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Politics and History in Soviet Ukraine, 1921–1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James E. Mace
James E. Mace*
Affiliation:
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
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Extract

At the end of 1928 Matvyi Iavorskyi, head of historical studies in the Ukrainian Institute of Marxism-Leninism and hitherto considered a sort of court historian of Ukrainian communism, was attacked for allegedly committing “nationalistic deviations” in interpreting Ukrainian history. Iavorskyi was in no sense a “dissident” like Oleksander Shumskyi or Mykola Khvylovyi; he never, so far as is known, questioned the official Party line. Rather, he was a close associate of Mykola Skrypnyk, the political strongman of the Soviet Ukrainian regime, and the hue and cry raised against “Iavorskyism” in historial scholarship was actually an indirect attack upon Skrypnyk. It had the distinction of being the first such attack; it would not be the last.

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Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 1982 , pp. 157 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the Study of Nationalities, 1982 

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References

1. There is a rich body of secondary material on Soviet Ukrainian historiography in the 1920s. See, for example, Korduba, Myron, La Litterature Historique Sovietique-Ukrainienne: Compte-Rendu 1917–1931 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1972); Olexander Ohloblyn, “Ukrainian Historiography, 1917–1956,” Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., V-VI (1957), pp. 307–455; Borys Krupnytskyi, Ukrainska istorychna nauka pid Sovetamy (1920-1950) (Munich: Institute for the Study of the U.S.S.R., 1957); Borys Krypnytskyi, “Die ukrainische Geschichtswissenschaft in der Sowjetunion, 1921–1941,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, VI: 2/4 (1941), pp. 125–151; D. Doroshenko, “Die Entwicklung der Geschichtsforschung in der Sowjetukraine in den letzen Jahren,” Mitteilungen des ukrainischen wissenschaftlichen Institute in Berlin, Heft 2 (August 1928), pp. 35–56; O. M. “Ukrainska istorychna nauka v 1920-kh rokakh,” Suchasnyk, I: 1 (1948), pp. 76–84; Viach. Zaikin, “Ukrainskaia istoricheskaia literatura poslednikh let,” Na chuzhoi storone, X (1925), pp. 236–251. Among Soviet Ukrainian works, the following are especially valuable: the journal Istoriohrafichni doslidzhennia v Ukrainskii RSR (Kiev: 1968–1971); V. A. Diadichenko, F. E. Los, V. G. Sarbei, “Razvitie istoricheskoi nauki na Ukraine (1917-1963 gg.),” Voprosy istorii, 1964, no. 1, pp. 3–26; N. V. Komarenko, Ustanovy istorychnoi nauky v Ukrainskii RSR (1917-1937 rr.) (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1973); N. V. Komarenko, Zhurnal “Litopys revoliutsii”: Istoriohrafichnyi narys (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1970). It should be noted that Soviet works often suffer from politically mandated gaps which extend even to the level of journal bibliographies printed in very small editions. Except for the purpose of condemnation, those who were purged in the thirties and not rehabilitated are never mentioned, even in bibliographies, and the only way to locate the works of Marxist historians such as Matvyi Iavorskyi and Osyp Hermaize is by searching the tables of contents of journals or the year-end lists of contents in the journals themselves. This circumstance is an indication of the current state of Ukrainian historiographic research in the USSR.Google Scholar

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