The Cabinet instructed the State Statistics Committee to elaborate the draft document on preparation and conducting the All-Ukrainian Population Census in 2011, provided by a plan of measures aimed at realization of priorities in activities of central executive authorities in 2008, endorsed by the Government's order of April 2.
In particular, the State Statistics Committee was instructed to prepare and conduct a pilot population census.
Among other priorities of the Committee's activities, elaboration of a program on pilot selective studies of the population on the issues of labor migration, elaboration of the draft strategy of state statistics development till 2012, preparation of the All-Ukrainian Agricultural Census, comparison of data on bilateral trade of Ukraine and the European Union countries using a "mirror statistics" method.
Previous All-Ukrainian Census was conducted in 2001.
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Young scientists and students discuss innovation processes of economic and social development of Ukraine and foreign countries in Ternopil
Young scientists and students of the Ternopil National Economic University discussed problems of innovation processes of economic and social development of Ukraine and foreign countries.
University Rector Serhiy Yuriy told UKINFORM correspondent that participating in the international conference were representatives of almost all the Ukrainian regions, scientists from Canada and the Netherlands.
According to participants in the conference, research of the regional innovation processes as a component part of the economic growth is caused by the fact that further economic development of Ukraine is only possible on the innovation basis, taking into consideration modern achievements of the scientific and technical progress and enhancement of the scientific and technological level of the country.
During the events like this, young scientists may put forward proposals on the ways of solving the innovation development problems at different levels.
University Rector Serhiy Yuriy told UKINFORM correspondent that participating in the international conference were representatives of almost all the Ukrainian regions, scientists from Canada and the Netherlands.
According to participants in the conference, research of the regional innovation processes as a component part of the economic growth is caused by the fact that further economic development of Ukraine is only possible on the innovation basis, taking into consideration modern achievements of the scientific and technical progress and enhancement of the scientific and technological level of the country.
During the events like this, young scientists may put forward proposals on the ways of solving the innovation development problems at different levels.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The US presidential couple visits Shool 57
Within the framework of his visit to Ukraine President Bush together with Mrs. Laura Bush paid a visit to Kyiv School 57. There the presidential couple saw a performance prepared by children from western Ukrainian town Perechyn. The performance was dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS and promotion of healthy living.
In his short speech after the performance President Bush stressed that he and his wife are thrilled to be in the country, which came through very harsh times and now stands firmly on a path towards liberty.
In his short speech after the performance President Bush stressed that he and his wife are thrilled to be in the country, which came through very harsh times and now stands firmly on a path towards liberty.
Monday, March 31, 2008
President grieves for Naftogaz-67 victims
President Victor Yushchenko offered his condolences to relatives of the deceased crew members of Naftogaz-67.
President demands army financing increase
Communicating with journalists in Vasylkiv (Kyiv region) located 40th Fighter Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force President Victor Yushchenko said that 2008 military budget should “become a budget of development”. To President Yushchenko current budget, which foresees 5 percent financing growth compared to the last year is unacceptable. The need to increase army funding is moreover needed regarding transition of the Ukrainian army to contract base.
President flies Su-27 jet fighter
Within the framework of his visit to Vasylkiv (Kyiv region) located 40th Fighter Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force President Victor Yushchenko performed a flight in Sukhoi Su-27 jet fighter. The flight lasted 35 minutes with deputy commander of the Air Force of Ukraine Major-General Vasyl Nikiforov in control of the plane.
Speaking to journalists after the flight President Yushchenko said: “I felt that the plane is extremely controllable; it appeared to me that it was performing all elements very obediently. There was no discomfort”.
Speaking to journalists after the flight President Yushchenko said: “I felt that the plane is extremely controllable; it appeared to me that it was performing all elements very obediently. There was no discomfort”.
President backs up Ukrainian cities' patronage over Ukrainian Navy ships
At the meeting of National Council on cooperation between state authorities and local self-government in Crimea President Victor Yushchenko said that he would support the idea of Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov to renew Ukrainian cities’ patronage over Ukrainian Navy vessels.
He reminded that nowadays many vessels in Ukrainian Navy are named after Ukrainian cities therefore it would be reasonable for the corresponding cities to provide sponsorship for these vessels.
He reminded that nowadays many vessels in Ukrainian Navy are named after Ukrainian cities therefore it would be reasonable for the corresponding cities to provide sponsorship for these vessels.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Roman Shukhevych
Shukhevych, Roman [Suxevyc] (noms de guerre: Dzvin, Shchuka, Tur, Taras Chuprynka, R. Lozovsky), b 17 July 1907 in Krakovets, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d 5 March 1950 in Bilohorshcha, near Lviv. (Photo: Roman Shukhevych.) Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Home Leadership, chairman of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR), and its general secretary for Military Affairs. He joined the Ukrainian Military Organization in 1923 and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929; he was active in their combat branches and known as Dzvin. In 1926 he took part in the political assassination of the Lviv school superintendent S. Sobinski. In 1930–4 he headed the OUN combat branch in Galicia and Poland. After being arrested in connection with Bronislaw Pieracki's assassination, he was held for six months in the Bereza Kartuzka concentration camp and sentenced in 1936 to four years' imprisonment, which was reduced by an amnesty to two years'. During 1938–9 he was staff officer in the Carpathian Sich. In 1941 Shukhevych was briefly chief of the OUN (Bandera faction) in Ukrainian territories within the Generalgouvernement. He joined the Nachtigall Battalion in April 1941 and became its top OUN liaison and political officer. When the Nachtigall and Roland battalions were merged in October 1941 to form Schutzmannschaftbataillon 201, Shukhevych was appointed deputy battalion commander and commander of its first company with the rank of captain. The battalion was disarmed and demobilized, and its officers were arrested in January 1943. Shukhevych, however, managed to escape and join the UPA. At the Third OUN Congress on 25 August, he was confirmed as head of the OUN Home Leadership, and in November he was appointed supreme commander of the UPA in the rank of lieutenant colonel. The UHVR elected him on 15 July 1944 to head its General Secretariat and to hold the portfolio of military affairs, and confirmed his appointment to the top post in the UPA. In 1946 he was promoted to brigadier general.
Shukhevych died in combat with special units of the MVD. Posthumously, he was awarded the UPA's highest decorations: the Gold Cross of Combat Merit First Class and the Cross of Merit in gold.
Shukhevych died in combat with special units of the MVD. Posthumously, he was awarded the UPA's highest decorations: the Gold Cross of Combat Merit First Class and the Cross of Merit in gold.
Yevhen Petrushevych
Petrushevych, Yevhen [Petrusevyc, Jevhen], b 3 June 1863 in Buzke, Kaminka-Strumylova county, Galicia, d 29 August 1940 in Berlin. (Photo: Yevhen Petrushevych.) Lawyer, political leader, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. As a law student at Lviv University he was president of the Academic Brotherhood. While practicing law in Sokal (1896–1910) and then in Skole, he organized and led various local societies. An executive member of the National Democratic party, he was elected to the Austrian parliament (1907, 1911) and to the Galician Diet (see Diet, provincial) (1910, 1913) and served as vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in Vienna (1910–16) and the Ukrainian caucus in the Diet (1910–14). He rejected political compromises with the Austrian government and led a determined struggle in both assemblies for the rights of the Ukrainian people; in particular he played a key role in the Galician Diet's electoral reforms of 1913, which gave Ukrainians a greater voice in the Diet. After becoming vice-president of the General Ukrainian Council (1915) Petrushevych resigned from that body because of what he regarded as its naive trust in the Austrian government. At the end of 1916 he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in the Austrian parliament and was recognized as the leading Ukrainian politician of his day. With a number of other Slavic leaders he proposed to transform Austria-Hungary into a federation of national states, including a Ukrainian one composed of eastern Galicia, northern Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia.
While the emperor vacillated, Petrushevych summoned a Ukrainian constituent assembly to Lviv to decide the future of those territories. At its first session on 18 October 1918, the assembly named itself the Ukrainian National Rada, chose Petrushevych as its president, and proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state. Petrushevych was re-elected president of the Rada on 3 January 1919 in Stanyslaviv and proved himself a capable leader and mediator. With the merging of the Western Ukrainian National Republic with the Ukrainian National Republic in January 1919, Petrushevych became the sixth member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. By mid-1919 the Ukrainian National Rada and the State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic had recognized that military and political setbacks made it impossible for them to govern, and on 9 June they transferred their powers to Petrushevych, whom they nominated as dictator (see Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic). Under his regime the Chortkiv offensive was conducted, the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) crossed the Zbruch River, and the combined forces of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and the UHA liberated Kyiv. The divergencies between Symon Petliura's and Petrushevych's governments in domestic and foreign policy increased during their stay in Kamianets-Podilskyi and finally led to a break, in November 1919. Petrushevych left Ukraine to pursue the struggle for independence abroad by diplomatic means.
On 25 July 1920 Petrushevych formed a government-in-exile in Vienna and lobbied for international recognition of Western Ukrainian statehood. Having gained a certain measure of support for his quest, he rejected Polish overtures for a degree of Ukrainian autonomy in exchange for recognition of their control over Galicia. His campaign collapsed after March 1923, however, when the Conference of Ambassadors recognized Galicia as part of the new Polish state. Petrushevych, then in Berlin, began to look for Soviet assistance in his aspirations. This tack also proved unfruitful, and support for him soon withered away.
While the emperor vacillated, Petrushevych summoned a Ukrainian constituent assembly to Lviv to decide the future of those territories. At its first session on 18 October 1918, the assembly named itself the Ukrainian National Rada, chose Petrushevych as its president, and proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state. Petrushevych was re-elected president of the Rada on 3 January 1919 in Stanyslaviv and proved himself a capable leader and mediator. With the merging of the Western Ukrainian National Republic with the Ukrainian National Republic in January 1919, Petrushevych became the sixth member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. By mid-1919 the Ukrainian National Rada and the State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic had recognized that military and political setbacks made it impossible for them to govern, and on 9 June they transferred their powers to Petrushevych, whom they nominated as dictator (see Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic). Under his regime the Chortkiv offensive was conducted, the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) crossed the Zbruch River, and the combined forces of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and the UHA liberated Kyiv. The divergencies between Symon Petliura's and Petrushevych's governments in domestic and foreign policy increased during their stay in Kamianets-Podilskyi and finally led to a break, in November 1919. Petrushevych left Ukraine to pursue the struggle for independence abroad by diplomatic means.
On 25 July 1920 Petrushevych formed a government-in-exile in Vienna and lobbied for international recognition of Western Ukrainian statehood. Having gained a certain measure of support for his quest, he rejected Polish overtures for a degree of Ukrainian autonomy in exchange for recognition of their control over Galicia. His campaign collapsed after March 1923, however, when the Conference of Ambassadors recognized Galicia as part of the new Polish state. Petrushevych, then in Berlin, began to look for Soviet assistance in his aspirations. This tack also proved unfruitful, and support for him soon withered away.
Symon Petliura
Petliura, Symon [Petljura] (pseuds: V. Marchenko, V. Salevsky, I. Rokytny, S. Prosvitianyn, O. Riast), b 10 May 1879 in Poltava, d 25 May 1926 in Paris. (Photo: Symon Petliura.) Statesman and publicist; supreme commander of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and president of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. He entered the Poltava Theological Seminary in 1895 but was expelled in 1901 for belonging to a clandestine Ukrainian hromada (see Hromadas), which he had joined in 1898. From 1900 he was also active in a political cell in Poltava that became the nucleus of the Revolutionary Ukrainian party (RUP). To avoid arrest he moved in the autumn of 1902 to Katerynodar, in the Kuban, where he worked as a teacher and then, under the supervision of Fedir Shcherbyna, cataloged the archives of the Kuban Cossack Army. For his involvement in Katerynodar in the local RUP branch (the Black Sea Free Hromada) and in RUP periodicals (notably Dobra novyna) published in Austrian-ruled Lviv, he was arrested in December 1903. After being released on bail in March 1904, he went to Kyiv and from there, in the autumn, to Lviv to do RUP work and to edit its monthly Selianyn. . In 1905, after the general amnesty, he returned to Kyiv. In January 1906 he left for Saint Petersburg to edit, with Prokip Poniatenko and Mykola Porsh, the social democratic monthly Vil’na Ukraina (-17937L-->Saint Petersburg). After returning to Kyiv in July 1906, he worked as secretary of the newspaper Rada (Kyiv), coedited (in 1907–8) Slovo (-14562L-->Kyiv), the organ of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party, and contributed to the monthly Ukraina (-16770L-->1907). In 1909 he moved to Moscow and worked there as a bookkeeper until 1912, when he became coeditor, with Oleksander Salikovsky, of the Russian-language monthly Ukrainskaia zhizn’ (1912–17). In 1916 and until the beginning of 1917 he was deputy plenipotentiary of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos aid committee on the Russian western front.
After the February Revolution of 1917 Petliura was elected head of the Ukrainian Military Committee of the Western Front. He was sent as a delegate to the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress (18–21 May 1917; see All-Ukrainian military congresses) in Kyiv, where he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian General Military Committee. In June 1917 he was appointed general secretary of military affairs in the first General Secretariat of the Central Rada, and directed all his energies to organizing and building up the Ukrainian armed forces, while facing opposition from certain members of the Central Rada as well as open and active hostility from Russian circles. In late 1917, disagreeing with the policies of Volodymyr Vynnychenko, the chairman of the General Secretariat, Petliura resigned and went to Left-Bank Ukraine. There he organized and commanded the Haidamaka Battalion of Slobidska Ukraine, a military formation that played a decisive role in the January–February 1918 battles for Kyiv and suppression of the Arsenal uprising there.
After Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky's coup in April 1918, Petliura headed the Kyiv Gubernial Zemstvo and All-Ukrainian Union of Zemstvos. He was arrested by the Hetman government in July 1918 but was released after four months, and went to Bila Tserkva. There he took part in the popular uprising against Skoropadsky's regime and was then elected a member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic and supreme otaman of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. On 11 February 1919, after the army's retreat from Kyiv and Volodymyr Vynnychenko's flight abroad, Petliura succeeded him as president of the Directory and resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. In the difficult conditions of the next 10 months he commanded the UNR army and later joint UNR Army and Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) against the Red Army and Volunteer Army (see Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21). On 5 December 1919, surrounded by the enemy and faced with certain defeat after the UHA established a separate alliance with the Volunteer Army, Petliura and some members of his government fled Ukraine and made for Warsaw in the hope of finding support and allies there. In the meantime Petliura ordered the UNR Army to begin the First Winter Campaign.
After the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw in April 1920, the UNR army under Petliura's command and its Polish military ally mounted an offensive against the Bolshevik occupation in Ukraine. The joint forces took Kyiv on 7 May 1920 but were forced to retreat in June. Thereafter Petliura continued the war against the Bolsheviks without Polish involvement. Poland and Soviet Russia concluded an armistice in October 1920, and in November the major UNR army formations were forced to retreat across the Zbruch River into Polish-held territory and to submit to internment (see Internment camps). Petliura and his government resided temporarily in Tarnow. Later Petliura moved to Warsaw under an assumed name. In late 1923, faced with increased Soviet demands that Poland hand him over, he was forced to leave for Budapest. From there he went to Vienna and Geneva, and in late 1924 he settled in Paris. There he founded the weekly Tryzub and oversaw the activities of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic until his assassination by a Bessarabian Jew (Shalom Schwartzbard) claiming vengeance for Petliura's purported responsibility for the pogroms in Ukraine (see Schwartzbard Trial). He was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.
Petliura debuted as a publicist in 1902 in Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. There and in the periodicals he edited he published many articles on political, civic, and cultural affairs, particularly on the question of Ukraine's national liberation. His articles had a discernible impact on the formation of Ukrainian national consciousness before the Revolution of 1917. As an emigre in Poland Petliura wrote a brochure on contemporary Ukrainian emigres and their responsibility (1923). In Tryzub he wrote mainly about the 1917–21 attempts at Ukrainian nation building, the responsibility of emigres, and Ukraine under Bolshevik rule.
The entire 1917–21 period of struggle for Ukrainian statehood is indissolubly linked with Petliura. As a publicist, politician, and military leader he was uncompromising on the issue of Ukrainian independence. Petliura's broad outlook was particularly evident in his definition of the tasks of Ukrainian emigres and their role in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood. Despite the initially negative, if not openly hostile, attitudes of certain emigre (particularly Western Ukrainian) circles to Petliura because of his central role in the Treaty of Warsaw and the Ukrainian-Polish alliance, since the mid-1920s he has personified, perhaps more than any other person, the Struggle for Independence (1917–20). The personification seemingly also extends to the issue of the pogroms that took place in Ukraine during the revolutionary period of 1918–20, and Petliura has frequently been invested with the responsibility for those acts. Petliura's own personal convictions render such responsibility highly unlikely, and all the documentary evidence indicates that he consistently made efforts to stem pogrom activity by UNR troops. The Russian and Soviet authorities also made Petliura a symbol of Ukrainian efforts at independence, although in their rendition he was a traitor to the Ukrainian people, and his followers (Petliurites) were unprincipled opportunists.
After the February Revolution of 1917 Petliura was elected head of the Ukrainian Military Committee of the Western Front. He was sent as a delegate to the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress (18–21 May 1917; see All-Ukrainian military congresses) in Kyiv, where he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian General Military Committee. In June 1917 he was appointed general secretary of military affairs in the first General Secretariat of the Central Rada, and directed all his energies to organizing and building up the Ukrainian armed forces, while facing opposition from certain members of the Central Rada as well as open and active hostility from Russian circles. In late 1917, disagreeing with the policies of Volodymyr Vynnychenko, the chairman of the General Secretariat, Petliura resigned and went to Left-Bank Ukraine. There he organized and commanded the Haidamaka Battalion of Slobidska Ukraine, a military formation that played a decisive role in the January–February 1918 battles for Kyiv and suppression of the Arsenal uprising there.
After Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky's coup in April 1918, Petliura headed the Kyiv Gubernial Zemstvo and All-Ukrainian Union of Zemstvos. He was arrested by the Hetman government in July 1918 but was released after four months, and went to Bila Tserkva. There he took part in the popular uprising against Skoropadsky's regime and was then elected a member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic and supreme otaman of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. On 11 February 1919, after the army's retreat from Kyiv and Volodymyr Vynnychenko's flight abroad, Petliura succeeded him as president of the Directory and resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. In the difficult conditions of the next 10 months he commanded the UNR army and later joint UNR Army and Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) against the Red Army and Volunteer Army (see Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21). On 5 December 1919, surrounded by the enemy and faced with certain defeat after the UHA established a separate alliance with the Volunteer Army, Petliura and some members of his government fled Ukraine and made for Warsaw in the hope of finding support and allies there. In the meantime Petliura ordered the UNR Army to begin the First Winter Campaign.
After the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw in April 1920, the UNR army under Petliura's command and its Polish military ally mounted an offensive against the Bolshevik occupation in Ukraine. The joint forces took Kyiv on 7 May 1920 but were forced to retreat in June. Thereafter Petliura continued the war against the Bolsheviks without Polish involvement. Poland and Soviet Russia concluded an armistice in October 1920, and in November the major UNR army formations were forced to retreat across the Zbruch River into Polish-held territory and to submit to internment (see Internment camps). Petliura and his government resided temporarily in Tarnow. Later Petliura moved to Warsaw under an assumed name. In late 1923, faced with increased Soviet demands that Poland hand him over, he was forced to leave for Budapest. From there he went to Vienna and Geneva, and in late 1924 he settled in Paris. There he founded the weekly Tryzub and oversaw the activities of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic until his assassination by a Bessarabian Jew (Shalom Schwartzbard) claiming vengeance for Petliura's purported responsibility for the pogroms in Ukraine (see Schwartzbard Trial). He was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.
Petliura debuted as a publicist in 1902 in Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. There and in the periodicals he edited he published many articles on political, civic, and cultural affairs, particularly on the question of Ukraine's national liberation. His articles had a discernible impact on the formation of Ukrainian national consciousness before the Revolution of 1917. As an emigre in Poland Petliura wrote a brochure on contemporary Ukrainian emigres and their responsibility (1923). In Tryzub he wrote mainly about the 1917–21 attempts at Ukrainian nation building, the responsibility of emigres, and Ukraine under Bolshevik rule.
The entire 1917–21 period of struggle for Ukrainian statehood is indissolubly linked with Petliura. As a publicist, politician, and military leader he was uncompromising on the issue of Ukrainian independence. Petliura's broad outlook was particularly evident in his definition of the tasks of Ukrainian emigres and their role in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood. Despite the initially negative, if not openly hostile, attitudes of certain emigre (particularly Western Ukrainian) circles to Petliura because of his central role in the Treaty of Warsaw and the Ukrainian-Polish alliance, since the mid-1920s he has personified, perhaps more than any other person, the Struggle for Independence (1917–20). The personification seemingly also extends to the issue of the pogroms that took place in Ukraine during the revolutionary period of 1918–20, and Petliura has frequently been invested with the responsibility for those acts. Petliura's own personal convictions render such responsibility highly unlikely, and all the documentary evidence indicates that he consistently made efforts to stem pogrom activity by UNR troops. The Russian and Soviet authorities also made Petliura a symbol of Ukrainian efforts at independence, although in their rendition he was a traitor to the Ukrainian people, and his followers (Petliurites) were unprincipled opportunists.
Pavlo Skoropadsky
Skoropadsky, Pavlo [Skoropads’kyj], b 15 May 1873 in Wiesbaden, Germany, d 26 April 1945 in Metten, Bavaria. Ukrainian noble, general, and statesman; scion of the Skoropadsky family. He grew up on his father's estate in Trostianets (Pryluka county, Poltava gubernia), studied at the Starodub gymnasium, and graduated from the elite Page Corps cadet school in Saint Petersburg. He served in a cavalry guard regiment and commanded a company of the Chita Cossack Regiment in the Russo-Japanese War. He was appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas II in 1905, a colonel in 1906, commander of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment in 1910, and a major general and commander of a cavalry regiment in the emperor's House Guard in 1911. During the First World War he commanded the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Guard Division, then the 5th Cavalry and 1st Cavalry Guard divisions, and the 34th Army Corps (at the rank of lieutenant general).
After the February Revolution of 1917 Skoropadsky oversaw the Ukrainization of the 34th Corps as the 1st Ukrainian Corps (see Army of the Ukrainian National Republic). He was elected honorary otaman of the Ukrainian Free Cossacks at their first congress in October 1917. In October–November of that year the disciplined 60,000-man First Corps and the Free Cossacks under his command controlled the Vapniarka–Zhmerynka–Koziatyn–Shepetivka railway corridor. It disarmed and demobilized pro-Bolshevik military units returning from the southwestern and Rumanian fronts and thereby prevented them from attacking Kyiv and plundering Ukraine. As an opponent of the Central Rada's socialist policies (especially its agrarian reforms) Skoropadsky initiated a right-wing conspiracy known as the Ukrainian People's Hromada, consisting of his fellow noble landowners and loyal officers. Its plans to overthrow the Rada and establish an authoritarian state ruled by the Skoropadsky family gained the support of the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian party and the All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners. On 24 April 1918 Skoropadsky was assured by Gen Wilhelm Groener, the German chief of staff, that the German army would support a coup d'etat.
On 29 April 1918 the German-backed coup proved successful. Skoropadsky was proclaimed hetman of the Ukrainian State (as the Ukrainian National Republic [UNR] was renamed) at an agrarian congress convened by the Union of Landowners. The Central Rada and all land committees were dissolved, all UNR ministers were removed, the Rada's laws and reforms were revoked, and censorship of the press was introduced. The Hetman government appointed by Skoropadsky included members of the Russian Constitutional Democratic (kadet) party and even anti-Ukrainian Russian monarchists (who were major figures in Sergei Gerbel's November–December cabinet). The government's social and economic policies were subject to and shaped by Germany's imperialistic aims, as well as the interests of Ukraine's large landowners, industrialists, and capitalists. The Hetman government also allowed Russian anti-Bolshevik political leaders and military organizations to turn Kyiv into one of their staging areas. Ukrainian democrats refused to take part in the government, and in late May 1918 they formed the Ukrainian National-State Union (later renamed the Ukrainian National Union [UNS]) to co-ordinate political opposition. The left (including the Bolsheviks) exploited the dissatisfaction, and it soon erupted in the form of agrarian uprisings (see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22), railway and other strikes, sabotage (bombings and arson in Kyiv, Odesa, and elsewhere), and assassinations (eg, of the German field marshal Hermann von Eichhorn). The government and the German and Austrian military responded with repressive measures.
Skoropadsky's attempts in October 1918 to diffuse opposition to his regime by entering into negotiations with the Ukrainian National Union and asserting his support for Ukraine's independence from the Central Powers proved unsuccessful, and his November manifesto of federation with a future non-Bolshevik Russia only accelerated the momentum of the UNS-led popular rebellion against his regime. On 14 December 1918, after German troops abandoned Kyiv, Skoropadsky abdicated and fled to Germany via Switzerland, and his government surrendered power to the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic.
For most of the interwar years Skoropadsky lived in Wannsee, near Berlin, and received German financial support. From there he headed the hetmanite movement, consisting of monarchist emigre organizations, such as the Ukrainian Union of Agrarians-Statists in Europe, the United Hetman Organization in Canada and the United States, and the Ukrainian Hetman Organization of America. He was also honorary president of the Ukrainian Hromada society in Berlin. Because of his links with governing Junker circles, in 1926 he was able to initiate the creation of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin. Skoropadsky never relinquished his claim to Ukraine. During the Second World War he lobbied the Nazi government for the release of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists imprisoned in German concentration camps. He was mortally wounded during an Allied air raid on the railway station at Plattling, in Bavaria, and was buried in Wiesbaden. Excerpts from his memoirs appeared in Khliborobs’ka Ukraina (vols 4 and 5 [1922–3, 1924–5]) and under separate cover as a 1992 Kyiv volume of his Spomyny (Reminiscences). A collection of essays about Skoropadsky and his times, edited by Olena Ott-Skoropadska, appeared in 1993 as Ostanni het’man (The Last Hetman). Skoropadsky’s memoirs regarding events from late 1917 to December 1918, edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski (who also provided a foreward) were published in 1995.
After the February Revolution of 1917 Skoropadsky oversaw the Ukrainization of the 34th Corps as the 1st Ukrainian Corps (see Army of the Ukrainian National Republic). He was elected honorary otaman of the Ukrainian Free Cossacks at their first congress in October 1917. In October–November of that year the disciplined 60,000-man First Corps and the Free Cossacks under his command controlled the Vapniarka–Zhmerynka–Koziatyn–Shepetivka railway corridor. It disarmed and demobilized pro-Bolshevik military units returning from the southwestern and Rumanian fronts and thereby prevented them from attacking Kyiv and plundering Ukraine. As an opponent of the Central Rada's socialist policies (especially its agrarian reforms) Skoropadsky initiated a right-wing conspiracy known as the Ukrainian People's Hromada, consisting of his fellow noble landowners and loyal officers. Its plans to overthrow the Rada and establish an authoritarian state ruled by the Skoropadsky family gained the support of the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian party and the All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners. On 24 April 1918 Skoropadsky was assured by Gen Wilhelm Groener, the German chief of staff, that the German army would support a coup d'etat.
