Table Of ContentRETHINKING UKRAINIAN
HISTORY
Edited by Ivan L. Rudnytsky
With the assistance of John-Paul Himka
The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies
The University of Alberta
Edmonton 1981
THE CANADIAN LIBRARY IN UKRAINIAN STUDIES
A series of original works and reprints relating to Ukraine issued under the
editorial supervision of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the University
of Alberta, Edmonton.
Editorial Board:
Bohdan Bociurkiw, Carleton University (Social Sciences)
George S. N. Luckyj, University of Toronto (Humanities)
Manoly R. Lupul, University of Alberta (Ukrainians in Canada)
Ivan L. Rudnytsky, University of Alberta (History)
Copyright © 1981 The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies
The University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rethinking Ukrainian History
(The Canadian library in Ukrainian studies)
Papers and discussion from the Ukrainian Historical Conference held at the
University of Western Ontario, London, in May 1978.
ISBN 0-920862-12-8 (bound).
ISBN 0-920862-14-4 (pbk.).
1. Ukraine - History - Congresses. I. Lysiak-Rudnytskyi, Ivan. II. Himka, John-Paul, 1949-
III. Ukrainian Historical Conference (1978: University of Western Ontario). IV. Canadian
Institute of Ukrainian Studies. V. Series.
DK 508.5.R48 947.71 C81-091218-X
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise with
out the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Cover: Peter Matilainen
Printed in Canada by Printing Services, University of Alberta
Distributed by the University of Toronto Press
5201 Dufferin St.
Downsview, Ontario
Canada M3H 5T8
Contents
Publisher’s Preface v
Introduction vii
Kievan Rus’ and Sixteenth-Seventeenth-Century Ukraine
Omeljan Pritsak 1
The Problem of Nobilities in the Ukrainian Past: The Polish Period,
1569-1648
Frank Sysyn 29
Problems in Studying the Post-Khmelnytsky Ukrainian Elite (1650s
to 1830s)
Zenon E. Kohut 103
Cossack Ukraine and the Turco-Islamic World
Orest Subtelny 120
Ukrainian Cities in the Nineteenth Century
Patricia Herlihy 135
Ukrainian Cities during the Revolution and the Interwar Era
Steven L. Guthier 156
Urbanization in Ukraine since the Second World War
Roman Szporluk 180
The Role of the City in Ukrainian History
Peter Woroby 203
Evolution of the Ukrainian Literary Language
George Y. Shevelov 216
Round Table Discussion 235
Contributors
Ivan L. Rudnytsky Professor of History
University of Alberta
John-Paul Himka Visiting Assistant Professor
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies
University of Alberta
Steven L. Guthier Analyst
U.S. Department of Defence
Patricia Herlihy Visiting Associate Professor of History
Brown University,
Research Associate
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Zenon E. Kohut Editor
American Bibliography of Russian and East
European Studies
Omeljan Pritsak Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History
Harvard University,
Director
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
George Y. Shevelov Professor Emeritus
Columbia University
Orest Subtelny Associate Professor of History
Hamilton College, New York,
Associate
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Frank Sysyn Assistant Professor of History,
Research Fellow, Russian Research Center
Harvard University,
Research Fellow
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Roman Szporluk Professor of History
University of Michigan
Peter Woroby Professor of Economics
University of Regina
Publisher’s Preface
This book has been produced using MTS Textform, an advanced computer
word-processing system especially designed to improve editorial control
over the text through consistent page-formating, pagination, and the cor
rection of errors prior to typesetting by the high-speed computerized
APS-5 system. The system allows for quick reproduction of updated
editions. Special thanks are due to Mr. David Holberton and the Textform
Group and to Mr. Peter Buttuls of Integrated Graphics, Computing
Services, University of Alberta, for their invaluable assistance in the
publication of this book.
Introduction
This volume contains presentations to the Ukrainian Historical Conference
at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, on 29-31 May
1978. The conference, which took place within the framework of the
annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists, was organized
jointly by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Harvard
Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Historical Association.
The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies sponsored the conference and
was responsible for the technical preparatory work. The conference
committee consisted of Ivan L. Rudnytsky (CIUS), Frank E. Sysyn
(HURI) and Lubomyr R. Wynar (UHA).
The programme of the conference comprised six topical sessions:
“Historiography,” “Ukraine and the Muslim World,” “The Historical
legacy of Kievan Rus’,” “Ukrainian Elites,” “Ukraine and the Russian
Revolution,” “The Role of the City in Ukrainian History” and a Round
Table discussion on “Problems of Terminology and Periodication in the
Teaching of Ukrainian History.” The guest speaker at the conference
banquet, held jointly with the Canadian Association of Slavists, was
Professor George Y. Shevelov who presented the “Reflections of a Linguist
on Ukrainian History.”
This collection does not contain the entire conference proceedings, since
limitations of space necessitated the exclusion of papers on historiography
and Ukraine and the Russian Revolution. Moreover, there already exist
viii Rethinking Ukrainian History
several excellent English-language studies of the revolutionary period
(1917-21) in Ukraine, and the highly specialized nature and complexity of
the subject of historiography warrants more extensive treatment in a
separate publication. Of the sessions, only “The Role of the City in
Ukrainian History” is fully represented in this volume, as some papers of
the other sessions were not made available to the editor. The included
papers have not only been revised by the authors, but their sequence has
been rearranged for chronological and substantive reasons.
