fact, pass a law granting the Jews and other minorities national-personal autonomy. This law reduced Jewish opposition to the Rada's Fourth Universal which declared Ukrainian independence. See, for example, S. I. Goldelman, Jewish National Autonomy in Ukraine 1917–1920 (Chicago: Ukrainian Research and Information Institute, 1968). More generally, see Aster, Howard and Potichnyj, Peter J., Jewish-Ukrainian Relations: Two Solitudes (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1983).Google Scholar

20. “Konstytutsiine pytannie,” pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

21. Earlier, of course, Catherine II had argued that it was Russia's immense size that made monarchy necessary. Struve turned the argument around and said that Russia's size necessitated the participation of the citizenry in government. Hrushevsky only went one step further when he maintained that Russia's size necessitated both participation and decentralization.Google Scholar

22. In his early historical writings, Hrushevsky followed in the tradition of Antonovych and other oppositional historians writing in the Russian Empire and drew a clear distinction between “state” and “society.” Hrushevsky's position was criticized by the émigré constitutionalist, Mykhailo Drahomanov, who believed that this was an artificial distinction borrowed by Russian social thought from German philosophy. After Hrushevsky had emigrated to Galicia, he became better acquainted with Drahomanov's ideas and may well have changed his position. See Matvii Stakhiv, “Deiaki materiialy pro svitohlad Hrushevskoho,” Mykhailo Hrushevsky u 110 rokovyny narodzhennia, ed. Stakhiv, M., in Zapysky Naukovoho Tovarystva im. Shevchenka, vol. CXCVII (New York, 1978), pp. 221–227.Google Scholar

23. On Mikhnovsky and the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party that he inspired, see Doroshenko, V., Ukrainstvo v Rosii (Vienna, 1916), pp. 34–40, and Petro Mirchuk, Ukrainska derzhavnist 1917–1920 (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 19ff. For a specific criticism of Hrushevsky's program of 1905, see Prykhylnyk, “Erupivtsiv,” “Ne kydaite biseru,” Literaturno-naukouyi vistnyk, vol. XXXII (1905), pp. 61–65.Google Scholar

24. For the text of Drahomanov's project see “Free Union: Draft of a Ukrainian Political and Social Program,” Mykhailo Drahomanov: A Symposium and Selected Writings, ed. Rudnytsky, Ivan L., in The Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., vol. II, no. 1 (New York, 1952), pp. 193–205.Google Scholar

25. For a discussion of Hrushevsky's activities in Saint Petersburg see my Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture, pp. 77–79.Google Scholar

26. See the remarks of the Kiev censor, Shchegolev, S. N., quoted in note 18 above and the brief observations of Ivan Krypiakevych, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: zhyttia i diialnist (Lviv: Tovarystvo “Prosvita,” 1935), p. 32.Google Scholar

27. Mukhyn, M., “Prof. M. Hrushevsky (1866–1934),” Vistnyk, vol. IV (Lviv, 1936), 194–202, especially 195, citing Mikhail Osorgin, “Vstrechi,” Poslednie novosti, 10 April 1933, who worked for Russkie vedomosti. Google Scholar