On 29 April 1918 the German-backed coup proved successful. Skoropadsky was proclaimed hetman of the Ukrainian State (as the Ukrainian National Republic [UNR] was renamed) at an agrarian congress convened by the Union of Landowners. The Central Rada and all land committees were dissolved, all UNR ministers were removed, the Rada's laws and reforms were revoked, and censorship of the press was introduced. The Hetman government appointed by Skoropadsky included members of the Russian Constitutional Democratic (kadet) party and even anti-Ukrainian Russian monarchists (who were major figures in Sergei Gerbel's November–December cabinet). The government's social and economic policies were subject to and shaped by Germany's imperialistic aims, as well as the interests of Ukraine's large landowners, industrialists, and capitalists. The Hetman government also allowed Russian anti-Bolshevik political leaders and military organizations to turn Kyiv into one of their staging areas. Ukrainian democrats refused to take part in the government, and in late May 1918 they formed the Ukrainian National-State Union (later renamed the Ukrainian National Union [UNS]) to co-ordinate political opposition. The left (including the Bolsheviks) exploited the dissatisfaction, and it soon erupted in the form of agrarian uprisings (see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22), railway and other strikes, sabotage (bombings and arson in Kyiv, Odesa, and elsewhere), and assassinations (eg, of the German field marshal Hermann von Eichhorn). The government and the German and Austrian military responded with repressive measures.
Skoropadsky's attempts in October 1918 to diffuse opposition to his regime by entering into negotiations with the Ukrainian National Union and asserting his support for Ukraine's independence from the Central Powers proved unsuccessful, and his November manifesto of federation with a future non-Bolshevik Russia only accelerated the momentum of the UNS-led popular rebellion against his regime. On 14 December 1918, after German troops abandoned Kyiv, Skoropadsky abdicated and fled to Germany via Switzerland, and his government surrendered power to the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic.
For most of the interwar years Skoropadsky lived in Wannsee, near Berlin, and received German financial support. From there he headed the hetmanite movement, consisting of monarchist emigre organizations, such as the Ukrainian Union of Agrarians-Statists in Europe, the United Hetman Organization in Canada and the United States, and the Ukrainian Hetman Organization of America. He was also honorary president of the Ukrainian Hromada society in Berlin. Because of his links with governing Junker circles, in 1926 he was able to initiate the creation of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin. Skoropadsky never relinquished his claim to Ukraine. During the Second World War he lobbied the Nazi government for the release of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists imprisoned in German concentration camps. He was mortally wounded during an Allied air raid on the railway station at Plattling, in Bavaria, and was buried in Wiesbaden. Excerpts from his memoirs appeared in Khliborobs’ka Ukraina (vols 4 and 5 [1922–3, 1924–5]) and under separate cover as a 1992 Kyiv volume of his Spomyny (Reminiscences). A collection of essays about Skoropadsky and his times, edited by Olena Ott-Skoropadska, appeared in 1993 as Ostanni het’man (The Last Hetman). Skoropadsky’s memoirs regarding events from late 1917 to December 1918, edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski (who also provided a foreward) were published in 1995.
Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo [Hrusevs’kyj, Myxajlo], b 29 September 1866 in Kholm, d 25 November 1934 in Kislovodsk, North Caucasus krai, RSFSR. (Photo: Mykhailo Hrushevsky.) The most distinguished Ukrainian historian; principal organizer of Ukrainian scholarship, prominent civic and political leader, publicist, and writer; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1894, the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1923, and the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1929. Hrushevsky's father, Serhii, was a Slavist and pedagogue. In 1869 the family moved to Caucasia where Hrushevsky graduated from the classical gymnasium in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) (1886). While still a gymnasium student he began to write belles-lettres in Ukrainian; his first publication was a story that appeared in the newspaper Dilo in 1885. Hrushevsky graduated in 1890 from the Historical-Philological Faculty at Kyiv University where he was a student of Volodymyr Antonovych. His first scholarly publications were ‘Iuzhnorusskie gospodarskie zamki v polovine XVI v.’ (South Ruthenian Feudal Castles in the Mid-16th Century), Kievskie universitetskie izvestiia, 1890; ‘Volynskii vopros 1077–1102’ (The Volhynian Question, 1077–1102), Kievskaia starina, no. 33 (1891); and ‘Hromads’kyi rukh na Ukraini-Rusi v XIII vitsi’ (The Social Movement in Ukraine-Rus’ in the 13th Century), Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka, 1 (1892). While at Kyiv University he prepared for publication his award-winning undergraduate work, Ocherk istorii kievskoi zemli ot smerti Iaroslava do kontsa XIV veka (A Survey of the History of the Kyiv Land from the Death of Yaroslav to the End of the 14th Century, 1891), and then received a master's degree for the dissertation ‘Barskoe starostvo: Istoricheskie ocherki’ (The Bar County: Historical Survey), published in 1894. In 1894, on the recommendation of Antonovych, Hrushevsky was appointed professor of the newly created chair of Ukrainian history (officially it was called The Second Chair of Universal History, with special reference to the History of Eastern Europe) at Lviv University.
Upon arriving in Lviv Hrushevsky became active in the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh). He became the director of the Historical-Philosophical Section in 1894, and in 1897 he was elected president. With extraordinary energy he reorganized the NTSh, which under his leadership became akin to an academy of sciences. He collected funds, founded a library and museum, initiated scholarly contacts with a host of academic bodies, and gathered around him many scholars, including his close collaborator for many years, Ivan Franko. Under Hrushevsky's editorship (1895–1913) the major journal of the NTSh, Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka, was transformed from an annual to a quarterly and then a bimonthly publication. In 1895 he established the Archeographic Commission of NTSh (see Archeographic commissions), which published documents and sources for Ukrainian history in its serials Zherela do istorii Ukrainy-Rusy and Pam'iatky ukrains’ko-rus’koi movy i literatury. Much of Hrushevsky's own work was published in these journals and later republished in Rozvidky i materiialy do istorii Ukrainy-Rusy (Research and Materials toward a History of Ukraine-Rus’, 5 vols, 1896–1905). In Lviv Hrushevsky developed a school of Ukrainian history that included historians such as Stepan Tomashivsky, Omelian Terletsky, Myron Korduba, Ivan Krypiakevych, Vasyl Herasymchuk, Ivan Dzhydzhora, Ivan Krevetsky, Denys Korenets, and O. Tselevych.
In 1898, together with Ivan Franko and Volodymyr Hnatiuk, he founded Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, the most important forum for Ukrainian literature and political discussion of its time. Hrushevsky was also one of the organizers of the Ukrainian-Ruthenian Publishing Company (1899) and the Society of Friends of Ukrainian Scholarship, Literature, and Art (1904). Hrushevsky's contribution to the development of Ukrainian education in Galicia deserves particular attention. From 1908 he headed the Teachers' Hromada and from 1910 the Provincial School Union. Soon after arriving in Lviv he began to work towards the creation of a Ukrainian university there, beginning with the organization of popular lecture series and a summer school.
In 1898 the first volume of his monumental Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’) was published in Lviv; by 1937 another nine volumes, covering Ukrainian history to 1658, had appeared in Lviv and Kyiv. This work was the first major synthesis of the history of Ukraine ever written. In 1904 his Ocherk istorii ukrainskogo naroda (Survey of the History of the Ukrainian People) was published in Saint Petersburg (2nd edn, 1906; 3rd edn, 1911). A general overview of Ukrainian history, this work was based on the course he had taught at the Russian Higher School of Social Studies in Paris in the spring of 1903. It was succeeded by a popular Iliustrovana istoriia Ukrainy (Illustrated History of Ukraine; the first of several Ukrainian editions appeared in 1911, and a Russian version was published in 1912). Subsequently, versions of these popular histories appeared in German, French, English, Bulgarian, and Czech. (Photo: Mykhailo Hrushevsky in 1906.)
In 1904, in a collection of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences, Sbornik statei po slavianovedeniiu, vol 1, Hrushevsky published perhaps his most important essay, titled ‘Zvychaina skhema "ruskoi" istorii i sprava ratsional’noho ukladu istorii skhidn’oho slov'ianstva’ (The Traditional Scheme of ‘Russian’ History and the Problem of a Rational Ordering of the History of the Eastern Slavs). In this article Hrushevsky traced the history of Ukraine and of the Ukrainian people to the period of Kyivan Rus’ and argued that the history of the Ukrainian nation is distinct from that of the Russian both in its origin and in its political, economic, and cultural development (the German translation of the article appeared in 1935, and the English in 1952). Although the argument was rejected by most Russian historians, who believed that the modern Russian state was the only direct descendant of Kyivan Rus’ and did not accept that the Ukrainian nation had developed as a result of a separate and unique history, Hrushevsky's scheme and periodization of Ukrainian history was accepted, with some changes, by most Ukrainian historians, including those in Soviet Ukraine (until 1929), and in the emigration as the basic scheme of Ukrainian national historiography.
As a student and during his first years in Lviv, Hrushevsky devoted most of his energy to organizing Ukrainian scholarly and cultural life. In Kyiv he worked closely with Volodymyr Antonovych, Oleksander Konysky, and other activists of the older generation associated with the Hromada of Kyiv. In Galicia he began to play a more active role in Ukrainian political life. In 1899 he was one of the founders of the National Democratic party, although he quit the party soon afterwards. Hrushevsky's real political activity, however, began only after the Revolution of 1905 in Russia, which resulted in the easing of restrictions on Ukrainian life and the emergence of mass Ukrainian organizations and political parties. From then on Hrushevsky spent most of his time in Russian-ruled Ukraine, although he continued to teach at Lviv University until 1914.
Hrushevsky was a prolific publicist. In 1906 in Saint Petersburg he helped found and was a regular contributor to Ukrainskii vestnik (Saint Petersburg), the official organ of the Ukrainian caucus in the Russian State Duma. His articles on Ukrainian and international political affairs appeared in various other Ukrainian and Russian publications (especially Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk and Ukrainskaia zhizn’) and in several separate collections, including Z bizhuchoi khvyli (From the Current Wave, 1906), Osvobozhdenie Rossii i ukrainskii vopros (The Liberation of Russia and the Ukrainian Question, 1907), Nasha polityka (Our Politics, 1911), in which he sharply criticized the leaders of the National Democratic party in Galicia, and Vil’na Ukraina (Free Ukraine, 1917).
After a brief stay in Saint Petersburg, Hrushevsky transferred his activities to Kyiv, where in 1907 he moved the publication of Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. In 1907 he also cofounded the Ukrainian Scientific Society, modeled on the Shevchenko Scientific Society, serving as its first head and coeditor of its journals Zapysky Ukrains’koho naukovoho tovarystva v Kyievi and (from 1914) Ukraina (1914–30). In order to foster Ukrainian national consciousness among the peasantry, Hrushevsky founded and published the popular newspaper Selo (1909–11); when this was closed down by the Russian government, he established Zasiv (1911–12). In 1908 Hrushevsky was one of the founding members of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, emerging as the universally acknowledged leader of the Ukrainian movement.
During the First World War, when the Russian government again clamped down on Ukrainian activities, Hrushevsky was arrested in the fall of 1914. After a two-month imprisonment in Kyiv, he was exiled to Simbirsk, then to Kazan, and finally to Moscow, where he remained under police surveillance. Despite this repression he continued his scholarly work and even helped edit Ukrainskaia zhizn’ and the Ukrainian-language weekly Promin’ (Moscow).
Hrushevsky was released from exile after the February Revolution of 1917 and he quickly emerged as the leader of the Ukrainian national revolution. On 17 March, while still in Moscow, he was elected chairman of the Central Rada. Under his direction, this body soon became the revolutionary parliament of Ukraine. In 1917 Hrushevsky became a supporter of the newly formed Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (UPSR), the majority party in the Central Rada. On 29 April 1918, he was elected president of the Central Rada of the Ukrainian National Republic. (Photo: Mykhailo Hrushevsky ca 1920.)
A coup d'etat led by Pavlo Skoropadsky overthrew the government of the Ukrainian National Republic. This ended Hrushevsky's involvement in government, although he continued his political activities, especially in the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, and his publicistic work (in 1918 he published the collection Na porozi novoi Ukrainy: Hadky i mrii [On the Threshold of a New Ukraine: Thoughts and Dreams]). In 1919 he emigrated and increased his political-publicistic activities as a member of the Foreign Delegation of the UPSR. For the next few years he traveled widely in Western Europe trying to rally support for the Ukrainian independence movement and re-establishing scholarly contacts. In 1919 he founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in Vienna (later moved to Prague), which published, among others, his works Pochatky hromadianstva (henetychna sotsiolohiia) (The Beginnings of Society [Genetic Sociology], 1921), Z pochatkiv ukrains’koho sotsiialistychnoho rukhu: Mykhailo Drahomanov i zhenevs’kyi sotsiialistychnyi hurtok (On the Beginnings of the Ukrainian Socialist Movement: Mykhailo Drahomanov and the Geneva Socialist Group, 1922), and Z istorii relihiinoi dumky na Ukraini (On the History of Religious Thought in Ukraine, 1925). He also began his monumental Istoriia ukrains’koi literatury (The History of Ukrainian Literature) and edited the organ of the UPSR Boritesia – Poborete (1920–2). His political writings of this period show his increasing reconciliation with Communist rule in Ukraine and his desire to return to Ukraine to continue his scholarly and civic work; he was especially encouraged by the announcement of Ukrainization and the New Economic Policy.