On the panel of the Round Table discussion were six professors, all
teachers of Ukrainian history courses in North American universities. The
panel was chaired by Professor Omeljan Pritsak, the Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and Director of the
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The discussion was transcribed
from the tapes and then edited. Despite minor changes, it is hoped that
the printed record retains the original flavour of a spontaneous and lively
scholarly debate.
Professor Shevelov’s after-dinner address has appeared in the Journal of
Ukrainian Graduate Studies 6 (Spring 1979): 62-9. At Professor
Shevelov’s request, it was superseded in this volume by his earlier article
“L’ukrainien littéraire,” published originally in Revue des études slaves 33
(1956): 68-83 and reprinted in G. Y. Shevelov, Teasers and Appeasers:
Essays and Studies on Themes of Slavic Philology (Munich: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 1971), 245-60. An English translation was prepared for The
Slavic Literary Languages: Formation and Development, edited by
Alexander M. Schenker and Edward Stankiewicz, a forthcoming volume in
the Yale and East European Publications series. It is reproduced here with
permission and with minor stylistic changes. By focusing on questions of
continuity and discontinuity in the development of the Ukrainian literary
language, the paper suggests illuminating parallels for scholars engaged in
rethinking Ukrainian history.
While responsibility for the factual statements and interpretations
advanced in the papers of this collection rests, as usual, with the individual
contributors, the planning of the Ukrainian Historical Conference was
based on certain general guidelines which are reflected in the present
publication. The organizers were faced with a choice between a
“conference of Ukrainian historians” or a “Ukrainian historical
conference.” In opting for the latter, the organizers wished to ensure the
highest professional and academic standards for the conference, and to
Introduction ix
avoid any suggestion that it was just a gathering of émigré notables.
Similarly, the decision to conduct the conference entirely in English was
designed to bring Ukrainian history visibly into the mainstream of North
American historical scholarship. While it is expected that the study of
Ukrainian history will appeal to scholars who are themselves Ukrainian, it
does not follow that only persons of Ukrainian background will work in the
field. In fact, the future of Ukrainian historical studies in the West may
well depend on the number of non-Ukrainian specialists which such studies
attract. The conference was attended by several non-Ukrainian scholars,
and it is hoped that their participation will set a trend for the future.
The lamentable condition of historical studies in the Ukrainian SSR is
of great concern to scholars in the West. The low level of Soviet
historiography results mostly from the imposition of a stifling official
ideology, in which an ossified Marxism-Leninism is amalgamated with a
rigidly Russocentric vision of Ukrainian and general East Slavic history,
which tolerates no topics, methods and interpretations that cannot be
pressed into its straitjacket.
How should Western students of Ukrainian history respond to this
distressing situation? Many in the Ukrainian diaspora community believe
that Soviet ideological orthodoxy ought to be met with an equally rigid and
militant “patriotic” orthodoxy. In the conference organizers’ view, such an
approach would be self-defeating. What is needed is the application of
free, critical thought, untrammelled by dogmas of any kind, whether
Marxist or nationalist. The test of critical thought is the readiness to face
unpleasant facts and painful issues and to scrutinize the preconceptions,
biases and favourite myths even of one’s own community.
Among the ills which afflict Soviet Ukrainian historiography none
perhaps is more debilitating than its enforced isolation from the outside
world. Soviet Ukrainian historians do not publish in foreign journals,
hardly ever travel abroad for reasons of research and rarely attend
international scholarly conferences and symposia. When they do, it is
usually as supernumerary members of general Soviet delegations. Even
their access to foreign scholarly literature appears to be seriously limited.
The result—intended by the regime—is the impoverishment, stultification
and increased provincialism of the Ukrainian nation’s cultural life in
general and of the historical science in particular.
Western scholars can help to remedy these deformations, provided they
themselves study Ukrainian history in a universal context. This does not
mean that the existing links between the Ukrainian and Russian historical
processes should be played down; they should merely be reduced to their
proper dimension, with due attention to reciprocal relations between
Rethinking Ukrainian History
X
Ukraine and such other countries and civilizations as the Mediterranean
world. Central Europe and the Eurasian sphere. Focusing on this complex
network of relationships and influences will bring to light Ukraine’s unique
historical identity; it will also contribute to a better understanding of the
history of Eastern Europe as a whole. One can always hope that the
labours of Western scholars might induce positive changes in Soviet
Ukrainian historiography and ease the strictures which handicap it at
present. However, the prerequisite is that Western specialists in Ukrainian
history learn how to approach their subject in a consistently non-parochial
spirit. Thomas G. Masaryk used to admonish his fellow Czech intellectuals
to study the Czech problem as a world problem. This advice is equally
valuable in the Ukrainian case.
Such were the basic guidelines for the 1978 Ukrainian Historical
Conference. Readers may judge for themselves how well they have been
realized.
The assistance of the following persons and institutions is gratefully
acknowledged: the executive of the Canadian Association of Slavists and
its former president. Professor Peter J. Potichnyj, McMaster University,
for accommodating the Ukrainian Historical Conference within the
programme of the association’s 1978 annual meeting; the Humanities and
Social Sciences Research Council of Canada for its financial assistance;
Professor Eva S. Balogh, Russian and East European Studies, Yale
University, for making available the English translation of Professor
Shevelov’s paper; Mr. Brent Kostyniuk for undertaking the difficult task of
transcribing the taped text of the Round Table discussion; and the editorial
staff of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
I would like to express special thanks to my colleague, Professor
John-Paul Himka, whose help in preparing the conference and in editing
the papers was invaluable.
Ivan L. Rudnytsky
University of Alberta
May 1981