In 1923 Hrushevsky was elected a full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) and he left for Kyiv in early 1924. This action was severely criticized by most of the Ukrainian political emigres. At the VUAN, Hrushevsky soon resumed his role as the central figure in Ukrainian scholarship. He assumed leadership of the VUAN archeographic commission, organized a series of academic commissions to research history of Ukraine and Ukrainian folklore, and directed the training of new historians as the holder of the Chair of Modern Ukrainian History. He revived and edited (between 1924 and 1930) the journal Ukraina (1914–30), which became the main organ of Ukrainian studies. He was also the editor of Naukovyi zbirnyk Istorychnoi sektsii VUAN (1924–9) and the collections Za sto lit: Materialy z hromads'koho i literaturnoho zhyttia Ukrainy XIX i pochatku XX stolittia (6 vols, 1927–30), Studii z istorii Ukrainy (3 vols, 1926–30), and Ukrainskyi arkhiv (3 vols, 1929–31). In Kyiv, Hrushevsky continued work on his major syntheses of Ukrainian history and literature. In 1926 Ukraine solemnly celebrated Hrushevsky's 60th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his scholarly work. That same year, collaboration was renewed between the Shevchenko Scientific Society and VUAN.
Despite Hrushevsky's great achievements in this period, opposition to him grew steadily in official circles and among Marxist scholars. Increasingly, his historical scheme was rejected as ‘nationalistic,’ and he was criticized for not adopting the official Soviet Marxist interpretation of the history of Ukraine. In 1929 these attacks increased, and Hrushevsky was progressively forced to withdraw from his work in the VUAN. In March 1931 he was arrested and then forced to live in Moscow. There he was subjected to constant surveillance and attempts by the secret police to frame him as a major figure in a fictitious counter-revolutionary organization, the Ukrainian National Center. However, he was never dismissed from the VUAN, although the institutions that he had founded there were closed, the serials that he edited ceased publication, and most of his students and co-workers were arrested and repressed. By 1934 the school of history he had founded in Soviet Ukraine was destroyed. Still, Hrushevsky remained a productive scholar in his last years, working mostly on Ukrainian historiography of the 17th and 18th centuries; his last two articles were published in periodicals of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1932 and 1934. Eventually the difficult conditions of life in semi-freedom abroad and the further persecutions by the Soviet regime led to a deterioration of Hrushevsky's health. He died in Kislovodsk, where he had gone for medical treatment, and was buried in Kyiv in the Baikove Cemetery.
Hrushevsky's historical approach was formed under the influence of his professor, Volodymyr Antonovych, as well as Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Drahomanov, and later E. Durkheim. He belonged to the populist school of Ukrainian historiography and stressed the primacy of social or popular interests over the interests of the state and the nation. Later in his career, perhaps as a result of his own political activities, Hrushevsky began to attach more importance to the state and the political development of the Ukrainian nation. He rejected the Normanist theory of early Ukrainian history, and considered the Antes the predecessors of the Ukrainian nation. Using a wide variety of sources, Hrushevsky outlined the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainian nation and established the continuity of Ukrainian historical processes, even throughout the periods of Ukrainian statelessness. Elements of his historical scheme were adopted by some non-Ukrainian historians (eg, Aleksandr Presniakov, Matvii Liubavsky, Oskar Halecki).
Hrushevsky also did considerable work in the history of literature. At first this entailed short digressions in Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy; later he turned his full attention to this topic in the important Istoriia ukrains’koi literatury (History of Ukrainian Literature, 5 vols, 1923–7; 6 vols, 1993), which examined Ukrainian literature up to the beginning of the 17th century in relation to the development of culture. He also wrote numerous articles of literary criticism and reviews. In his Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy and a series of his lesser works, Hrushevsky examined the development of education, religious life, art, printing, and other facets of Ukrainian culture. A number of his works were devoted to ethnography, folklore, and sociology. Hrushevsky also worked in archeology, publishing a series of articles and attempting the first synthesis of the archeology of Ukraine in vols 1–3 of Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy.
As a belletrist, Hrushevsky wrote tales, dramas, and short stories (many appeared in the collection Pid zoriamy: Opovidannia, nacherky, zamitky, istorychni obrazy [Under the Stars: Stories, Sketches, Notes, Historical Portraits, 1928]). In total, Hrushevsky wrote over 1,800 works. His bibliography to 1904, compiled by Ivan O. Levytsky, is given in Naukovyi Zbirnyk prysviachenyi profesorovy Mykhailovy Hrushevs’komu uchenykamy i prykhyl’nykamy (A Scholarly Collection Dedicated to Professor Mykhailo Hrushevsky by his Students and Friends, Lviv 1906), and a bibliography of his works from 1905 to 1928 is given in Iuvileinyi zbirnyk na poshanu akademika Mykhaila Serhiievycha Hrushevs’koho (A Jubilee Collection in Honor of the Academician Mykhailo Serhiievych Hrushevsky, Kyiv 1929).
Hrushevsky's accomplishments, as the scholar who realized the principal task of Ukrainian historiography (ie, the synthesis of the entire Ukrainian historical process), as the organizer of Ukrainian national scholarship, and as a civic and political activist and one of the most prominent figures of the period of the Ukrainian Struggle for Independence (1917–20), provoked the Bolsheviks to take a sharply negative attitude towards him, despite his return to Soviet Ukraine. The 1946 resolution of the CC of the CP(B)U, in particular, and later Soviet publications characterize him as a ‘nationalist historian,’ ‘the ideologist of the Ukrainian counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie,’ and ‘the untamed enemy of Soviet rule.’ The Soviet regime continued to combat Hrushevsky's scheme and its followers in history, literature, linguistics, and other disciplines until the late 1980s.
In 1966 Ukrainian scholarly institutions in the West celebrated the centenary of Hrushevsky's birth and in 1984, the 50th anniversary of his death. On these occasions, special issues of Ukrains’kyi istoryk devoted to Hrushevsky were published. In 1974 the Ukrainian Historical Association began a separate serial publication, Hrushevskiana, devoted to the study of the life and work of Hrushevsky. Hrushevsky wrote two short autobiographies: the first was published in Lviv in 1906 (repr, Toronto 1965) and the second in Kyiv in 1926 (2nd edn with notes and intro by Lubomyr Wynar, New York 1981).
After Hrushevsky’s death any open discussion of his person and work was taboo in Soviet Ukraine (except for a brief period during the Second World War). His ‘rehabilitation’ proceeded very slowly during the Gorbachev era—it was not until near the end of the 1980s that Hrushevsky could be talked about—and even then only in a limited way. This situation changed dramatically in post-Soviet Ukraine, and Hrushevsky was soon acknowledged as the country’s pre-eminent historian. His life and contributions have been the subjects of many articles, book, and conferences, and statues to him have been erected in central Kyiv and Lviv. A reprint edition of his ten-volume Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’) was published in Kyiv in 1991–2000; his diaries of 1886–94 and two volumes of his correspondence came out in 1997 in Kyiv; and the first installment in a projected 50-volume set of Hrushevsky’s Tvory (Works) appeared in Lviv in 2002. In the West the translation of Hrushevsky's ten-volume magnum opus into English (History of Ukraine-Rus’, 1997–) became a major undertaking of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Upon arriving in Lviv Hrushevsky became active in the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh). He became the director of the Historical-Philosophical Section in 1894, and in 1897 he was elected president. With extraordinary energy he reorganized the NTSh, which under his leadership became akin to an academy of sciences. He collected funds, founded a library and museum, initiated scholarly contacts with a host of academic bodies, and gathered around him many scholars, including his close collaborator for many years, Ivan Franko. Under Hrushevsky's editorship (1895–1913) the major journal of the NTSh, Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka, was transformed from an annual to a quarterly and then a bimonthly publication. In 1895 he established the Archeographic Commission of NTSh (see Archeographic commissions), which published documents and sources for Ukrainian history in its serials Zherela do istorii Ukrainy-Rusy and Pam'iatky ukrains’ko-rus’koi movy i literatury. Much of Hrushevsky's own work was published in these journals and later republished in Rozvidky i materiialy do istorii Ukrainy-Rusy (Research and Materials toward a History of Ukraine-Rus’, 5 vols, 1896–1905). In Lviv Hrushevsky developed a school of Ukrainian history that included historians such as Stepan Tomashivsky, Omelian Terletsky, Myron Korduba, Ivan Krypiakevych, Vasyl Herasymchuk, Ivan Dzhydzhora, Ivan Krevetsky, Denys Korenets, and O. Tselevych.
In 1898, together with Ivan Franko and Volodymyr Hnatiuk, he founded Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, the most important forum for Ukrainian literature and political discussion of its time. Hrushevsky was also one of the organizers of the Ukrainian-Ruthenian Publishing Company (1899) and the Society of Friends of Ukrainian Scholarship, Literature, and Art (1904). Hrushevsky's contribution to the development of Ukrainian education in Galicia deserves particular attention. From 1908 he headed the Teachers' Hromada and from 1910 the Provincial School Union. Soon after arriving in Lviv he began to work towards the creation of a Ukrainian university there, beginning with the organization of popular lecture series and a summer school.
In 1898 the first volume of his monumental Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’) was published in Lviv; by 1937 another nine volumes, covering Ukrainian history to 1658, had appeared in Lviv and Kyiv. This work was the first major synthesis of the history of Ukraine ever written. In 1904 his Ocherk istorii ukrainskogo naroda (Survey of the History of the Ukrainian People) was published in Saint Petersburg (2nd edn, 1906; 3rd edn, 1911). A general overview of Ukrainian history, this work was based on the course he had taught at the Russian Higher School of Social Studies in Paris in the spring of 1903. It was succeeded by a popular Iliustrovana istoriia Ukrainy (Illustrated History of Ukraine; the first of several Ukrainian editions appeared in 1911, and a Russian version was published in 1912). Subsequently, versions of these popular histories appeared in German, French, English, Bulgarian, and Czech. (Photo: Mykhailo Hrushevsky in 1906.)
In 1904, in a collection of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences, Sbornik statei po slavianovedeniiu, vol 1, Hrushevsky published perhaps his most important essay, titled ‘Zvychaina skhema "ruskoi" istorii i sprava ratsional’noho ukladu istorii skhidn’oho slov'ianstva’ (The Traditional Scheme of ‘Russian’ History and the Problem of a Rational Ordering of the History of the Eastern Slavs). In this article Hrushevsky traced the history of Ukraine and of the Ukrainian people to the period of Kyivan Rus’ and argued that the history of the Ukrainian nation is distinct from that of the Russian both in its origin and in its political, economic, and cultural development (the German translation of the article appeared in 1935, and the English in 1952). Although the argument was rejected by most Russian historians, who believed that the modern Russian state was the only direct descendant of Kyivan Rus’ and did not accept that the Ukrainian nation had developed as a result of a separate and unique history, Hrushevsky's scheme and periodization of Ukrainian history was accepted, with some changes, by most Ukrainian historians, including those in Soviet Ukraine (until 1929), and in the emigration as the basic scheme of Ukrainian national historiography.
As a student and during his first years in Lviv, Hrushevsky devoted most of his energy to organizing Ukrainian scholarly and cultural life. In Kyiv he worked closely with Volodymyr Antonovych, Oleksander Konysky, and other activists of the older generation associated with the Hromada of Kyiv. In Galicia he began to play a more active role in Ukrainian political life. In 1899 he was one of the founders of the National Democratic party, although he quit the party soon afterwards. Hrushevsky's real political activity, however, began only after the Revolution of 1905 in Russia, which resulted in the easing of restrictions on Ukrainian life and the emergence of mass Ukrainian organizations and political parties. From then on Hrushevsky spent most of his time in Russian-ruled Ukraine, although he continued to teach at Lviv University until 1914.
Hrushevsky was a prolific publicist. In 1906 in Saint Petersburg he helped found and was a regular contributor to Ukrainskii vestnik (Saint Petersburg), the official organ of the Ukrainian caucus in the Russian State Duma. His articles on Ukrainian and international political affairs appeared in various other Ukrainian and Russian publications (especially Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk and Ukrainskaia zhizn’) and in several separate collections, including Z bizhuchoi khvyli (From the Current Wave, 1906), Osvobozhdenie Rossii i ukrainskii vopros (The Liberation of Russia and the Ukrainian Question, 1907), Nasha polityka (Our Politics, 1911), in which he sharply criticized the leaders of the National Democratic party in Galicia, and Vil’na Ukraina (Free Ukraine, 1917).
After a brief stay in Saint Petersburg, Hrushevsky transferred his activities to Kyiv, where in 1907 he moved the publication of Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. In 1907 he also cofounded the Ukrainian Scientific Society, modeled on the Shevchenko Scientific Society, serving as its first head and coeditor of its journals Zapysky Ukrains’koho naukovoho tovarystva v Kyievi and (from 1914) Ukraina (1914–30). In order to foster Ukrainian national consciousness among the peasantry, Hrushevsky founded and published the popular newspaper Selo (1909–11); when this was closed down by the Russian government, he established Zasiv (1911–12). In 1908 Hrushevsky was one of the founding members of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, emerging as the universally acknowledged leader of the Ukrainian movement.
During the First World War, when the Russian government again clamped down on Ukrainian activities, Hrushevsky was arrested in the fall of 1914. After a two-month imprisonment in Kyiv, he was exiled to Simbirsk, then to Kazan, and finally to Moscow, where he remained under police surveillance. Despite this repression he continued his scholarly work and even helped edit Ukrainskaia zhizn’ and the Ukrainian-language weekly Promin’ (Moscow).
Hrushevsky was released from exile after the February Revolution of 1917 and he quickly emerged as the leader of the Ukrainian national revolution. On 17 March, while still in Moscow, he was elected chairman of the Central Rada. Under his direction, this body soon became the revolutionary parliament of Ukraine. In 1917 Hrushevsky became a supporter of the newly formed Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (UPSR), the majority party in the Central Rada. On 29 April 1918, he was elected president of the Central Rada of the Ukrainian National Republic. (Photo: Mykhailo Hrushevsky ca 1920.)
A coup d'etat led by Pavlo Skoropadsky overthrew the government of the Ukrainian National Republic. This ended Hrushevsky's involvement in government, although he continued his political activities, especially in the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, and his publicistic work (in 1918 he published the collection Na porozi novoi Ukrainy: Hadky i mrii [On the Threshold of a New Ukraine: Thoughts and Dreams]). In 1919 he emigrated and increased his political-publicistic activities as a member of the Foreign Delegation of the UPSR. For the next few years he traveled widely in Western Europe trying to rally support for the Ukrainian independence movement and re-establishing scholarly contacts. In 1919 he founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in Vienna (later moved to Prague), which published, among others, his works Pochatky hromadianstva (henetychna sotsiolohiia) (The Beginnings of Society [Genetic Sociology], 1921), Z pochatkiv ukrains’koho sotsiialistychnoho rukhu: Mykhailo Drahomanov i zhenevs’kyi sotsiialistychnyi hurtok (On the Beginnings of the Ukrainian Socialist Movement: Mykhailo Drahomanov and the Geneva Socialist Group, 1922), and Z istorii relihiinoi dumky na Ukraini (On the History of Religious Thought in Ukraine, 1925). He also began his monumental Istoriia ukrains’koi literatury (The History of Ukrainian Literature) and edited the organ of the UPSR Boritesia – Poborete (1920–2). His political writings of this period show his increasing reconciliation with Communist rule in Ukraine and his desire to return to Ukraine to continue his scholarly and civic work; he was especially encouraged by the announcement of Ukrainization and the New Economic Policy.
In 1923 Hrushevsky was elected a full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) and he left for Kyiv in early 1924. This action was severely criticized by most of the Ukrainian political emigres. At the VUAN, Hrushevsky soon resumed his role as the central figure in Ukrainian scholarship. He assumed leadership of the VUAN archeographic commission, organized a series of academic commissions to research history of Ukraine and Ukrainian folklore, and directed the training of new historians as the holder of the Chair of Modern Ukrainian History. He revived and edited (between 1924 and 1930) the journal Ukraina (1914–30), which became the main organ of Ukrainian studies. He was also the editor of Naukovyi zbirnyk Istorychnoi sektsii VUAN (1924–9) and the collections Za sto lit: Materialy z hromads'koho i literaturnoho zhyttia Ukrainy XIX i pochatku XX stolittia (6 vols, 1927–30), Studii z istorii Ukrainy (3 vols, 1926–30), and Ukrainskyi arkhiv (3 vols, 1929–31). In Kyiv, Hrushevsky continued work on his major syntheses of Ukrainian history and literature. In 1926 Ukraine solemnly celebrated Hrushevsky's 60th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his scholarly work. That same year, collaboration was renewed between the Shevchenko Scientific Society and VUAN.
Despite Hrushevsky's great achievements in this period, opposition to him grew steadily in official circles and among Marxist scholars. Increasingly, his historical scheme was rejected as ‘nationalistic,’ and he was criticized for not adopting the official Soviet Marxist interpretation of the history of Ukraine. In 1929 these attacks increased, and Hrushevsky was progressively forced to withdraw from his work in the VUAN. In March 1931 he was arrested and then forced to live in Moscow. There he was subjected to constant surveillance and attempts by the secret police to frame him as a major figure in a fictitious counter-revolutionary organization, the Ukrainian National Center. However, he was never dismissed from the VUAN, although the institutions that he had founded there were closed, the serials that he edited ceased publication, and most of his students and co-workers were arrested and repressed. By 1934 the school of history he had founded in Soviet Ukraine was destroyed. Still, Hrushevsky remained a productive scholar in his last years, working mostly on Ukrainian historiography of the 17th and 18th centuries; his last two articles were published in periodicals of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1932 and 1934. Eventually the difficult conditions of life in semi-freedom abroad and the further persecutions by the Soviet regime led to a deterioration of Hrushevsky's health. He died in Kislovodsk, where he had gone for medical treatment, and was buried in Kyiv in the Baikove Cemetery.
Hrushevsky's historical approach was formed under the influence of his professor, Volodymyr Antonovych, as well as Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Drahomanov, and later E. Durkheim. He belonged to the populist school of Ukrainian historiography and stressed the primacy of social or popular interests over the interests of the state and the nation. Later in his career, perhaps as a result of his own political activities, Hrushevsky began to attach more importance to the state and the political development of the Ukrainian nation. He rejected the Normanist theory of early Ukrainian history, and considered the Antes the predecessors of the Ukrainian nation. Using a wide variety of sources, Hrushevsky outlined the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainian nation and established the continuity of Ukrainian historical processes, even throughout the periods of Ukrainian statelessness. Elements of his historical scheme were adopted by some non-Ukrainian historians (eg, Aleksandr Presniakov, Matvii Liubavsky, Oskar Halecki).
Hrushevsky also did considerable work in the history of literature. At first this entailed short digressions in Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy; later he turned his full attention to this topic in the important Istoriia ukrains’koi literatury (History of Ukrainian Literature, 5 vols, 1923–7; 6 vols, 1993), which examined Ukrainian literature up to the beginning of the 17th century in relation to the development of culture. He also wrote numerous articles of literary criticism and reviews. In his Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy and a series of his lesser works, Hrushevsky examined the development of education, religious life, art, printing, and other facets of Ukrainian culture. A number of his works were devoted to ethnography, folklore, and sociology. Hrushevsky also worked in archeology, publishing a series of articles and attempting the first synthesis of the archeology of Ukraine in vols 1–3 of Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy.
As a belletrist, Hrushevsky wrote tales, dramas, and short stories (many appeared in the collection Pid zoriamy: Opovidannia, nacherky, zamitky, istorychni obrazy [Under the Stars: Stories, Sketches, Notes, Historical Portraits, 1928]). In total, Hrushevsky wrote over 1,800 works. His bibliography to 1904, compiled by Ivan O. Levytsky, is given in Naukovyi Zbirnyk prysviachenyi profesorovy Mykhailovy Hrushevs’komu uchenykamy i prykhyl’nykamy (A Scholarly Collection Dedicated to Professor Mykhailo Hrushevsky by his Students and Friends, Lviv 1906), and a bibliography of his works from 1905 to 1928 is given in Iuvileinyi zbirnyk na poshanu akademika Mykhaila Serhiievycha Hrushevs’koho (A Jubilee Collection in Honor of the Academician Mykhailo Serhiievych Hrushevsky, Kyiv 1929).
Hrushevsky's accomplishments, as the scholar who realized the principal task of Ukrainian historiography (ie, the synthesis of the entire Ukrainian historical process), as the organizer of Ukrainian national scholarship, and as a civic and political activist and one of the most prominent figures of the period of the Ukrainian Struggle for Independence (1917–20), provoked the Bolsheviks to take a sharply negative attitude towards him, despite his return to Soviet Ukraine. The 1946 resolution of the CC of the CP(B)U, in particular, and later Soviet publications characterize him as a ‘nationalist historian,’ ‘the ideologist of the Ukrainian counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie,’ and ‘the untamed enemy of Soviet rule.’ The Soviet regime continued to combat Hrushevsky's scheme and its followers in history, literature, linguistics, and other disciplines until the late 1980s.
In 1966 Ukrainian scholarly institutions in the West celebrated the centenary of Hrushevsky's birth and in 1984, the 50th anniversary of his death. On these occasions, special issues of Ukrains’kyi istoryk devoted to Hrushevsky were published. In 1974 the Ukrainian Historical Association began a separate serial publication, Hrushevskiana, devoted to the study of the life and work of Hrushevsky. Hrushevsky wrote two short autobiographies: the first was published in Lviv in 1906 (repr, Toronto 1965) and the second in Kyiv in 1926 (2nd edn with notes and intro by Lubomyr Wynar, New York 1981).
After Hrushevsky’s death any open discussion of his person and work was taboo in Soviet Ukraine (except for a brief period during the Second World War). His ‘rehabilitation’ proceeded very slowly during the Gorbachev era—it was not until near the end of the 1980s that Hrushevsky could be talked about—and even then only in a limited way. This situation changed dramatically in post-Soviet Ukraine, and Hrushevsky was soon acknowledged as the country’s pre-eminent historian. His life and contributions have been the subjects of many articles, book, and conferences, and statues to him have been erected in central Kyiv and Lviv. A reprint edition of his ten-volume Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’) was published in Kyiv in 1991–2000; his diaries of 1886–94 and two volumes of his correspondence came out in 1997 in Kyiv; and the first installment in a projected 50-volume set of Hrushevsky’s Tvory (Works) appeared in Lviv in 2002. In the West the translation of Hrushevsky's ten-volume magnum opus into English (History of Ukraine-Rus’, 1997–) became a major undertaking of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Ivan Skoropadsky
Skoropadsky, Ivan [Skoropads’kyj], b 1646 in Uman, d 14 July 1722 in Hlukhiv. (Portrait: Ivan Skoropadsky.) Cossack leader and hetman of Ukraine (1708–22). After the Turks leveled Uman in 1674, he moved to Left-Bank Ukraine, where he served under Hetman Ivan Samoilovych as military chancellor (1675–6), secretary of Chernihiv regiment (1681–94), general standard-bearer (1698), and second general osaul (1701). He was sent on many diplomatic missions: on behalf of Samoilovych he went to Moscow (1675 and 1676) and the Crimea (1681), and on behalf of Hetman Ivan Mazepa he went to Poland (1690), Moscow (1693 and 1696), and the Zaporozhian Sich (1703). In 1706 Mazepa appointed him colonel of Starodub regiment.
Skoropadsky was elected hetman at the Council of Officers in Hlukhiv on 6 November 1708. Peter I never fully trusted him, however; he refused to ratify the Reshetylivka Articles of 1709 drawn up by Skoropadsky for a new agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and he held up the official documents confirming Skoropadsky as hetman until 1710. Skoropadsky, with the troops of Cossacks loyal to him, nevertheless fought alongside Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava.
The Russian victory freed Peter I from any further restraint in his policy toward Ukraine. Devastated by war, Russian repressions, and a plague epidemic, Left-Bank Ukraine became a military colony. Not only did Peter station 10 dragoon regiments on Ukrainian territory at the expense of the local population, he also interfered increasingly in Ukraine's internal affairs, which previously came under the jurisdiction of the hetman. The Cossack army was put under Russian command, and the general artillery was deported to Russia. The capital of the Hetman state was moved to Hlukhiv in 1709, and the hetman became subject to constant supervision by Russian residents of the tsar. The Russian tsar reserved the right to appoint higher-echelon officers (the general starshyna, colonels, and even captains), and he replaced Ukrainians with Russians, Moldavians, Serbs, and Poles.
On 27 May 1722 Peter I set up the Little Russian Collegium, which sharply reduced the powers of the hetman and the Ukrainian government. Cultural and religious life was also subjected to restrictions: Ukrainian printing was proscribed in 1720, and the Kyivan Mohyla Academy was repressed. The terrorized Ukrainian people began to turn against the hetman and his government. Skoropadsky's protests against Russian actions had little influence on the tsar, who had already decided to limit Ukrainian autonomy and abolish the Hetman state when Ivan Mazepa allied with Sweden. Skoropadsky was buried in the Hamaliivka Monastery near Hlukhiv.
Skoropadsky was elected hetman at the Council of Officers in Hlukhiv on 6 November 1708. Peter I never fully trusted him, however; he refused to ratify the Reshetylivka Articles of 1709 drawn up by Skoropadsky for a new agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and he held up the official documents confirming Skoropadsky as hetman until 1710. Skoropadsky, with the troops of Cossacks loyal to him, nevertheless fought alongside Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava.
The Russian victory freed Peter I from any further restraint in his policy toward Ukraine. Devastated by war, Russian repressions, and a plague epidemic, Left-Bank Ukraine became a military colony. Not only did Peter station 10 dragoon regiments on Ukrainian territory at the expense of the local population, he also interfered increasingly in Ukraine's internal affairs, which previously came under the jurisdiction of the hetman. The Cossack army was put under Russian command, and the general artillery was deported to Russia. The capital of the Hetman state was moved to Hlukhiv in 1709, and the hetman became subject to constant supervision by Russian residents of the tsar. The Russian tsar reserved the right to appoint higher-echelon officers (the general starshyna, colonels, and even captains), and he replaced Ukrainians with Russians, Moldavians, Serbs, and Poles.
On 27 May 1722 Peter I set up the Little Russian Collegium, which sharply reduced the powers of the hetman and the Ukrainian government. Cultural and religious life was also subjected to restrictions: Ukrainian printing was proscribed in 1720, and the Kyivan Mohyla Academy was repressed. The terrorized Ukrainian people began to turn against the hetman and his government. Skoropadsky's protests against Russian actions had little influence on the tsar, who had already decided to limit Ukrainian autonomy and abolish the Hetman state when Ivan Mazepa allied with Sweden. Skoropadsky was buried in the Hamaliivka Monastery near Hlukhiv.
Charles XII
Charles XII, b 17 June 1682 in Stockholm, d 30 November 1718 in Fredrikshald, Norway. (Portrait: Charles XII.) King of Sweden from 1697. In the Great Northern War (1700–21) against the coalition of Russia, Denmark, and Saxony (headed by the Polish king Frederick Augustus II), Charles conquered Denmark, occupied Poland, and forced Augustus to abdicate. In the course of the war with Russia Charles entered into negotiations with Hetman Ivan Mazepa (initially through the mediation of the new Polish king Stanislaus I Leszczynski, then directly), which were soon formalized in a Ukrainian-Swedish alliance. In the fall of 1708 Charles advanced into Ukraine, where in 1709 he suffered defeat by Russia in the decisive Battle of Poltava. With the remainder of his army and his Ukrainian allies Charles found refuge in Turkish territory at Bendery, Moldavia. After Mazepa's death Charles negotiated an alliance with Hetman Pylyp Orlyk and the Crimean Tatars and induced the Tatars, for a time, to engage in war with Russia (the Prut campaign).
Peter I
Peter I (Russian: Petr), b 9 June 1672 in Moscow, d 8 February 1725 in Saint Petersburg. (Portrait: Peter I.) Russian tsar from 1682 and first Russian emperor from 1721; son of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. In 1696, after deposing the Muscovite regent, his half-sister, Sofiia Alekseevna, Peter conducted an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy that affected the Hetman state, Slobidska Ukraine, and the Zaporizhia throughout his reign. He exploited Ukraine economically and militarily as part of Russia's participation in the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire; the expansionist Russo-Turkish wars of 1695–6 and 1710–13; the Northern War with Sweden (1700–21), by which Russia gained a foothold on the Baltic Sea coast; and the war with Persia (1722–3), which fortified Russia's hold in Transcaucasia and the Caspian Sea littoral. Those wars exacted a heavy human and economic toll in Ukraine.
Peter's internal reforms had as their goal the modernization and Europeanization of Russia. His cultural revolution provided a sound basis for the further expansion of Russian absolutism and imperialism. In Russian-dominated Ukraine Peter's policies until 1708 continued the Muscovite tradition of the gradual erosion of Ukraine's sovereignty. In 1708, after Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Otaman Kost Hordiienko sided with Charles XII of Sweden, and particularly after the Battle of Poltava (1709), he initiated a reign of terror in Ukraine. The Zaporozhian Sich and Mazepa's capital, Baturyn, were completely destroyed, and Baturyn's inhabitants were massacred; captured Cossacks were executed; and most of Mazepa's senior supporters were imprisoned in the Solovets Islands. Thereafter the Russian military and civil authorities were brutally intrusive in all aspects of Ukrainian life. The powers of Mazepa's successor, Ivan Skoropadsky, were strictly limited, and his actions were monitored by Peter's resident functionary A. Izmailov. After Skoropadsky's death in 1722, Peter forbade the election of a successor, and the Hetman state was controlled and virtually ruled by his Little Russian Collegium. Opposition on the part of the Ukrainian government, led by the acting hetman Pavlo Polubotok (1722–4), brought on further repressions. Polubotok and his General Officer Staff were imprisoned in Saint Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress, where the hetman died. Peter's policies intensified serfdom, and the monetary taxes levied on the people increased from 45,500 rubles in 1722 to 241,300 in 1724. Peter forbade the publication of books in Ukrainian and ordered Ukrainian redactions of Old Church Slavonic texts to be made to correspond with Russian redactions. Thousands of Ukrainian conscripts died during the construction of Peter's new capital, Saint Petersburg, and the Don-Volga and Ladoga canals.
(See also History of the Ukrainian church, History of Ukraine, Holy Synod, Little Russian Office, Poll tax, Teofan Prokopovych, Table of Ranks, Russia, Senate, and Stefan Yavorsky.)
Peter's internal reforms had as their goal the modernization and Europeanization of Russia. His cultural revolution provided a sound basis for the further expansion of Russian absolutism and imperialism. In Russian-dominated Ukraine Peter's policies until 1708 continued the Muscovite tradition of the gradual erosion of Ukraine's sovereignty. In 1708, after Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Otaman Kost Hordiienko sided with Charles XII of Sweden, and particularly after the Battle of Poltava (1709), he initiated a reign of terror in Ukraine. The Zaporozhian Sich and Mazepa's capital, Baturyn, were completely destroyed, and Baturyn's inhabitants were massacred; captured Cossacks were executed; and most of Mazepa's senior supporters were imprisoned in the Solovets Islands. Thereafter the Russian military and civil authorities were brutally intrusive in all aspects of Ukrainian life. The powers of Mazepa's successor, Ivan Skoropadsky, were strictly limited, and his actions were monitored by Peter's resident functionary A. Izmailov. After Skoropadsky's death in 1722, Peter forbade the election of a successor, and the Hetman state was controlled and virtually ruled by his Little Russian Collegium. Opposition on the part of the Ukrainian government, led by the acting hetman Pavlo Polubotok (1722–4), brought on further repressions. Polubotok and his General Officer Staff were imprisoned in Saint Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress, where the hetman died. Peter's policies intensified serfdom, and the monetary taxes levied on the people increased from 45,500 rubles in 1722 to 241,300 in 1724. Peter forbade the publication of books in Ukrainian and ordered Ukrainian redactions of Old Church Slavonic texts to be made to correspond with Russian redactions. Thousands of Ukrainian conscripts died during the construction of Peter's new capital, Saint Petersburg, and the Don-Volga and Ladoga canals.
(See also History of the Ukrainian church, History of Ukraine, Holy Synod, Little Russian Office, Poll tax, Teofan Prokopovych, Table of Ranks, Russia, Senate, and Stefan Yavorsky.)
Ivan Mazepa
Mazepa, Ivan, b 20 March 1639 in Mazepyntsi, near Bila Tserkva, d 2 October 1709 in Bendery, Bessarabia.(Portrait: Ivan Mazepa.) Hetman of Ukraine in 1687–1709; son of Stepan-Adam Mazepa and Maryna Mazepa. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla College and at the Jesuit college in Warsaw. While a page at the court of Jan II Casimir Vasa in Warsaw, he was sent by the king to study in Holland. In 1656–9 he learned gunnery in Deventer and visited Germany, Italy, France, and the Low Countries. After his return to Warsaw Mazepa continued his service as a royal courtier, and in 1659–63 he was sent on various diplomatic missions to Ukraine. The legend of his affair with Madame Falbowska and his subsequent punishment by being tied to the back of a wild horse was first popularized by the Polish memorialist J. C. Pasek. Although it has no basis in fact, it has inspired a number of European Romantics, including Franz Liszt, Peter Tchaikovsky, G. Byron, V. Hugo, and Aleksandr Pushkin.
In 1663 Mazepa returned to Ukraine to help his ailing father. After his father's death in 1665 he succeeded him as hereditary cupbearer of Chernihiv. In 1669 Mazepa entered the service of Hetman Petro Doroshenko as a squadron commander in the Hetman's Guard, and later he served as Doroshenko's chancellor. He took part in Doroshenko's 1672 campaign against Poland in Galicia and served on diplomatic missions, including ones to the Crimea and Turkey (1673–4). During a mission in 1674 he was captured by the Zaporozhian otaman Ivan Sirko, who was forced to hand him over to Doroshenko's rival in Left-Bank Ukraine, Ivan Samoilovych. Mazepa quickly gained the confidence of Samoilovych and Tsar Peter I, was made a ‘courtier of the hetman,’ and was sent on numerous missions to Moscow. Mazepa participated in the Chyhyryn campaigns, 1677–8. In 1682 he was appointed Samoilovych's general osaul. He was elected the new hetman on 25 July 1687 by the Cossack council that deposed Samoilovych and concluded the disadvantageous Kolomak Articles with the tsar.
Mazepa's political program had become evident during his service to Petro Doroshenko and Ivan Samoilovych. He was a firm supporter of a pan-Ukrainian Hetman state, and his main goal as hetman was to unite all Ukrainian territories in a unitary state that would be modeled on existing European states but would retain the features of the traditional Cossack order. Initially Mazepa believed that Ukraine could coexist with Russia on the basis of the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654. Mazepa actively supported Russia's wars with Turkey and the Crimean Khanate and sent his forces to help those of Peter I (see Russo-Turkish wars). Although the Treaty of Constantinople of 3 July 1700 did not extend Ukrainian dominion to the Black Sea, it temporarily secured Ukrainian lands from Turkish encroachment and Crimean Tatar incursions. Until 1708 Mazepa also supported Peter I in the first phase of his Great Northern War with Sweden, by providing the Russians with troops, munitions, money, and supplies in their effort to capture the Baltic lands. Mazepa's participation in the war made it possible for him to take control of Right-Bank Ukraine in 1704, after Semen Palii's Cossack revolt effectively weakened Polish authority there. Mazepa's relations with Palii were not entirely positive, however. Mazepa did not share the Khvastiv colonel's radical social policies, and that difference gave rise to conflicts between them.
Mazepa contributed to the development of Ukraine's economy, particularly its industry. He also supported Ukrainian scholarship (history in particular) and education (the transformation of the Kyivan Mohyla College into the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, the establishment of Chernihiv College). Under his hetmancy literature flourished (see Dymytrii Tuptalo, Stefan Yavorsky, Ioan Maksymovych, Teofan Prokopovych, and Yoasaf Krokovsky). Mazepa himself wrote some verse. He was a generous patron of painting and architecture, who funded many churches built in the Cossack baroque style in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Pereiaslav, Baturyn, Pryluka, and other towns. Mazepa was also a patron of the Orthodox church outside Ukraine. He funded the publication of the New Testament in Arabic in Aleppo in 1708, and he donated an Easter shroud and a pure gold chalice for the Tomb of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Although Mazepa was able to establish a new and loyal senior Cossack starshyna, he also faced considerable opposition from many members of the Cossack elite, and even open rebellion (see Petro Petryk, Vasyl Kochubei, and Ivan Iskra). Mazepa's many attempts to secure the rights of the Cossacks as an estate (the universal of 1691), the burghers (a series of universals protecting their rights), and the peasantry (the universal of 28 November 1701 limiting corvee to two days a week) could not stem the growth of social discontent caused by endless wars, abuse of the population by Russian troops stationed in Ukraine, destruction, and increasing exploitation by the landowning starshyna. Mazepa's alliance with Peter I also caused onerous responsibilities and losses to be inflicted on the population, in particular as a result of the Great Northern War and Russian exploitation in Ukraine. Consequently Mazepa was deprived of the popular support he needed at a critical juncture in Ukrainian history.
Peter I not only interfered in the Hetmanate's internal affairs and mercilessly exploited the population in his belligerent pursuits, but embarked on a policy of annihilating Ukrainian autonomy and abolishing the Cossack order and privileges. When Peter's intentions became clear, Mazepa, supported by most of his senior officers, began secret negotiations in 1706 with King Stanislaus I Leszczynski of Poland and then with Charles XII of Sweden, and forged with them an anti-Russian coalition in 1708. The actual terms of the alliance are unknown, but according to official Russian sources its chief goal was ‘that the Little Russian Cossack people be a separate principality and not subjects of a Russian state.’ Later the Zaporozhian Host joined the coalition, and on 28 March 1709 Mazepa, Otaman Kost Hordiienko, and Charles XII signed a treaty in which Charles agreed not to sign any peace with Moscow until Ukraine and the Zaporozhian lands were freed of Russian rule.
But the Russo-Swedish War of 1708–9, which was waged on Ukrainian territory, ended in defeat for the allies. Peter I's forces captured Mazepa's capital, Baturyn, together with its large armaments depot and artillery, massacred its 6,000 inhabitants, and succeeded in splitting Mazepa's followers by engineering the election of Ivan Skoropadsky as a new hetman in Hlukhiv in November 1708. Russian military terror descended on those who remained loyal to Mazepa. Captured Zaporozhian Cossacks were brutally executed, the Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed, and many of Mazepa's followers (eg, Dmytro Maksymovych, Archimandrite Hedeon Odorsky) were executed or exiled to northern Russia. Mazepa's efforts at organizing a broad anti-Russian front in Eastern Europe proved unsuccessful, and his and Charles XII's defeat at the Battle of Poltava on 8 July 1709 sealed Ukraine's fate. Mazepa, Charles, and Kost Hordiienko, together with 3,000 followers, fled to Turkish-held territory. Broken by his defeat, old and ill, Mazepa died in Bendery, Moldavia. He was buried at Saint George's Monastery in Galati, where his tomb was subsequently desecrated.
Peter I initially sought Mazepa's extradition from Turkey. Having condemned Mazepa as a traitor he ordered the Russian and Ukrainian churches to anathematize him. Thereafter, imperial, both Russian and Soviet, propagandists and historians did their utmost to vilify the Ukrainian patriot and statesman. Although there have been controversial assessments of Mazepa, he has remained a symbol of Ukrainian independence. The period of his hetmancy has justifiably been known as the Mazepa renaissance.
In 1663 Mazepa returned to Ukraine to help his ailing father. After his father's death in 1665 he succeeded him as hereditary cupbearer of Chernihiv. In 1669 Mazepa entered the service of Hetman Petro Doroshenko as a squadron commander in the Hetman's Guard, and later he served as Doroshenko's chancellor. He took part in Doroshenko's 1672 campaign against Poland in Galicia and served on diplomatic missions, including ones to the Crimea and Turkey (1673–4). During a mission in 1674 he was captured by the Zaporozhian otaman Ivan Sirko, who was forced to hand him over to Doroshenko's rival in Left-Bank Ukraine, Ivan Samoilovych. Mazepa quickly gained the confidence of Samoilovych and Tsar Peter I, was made a ‘courtier of the hetman,’ and was sent on numerous missions to Moscow. Mazepa participated in the Chyhyryn campaigns, 1677–8. In 1682 he was appointed Samoilovych's general osaul. He was elected the new hetman on 25 July 1687 by the Cossack council that deposed Samoilovych and concluded the disadvantageous Kolomak Articles with the tsar.
Mazepa's political program had become evident during his service to Petro Doroshenko and Ivan Samoilovych. He was a firm supporter of a pan-Ukrainian Hetman state, and his main goal as hetman was to unite all Ukrainian territories in a unitary state that would be modeled on existing European states but would retain the features of the traditional Cossack order. Initially Mazepa believed that Ukraine could coexist with Russia on the basis of the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654. Mazepa actively supported Russia's wars with Turkey and the Crimean Khanate and sent his forces to help those of Peter I (see Russo-Turkish wars). Although the Treaty of Constantinople of 3 July 1700 did not extend Ukrainian dominion to the Black Sea, it temporarily secured Ukrainian lands from Turkish encroachment and Crimean Tatar incursions. Until 1708 Mazepa also supported Peter I in the first phase of his Great Northern War with Sweden, by providing the Russians with troops, munitions, money, and supplies in their effort to capture the Baltic lands. Mazepa's participation in the war made it possible for him to take control of Right-Bank Ukraine in 1704, after Semen Palii's Cossack revolt effectively weakened Polish authority there. Mazepa's relations with Palii were not entirely positive, however. Mazepa did not share the Khvastiv colonel's radical social policies, and that difference gave rise to conflicts between them.
Mazepa contributed to the development of Ukraine's economy, particularly its industry. He also supported Ukrainian scholarship (history in particular) and education (the transformation of the Kyivan Mohyla College into the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, the establishment of Chernihiv College). Under his hetmancy literature flourished (see Dymytrii Tuptalo, Stefan Yavorsky, Ioan Maksymovych, Teofan Prokopovych, and Yoasaf Krokovsky). Mazepa himself wrote some verse. He was a generous patron of painting and architecture, who funded many churches built in the Cossack baroque style in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Pereiaslav, Baturyn, Pryluka, and other towns. Mazepa was also a patron of the Orthodox church outside Ukraine. He funded the publication of the New Testament in Arabic in Aleppo in 1708, and he donated an Easter shroud and a pure gold chalice for the Tomb of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Although Mazepa was able to establish a new and loyal senior Cossack starshyna, he also faced considerable opposition from many members of the Cossack elite, and even open rebellion (see Petro Petryk, Vasyl Kochubei, and Ivan Iskra). Mazepa's many attempts to secure the rights of the Cossacks as an estate (the universal of 1691), the burghers (a series of universals protecting their rights), and the peasantry (the universal of 28 November 1701 limiting corvee to two days a week) could not stem the growth of social discontent caused by endless wars, abuse of the population by Russian troops stationed in Ukraine, destruction, and increasing exploitation by the landowning starshyna. Mazepa's alliance with Peter I also caused onerous responsibilities and losses to be inflicted on the population, in particular as a result of the Great Northern War and Russian exploitation in Ukraine. Consequently Mazepa was deprived of the popular support he needed at a critical juncture in Ukrainian history.
Peter I not only interfered in the Hetmanate's internal affairs and mercilessly exploited the population in his belligerent pursuits, but embarked on a policy of annihilating Ukrainian autonomy and abolishing the Cossack order and privileges. When Peter's intentions became clear, Mazepa, supported by most of his senior officers, began secret negotiations in 1706 with King Stanislaus I Leszczynski of Poland and then with Charles XII of Sweden, and forged with them an anti-Russian coalition in 1708. The actual terms of the alliance are unknown, but according to official Russian sources its chief goal was ‘that the Little Russian Cossack people be a separate principality and not subjects of a Russian state.’ Later the Zaporozhian Host joined the coalition, and on 28 March 1709 Mazepa, Otaman Kost Hordiienko, and Charles XII signed a treaty in which Charles agreed not to sign any peace with Moscow until Ukraine and the Zaporozhian lands were freed of Russian rule.
But the Russo-Swedish War of 1708–9, which was waged on Ukrainian territory, ended in defeat for the allies. Peter I's forces captured Mazepa's capital, Baturyn, together with its large armaments depot and artillery, massacred its 6,000 inhabitants, and succeeded in splitting Mazepa's followers by engineering the election of Ivan Skoropadsky as a new hetman in Hlukhiv in November 1708. Russian military terror descended on those who remained loyal to Mazepa. Captured Zaporozhian Cossacks were brutally executed, the Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed, and many of Mazepa's followers (eg, Dmytro Maksymovych, Archimandrite Hedeon Odorsky) were executed or exiled to northern Russia. Mazepa's efforts at organizing a broad anti-Russian front in Eastern Europe proved unsuccessful, and his and Charles XII's defeat at the Battle of Poltava on 8 July 1709 sealed Ukraine's fate. Mazepa, Charles, and Kost Hordiienko, together with 3,000 followers, fled to Turkish-held territory. Broken by his defeat, old and ill, Mazepa died in Bendery, Moldavia. He was buried at Saint George's Monastery in Galati, where his tomb was subsequently desecrated.
Peter I initially sought Mazepa's extradition from Turkey. Having condemned Mazepa as a traitor he ordered the Russian and Ukrainian churches to anathematize him. Thereafter, imperial, both Russian and Soviet, propagandists and historians did their utmost to vilify the Ukrainian patriot and statesman. Although there have been controversial assessments of Mazepa, he has remained a symbol of Ukrainian independence. The period of his hetmancy has justifiably been known as the Mazepa renaissance.
Ivan Vyhovsky
Vyhovsky, Ivan [Vyhovs’kyj], b ?, d 19 March 1664 in Olkhivka, near Korsun. (Portrait: Ivan Vyhovsky.) Hetman of Ukraine in 1657–9 and close confederate of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, worked in the Kyiv civic court, and joined the Lutsk Brotherhood of the Elevation of the Cross. Before the Cossack-Polish War he was secretary to a Polish starosta in Lutsk, and in 1648 served in a crown force under the command of Stanislaw Rewera Potocki. He was captured by the Tatars at the Battle of Zhovti Vody. His release was arranged by Khmelnytsky, who admired his learning and experience. Vyhovsky then joined forces with the hetman, together with his brothers, Danylo Vyhovsky and Kostiantyn Vyhovsky (colonel of Pynsk-Turiv regiment). He became the military chancellor and then general chancellor; he participated in diplomatic negotiations and drafted some of the more important treaties of the time. After Khmelnytsky's death he became the guardian of and second-in-command to Yurii Khmelnytsky. He was chosen hetman at the Korsun Council in 1657, and immediately entered into an agreement with Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the hope of establishing an independent Ukraine that would extend as far as the Vistula River. He was assisted in those negotiations by Yurii Nemyrych. At the same time Vyhovsky understood the relative weakness of the fledgling Ukrainian state and was willing to consider a rapprochement with the Polish Commonwealth.
Vyhovsky ran into problems when internal opposition to his command began to grow. A revolt, led by the Zaporozhian otaman Yakiv Barabash and the colonel of Poltava regiment, Martyn Pushkar, culminated in a bloody confrontation near Poltava in June 1658. Vyhovsky, who emerged victorious but weakened, decided to sever his ties with Muscovy and concluded the Treaty of Hadiache with Poland on 16 September 1658. The agreement proposed to bring Ukraine back into the Commonwealth as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Rus’. In response to the signing of the treaty Muscovy sent a large force under Prince A. Trubetskoi to stop the hetman. Vyhovsky annihilated the Muscovite troops on 8 July 1659 near Konotip, with Polish and Tatar aid. The victory was short-lived. Widespread dissatisfaction with the Hadiache agreement and the possibility of renewed Polish influence in Ukraine gave rise to a revolt headed by Tymish Tsiutsiura, Vasyl Zolotarenko, and others, who were supported by the Zaporozhian leader, Ivan Sirko. Vyhovsky was forced to flee to Hermanivka, in the Kyiv region, in September 1659, and his title of hetman was officially revoked at a council in Bila Tserkva. He was later made voivode of Kyiv and starosta of Bar by the Polish king. He joined the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood in 1662 and actively defended the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox citizenry. He was later denounced by Pavlo Teteria as a leader of a Cossack insurrection, and was shot by the Poles near Korsun.
Vyhovsky has been considered in Ukrainian historiography a leading statesman who strove for the freedom and independence of Ukraine. Soviet historians, however, have portrayed him as a traitor of his people.
Vyhovsky ran into problems when internal opposition to his command began to grow. A revolt, led by the Zaporozhian otaman Yakiv Barabash and the colonel of Poltava regiment, Martyn Pushkar, culminated in a bloody confrontation near Poltava in June 1658. Vyhovsky, who emerged victorious but weakened, decided to sever his ties with Muscovy and concluded the Treaty of Hadiache with Poland on 16 September 1658. The agreement proposed to bring Ukraine back into the Commonwealth as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Rus’. In response to the signing of the treaty Muscovy sent a large force under Prince A. Trubetskoi to stop the hetman. Vyhovsky annihilated the Muscovite troops on 8 July 1659 near Konotip, with Polish and Tatar aid. The victory was short-lived. Widespread dissatisfaction with the Hadiache agreement and the possibility of renewed Polish influence in Ukraine gave rise to a revolt headed by Tymish Tsiutsiura, Vasyl Zolotarenko, and others, who were supported by the Zaporozhian leader, Ivan Sirko. Vyhovsky was forced to flee to Hermanivka, in the Kyiv region, in September 1659, and his title of hetman was officially revoked at a council in Bila Tserkva. He was later made voivode of Kyiv and starosta of Bar by the Polish king. He joined the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood in 1662 and actively defended the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox citizenry. He was later denounced by Pavlo Teteria as a leader of a Cossack insurrection, and was shot by the Poles near Korsun.
Vyhovsky has been considered in Ukrainian historiography a leading statesman who strove for the freedom and independence of Ukraine. Soviet historians, however, have portrayed him as a traitor of his people.
Jan II Casimir Vasa
Jan II Casimir Vasa, b 22 March 1609 in Cracow, d 16 December 1672 in Nevers, France. (Portrait: Jan II Casimir Vasa.) King of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania in 1648–68; the son of Sigismund III Vasa. The last ruler of the Vasa dynasty to occupy the Polish and Lithuanian thrones, Jan was elected king after the death of his brother Wladyslaw IV Vasa.
During his reign the Polish magnates pressed him to expend Poland's resources on winning the Cossack-Polish War of 1648–57. In 1649 and 1651, he personally directed military campaigns against Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks in Ukraine. After the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654 placed Ukraine under Muscovite protection, he was forced into a long war with Muscovy (1654–67). This further exhausted Poland, as did internal discord and the war with Sweden and its allies (1655–60).
Jan concluded the Treaty of Hadiache with Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky in 1658 and the Treaty of Andrusovo with Muscovy in 1667. His attempts at strengthening royal absolutism caused a mutiny among the gentry, who forced him to abdicate in 1668 and to go to France.
During his reign the Polish magnates pressed him to expend Poland's resources on winning the Cossack-Polish War of 1648–57. In 1649 and 1651, he personally directed military campaigns against Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks in Ukraine. After the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654 placed Ukraine under Muscovite protection, he was forced into a long war with Muscovy (1654–67). This further exhausted Poland, as did internal discord and the war with Sweden and its allies (1655–60).
Jan concluded the Treaty of Hadiache with Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky in 1658 and the Treaty of Andrusovo with Muscovy in 1667. His attempts at strengthening royal absolutism caused a mutiny among the gentry, who forced him to abdicate in 1668 and to go to France.
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Khmelnytsky, Bohdan (Fedir) Zinovii [Xmel’nyc’kyj], b ca 1595–6, d 6 August 1657 in Chyhyryn. Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host from 1648 to 1657, founder of the Hetman state (1648–1782). (Portrait: Bohdan Khmelnytsky.) By birth he belonged to the Ukrainian lesser nobility and bore the Massalski, and later the Abdank, coat of arms. His father, Mykhailo Khmelnytsky, served as an officer under the Polish crown hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski and his mother, according to some sources, was of Cossack descent. Khmelnytsky's place of birth has not been determined for certain. Little more is known about Khmelnytsky's education. Apparently, he received his elementary schooling in Ukrainian, and his secondary and higher education in Polish at a Jesuit college, possibly in Jaroslaw, but more probably in Lviv. He completed his schooling before 1620 and acquired a broad knowledge of world history and fluency in Polish and Latin. Later he acquired a knowledge of Turkish, Tatar, and French. The Battle of Cecora (1620), in which he lost his father and was captured by the Turks, was his first military action. After spending two years in Istanbul, he was ransomed by his mother and returned to Ukraine.
There is no reliable information about Khmelnytsky's activities from 1622 to 1637. All later accounts of his exploits in wars against the Tatars, Turks, and Russians (1632–4) have no documentary foundation. Only one fact is certain—that in the 1620s he joined the registered Cossacks. Sometime between 1625 and 1627 he married Hanna Somko, a Cossack's daughter from Pereiaslav, and settled on his patrimonial estate in Subotiv near Chyhyryn. By 1637 he attained the high office of military chancellor. His signature appeared on the capitulation agreement signed at Borovytsia on 24 December 1637 that marked the end of a Cossack rebellion.
There are grounds to believe that Khmelnytsky belonged to the faction of officers that favored an understanding between the Zaporozhian Host and Poland. Subsequent events, however, dashed any hopes of reconciliation. By the Ordinance of 1638 the Polish king revoked the autonomy of the Zaporozhian Host and placed the registered Cossacks under the direct authority of the Polish military command in Ukraine. The office of military chancellor, which Khmelnytsky had held, was abolished and Khmelnytsky was demoted to a captain of Chyhyryn regiment. In the fall of 1638 he visited Warsaw with a Cossack delegation to petition King Wladyslaw IV Vasa to restore the former Cossack privileges.
In the next few years Khmelnytsky devoted his attention mostly to his estates in the Chyhyryn region, but in 1645 he served with a detachment of 2,000–2,500 Cossacks in France, and probably took part in the siege of Dunkirk. By this time his reputation for leadership was such that King Wladyslaw IV Vasa, in putting together a coalition of Poland, Venice, and other states against Turkey, turned to him to obtain the support of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. In April 1646 he was one of the Cossack envoys in Warsaw with whom the king discussed plans for the impending war. These events contributed to his reputation in Ukraine, Poland, and abroad, and provided him with wide military and political contacts.
Khmelnytsky, however, had been regarded with suspicion for many years by the Polish magnates in Ukraine who were politically opposed to King Wladyslaw IV Vasa. The new landowners of the Chyhyryn region, A. Koniecpolski, Crown Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski, and his son, Crown Flag-bearer A. Zolkiewski, treated Khmelnytsky with particular hostility. With the collusion of the Chyhyryn assistant vicegerent D. Czaplinski, who bore some personal grudge against Khmelnytsky, they conspired to deprive Khmelnytsky of his Subotiv estate. In spite of the fact that Khmelnytsky received a royal title to Subotiv in 1646, Czaplinski raided the estate, seized movable property, and disrupted the manor's economy. At the same time Czaplinski's servants severely beat Khmelnytsky's small son at the marketplace in Chyhyryn. Under these conditions of violence and terror Khmelnytsky's wife died in 1647, and towards the end of the year A. Koniecpolski ordered Khmelnytsky's arrest and execution. It was only the help and the surety put up by his friends among the Chyhyryn officers, and particularly by Col Mykhailo Krychevsky, that saved Khmelnytsky from death. At the end of December 1647 he departed for Zaporizhia with a small (300–500-man) detachment. There he was elected hetman. This event marked the beginning of a new Cossack uprising, which quickly turned into a national revolution (see Cossack-Polish War).
Khmelnytsky was married three times. His first wife, who was the mother of all his children, died prematurely. His second wife, Matrona, whom he married in early 1649, was the former wife of his enemy D. Czaplinski. In 1651 while Khmelnytsky was away on a military campaign, she was executed for conspiracy and adultery by his son Tymish. In the summer of 1651 Khmelnytsky married Hanna Zolotarenko, a Cossack woman from Korsun and the widow of Col Pylyp (Pylypets). Surviving him by many years, she entered a monastery in 1671 and adopted the religious name of Anastasiia. Khmelnytsky had two sons and four daughters. His older son, Tymish Khmelnytsky, died on 15 September 1653 in the siege of the Moldavian fortress of Suceava (see Battle of Suceava). The younger son, Yurii Khmelnytsky, was elected during his father's lifetime heir apparent under Ivan Vyhovsky's regency. Eventually, Yurii twice held the office of hetman. Khmelnytsky's daughter Kateryna (Olena) was married to Danylo Vyhovsky, and after his death in Muscovite captivity she married Hetman Pavlo Teteria. The second daughter, Stepaniia, was the wife of Ivan Nechai, who died in Muscovite exile. She later became a nun in Kyiv. The names of the other two daughters are unknown. One of them was married to Capt Hlyzko of Korsun regiment, who died in 1655 fighting against Poland. The other was married in 1654 to L. Movchan, a Cossack from Novhorod-Siverskyi. Khmelnytsky's line died out at the end of the 17th century. The Khmelnytskys were numerous in Left-Bank Ukraine and Russia but were of a different lineage. Khmelnytsky was buried on 25 August 1657 in Saint Elijah's Church in Subotiv, which he himself had built.
Khmelnytsky's greatest achievement in the process of national revolution was the Cossack Hetman state of the Zaporozhian Host (1648–1782). His statesmanship was demonstrated in all areas of state-building—in the military, administration, finance, economics, and culture. With political acumen he invested the Zaporozhian Host under the leadership of its hetman with supreme power in the new Ukrainian state, and unified all the estates of Ukrainian society under his authority. Khmelnytsky not only built a government system and developed military and civilian administrators, including Ivan Vyhovsky, Pavlo Teteria, Danylo Nechai and Ivan Nechai, Ivan Bohun, Hryhorii Hulianytsky, and Stanyslav Morozenko, out of Cossack officers and Ukrainian nobles, but also established an elite within the Cossack Hetman state. In spite of setbacks and difficulties, this elite preserved and maintained its gains in the face of Muscovy's invasion and against Polish and Turkish claims almost to the end of the 18th century.
There is no reliable information about Khmelnytsky's activities from 1622 to 1637. All later accounts of his exploits in wars against the Tatars, Turks, and Russians (1632–4) have no documentary foundation. Only one fact is certain—that in the 1620s he joined the registered Cossacks. Sometime between 1625 and 1627 he married Hanna Somko, a Cossack's daughter from Pereiaslav, and settled on his patrimonial estate in Subotiv near Chyhyryn. By 1637 he attained the high office of military chancellor. His signature appeared on the capitulation agreement signed at Borovytsia on 24 December 1637 that marked the end of a Cossack rebellion.
There are grounds to believe that Khmelnytsky belonged to the faction of officers that favored an understanding between the Zaporozhian Host and Poland. Subsequent events, however, dashed any hopes of reconciliation. By the Ordinance of 1638 the Polish king revoked the autonomy of the Zaporozhian Host and placed the registered Cossacks under the direct authority of the Polish military command in Ukraine. The office of military chancellor, which Khmelnytsky had held, was abolished and Khmelnytsky was demoted to a captain of Chyhyryn regiment. In the fall of 1638 he visited Warsaw with a Cossack delegation to petition King Wladyslaw IV Vasa to restore the former Cossack privileges.
In the next few years Khmelnytsky devoted his attention mostly to his estates in the Chyhyryn region, but in 1645 he served with a detachment of 2,000–2,500 Cossacks in France, and probably took part in the siege of Dunkirk. By this time his reputation for leadership was such that King Wladyslaw IV Vasa, in putting together a coalition of Poland, Venice, and other states against Turkey, turned to him to obtain the support of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. In April 1646 he was one of the Cossack envoys in Warsaw with whom the king discussed plans for the impending war. These events contributed to his reputation in Ukraine, Poland, and abroad, and provided him with wide military and political contacts.
Khmelnytsky, however, had been regarded with suspicion for many years by the Polish magnates in Ukraine who were politically opposed to King Wladyslaw IV Vasa. The new landowners of the Chyhyryn region, A. Koniecpolski, Crown Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski, and his son, Crown Flag-bearer A. Zolkiewski, treated Khmelnytsky with particular hostility. With the collusion of the Chyhyryn assistant vicegerent D. Czaplinski, who bore some personal grudge against Khmelnytsky, they conspired to deprive Khmelnytsky of his Subotiv estate. In spite of the fact that Khmelnytsky received a royal title to Subotiv in 1646, Czaplinski raided the estate, seized movable property, and disrupted the manor's economy. At the same time Czaplinski's servants severely beat Khmelnytsky's small son at the marketplace in Chyhyryn. Under these conditions of violence and terror Khmelnytsky's wife died in 1647, and towards the end of the year A. Koniecpolski ordered Khmelnytsky's arrest and execution. It was only the help and the surety put up by his friends among the Chyhyryn officers, and particularly by Col Mykhailo Krychevsky, that saved Khmelnytsky from death. At the end of December 1647 he departed for Zaporizhia with a small (300–500-man) detachment. There he was elected hetman. This event marked the beginning of a new Cossack uprising, which quickly turned into a national revolution (see Cossack-Polish War).
Khmelnytsky was married three times. His first wife, who was the mother of all his children, died prematurely. His second wife, Matrona, whom he married in early 1649, was the former wife of his enemy D. Czaplinski. In 1651 while Khmelnytsky was away on a military campaign, she was executed for conspiracy and adultery by his son Tymish. In the summer of 1651 Khmelnytsky married Hanna Zolotarenko, a Cossack woman from Korsun and the widow of Col Pylyp (Pylypets). Surviving him by many years, she entered a monastery in 1671 and adopted the religious name of Anastasiia. Khmelnytsky had two sons and four daughters. His older son, Tymish Khmelnytsky, died on 15 September 1653 in the siege of the Moldavian fortress of Suceava (see Battle of Suceava). The younger son, Yurii Khmelnytsky, was elected during his father's lifetime heir apparent under Ivan Vyhovsky's regency. Eventually, Yurii twice held the office of hetman. Khmelnytsky's daughter Kateryna (Olena) was married to Danylo Vyhovsky, and after his death in Muscovite captivity she married Hetman Pavlo Teteria. The second daughter, Stepaniia, was the wife of Ivan Nechai, who died in Muscovite exile. She later became a nun in Kyiv. The names of the other two daughters are unknown. One of them was married to Capt Hlyzko of Korsun regiment, who died in 1655 fighting against Poland. The other was married in 1654 to L. Movchan, a Cossack from Novhorod-Siverskyi. Khmelnytsky's line died out at the end of the 17th century. The Khmelnytskys were numerous in Left-Bank Ukraine and Russia but were of a different lineage. Khmelnytsky was buried on 25 August 1657 in Saint Elijah's Church in Subotiv, which he himself had built.
Khmelnytsky's greatest achievement in the process of national revolution was the Cossack Hetman state of the Zaporozhian Host (1648–1782). His statesmanship was demonstrated in all areas of state-building—in the military, administration, finance, economics, and culture. With political acumen he invested the Zaporozhian Host under the leadership of its hetman with supreme power in the new Ukrainian state, and unified all the estates of Ukrainian society under his authority. Khmelnytsky not only built a government system and developed military and civilian administrators, including Ivan Vyhovsky, Pavlo Teteria, Danylo Nechai and Ivan Nechai, Ivan Bohun, Hryhorii Hulianytsky, and Stanyslav Morozenko, out of Cossack officers and Ukrainian nobles, but also established an elite within the Cossack Hetman state. In spite of setbacks and difficulties, this elite preserved and maintained its gains in the face of Muscovy's invasion and against Polish and Turkish claims almost to the end of the 18th century.
Princess Olha
Olha, Princess [Ol’ha] (Olga; Norse: Helga; Christian name: Elena [Helen]), b ca 890, d 11 July 969 in Kyiv. Kyivan Rus’ princess and Orthodox saint; wife of Prince Ihor and mother of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych. Olha was Sviatoslav's regent during his minority (945–57) and his later military campaigns. After Ihor's death she subdued the rebellious Derevlianians and avenged his slaying. She expanded and strengthened the central power of Kyiv, defined hunting areas, and replaced the annual journey (poliudie) to collect tribute (during one of which Ihor had been slain) by a system of local financial-administrative centers (pogosti) that collected uniform taxes for Kyiv. In foreign affairs she was mainly concerned with political relations with Constantinople and with Kyivan Rus’–Byzantine commercial relations.
Olha was the first Kyivan Rus’ ruler to become a Christian. Some scholars, relying on the Primary Chronicle, claim she was baptized in 955 in Constantinople. Others contend she was baptized in Kyiv before her trip to Constantinople in 957, on which she was accompanied by the priest Hryhorii. Olha urged Sviatoslav I Ihorovych to become a Christian, but he remained a pagan. He allowed a Christian community to develop in Kyiv, however, thereby paving the way for the Christianization of Ukraine by his son and Olha's grandson, Volodymyr the Great. In 959 Olha sent a mission to the German king Otto I requesting a bishop and priests to be sent to Kyivan Rus’. Otto responded by sending the monk Adalbert to serve as bishop in Kyiv, where he remained only briefly.
Volodymyr the Great had Olha's remains reburied in Kyiv's Church of the Tithes. Metropolitan Ilarion initiated the Christian cult of Olha in the 11th century, and the church canonized her during the first half of the 13th century. In the Ukrainian church Olha is considered an equal of the Apostles. Her feast day is 24 July (11 July OS).
Olha was the first Kyivan Rus’ ruler to become a Christian. Some scholars, relying on the Primary Chronicle, claim she was baptized in 955 in Constantinople. Others contend she was baptized in Kyiv before her trip to Constantinople in 957, on which she was accompanied by the priest Hryhorii. Olha urged Sviatoslav I Ihorovych to become a Christian, but he remained a pagan. He allowed a Christian community to develop in Kyiv, however, thereby paving the way for the Christianization of Ukraine by his son and Olha's grandson, Volodymyr the Great. In 959 Olha sent a mission to the German king Otto I requesting a bishop and priests to be sent to Kyivan Rus’. Otto responded by sending the monk Adalbert to serve as bishop in Kyiv, where he remained only briefly.
Volodymyr the Great had Olha's remains reburied in Kyiv's Church of the Tithes. Metropolitan Ilarion initiated the Christian cult of Olha in the 11th century, and the church canonized her during the first half of the 13th century. In the Ukrainian church Olha is considered an equal of the Apostles. Her feast day is 24 July (11 July OS).
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