A History of Ukraine

by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Oliver Jul Frederiksen (Editor), George Vernadsky (Preface)

First published, August, 1941. Second printing, July, 1943. Published for the Ukrainian national association

Publication history:
* Mykhailo Hrushevsky. A History Of Ukraine. Edited by Oliver J. Frederiksen. Pref. by George Vernadsky. New Haven: Yale university press. 1941. 629 p. (Published for the Ukrainian national association)
* Mykhailo Hrushevsky. A History Of Ukraine. Edited by Oliver J. Frederiksen. Pref. by George Vernadsky. London H. Milford: Oxford university press. 1943. 629 p. (Published for the Ukrainian national association)
* Mykhailo Hrushevsky. A History Of Ukraine. Edited by Oliver J. Frederiksen. Pref. by George Vernadsky. Hamden, CT: Archon Books. 1970. 629 p. ISBN 9780208009678 (Published for the Ukrainian national association)

647 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) was Ukraine's greatest historian. His academic career began at Kyiv University, where in 1890 he graduated from the Department of History and Philology. Appointed professor of history at Lviv University in 1894, he became a leading figure in the Shevchenko Scientific Society and in the scholarly and cultural community centered in Lviv. In 1918, he was head of the government of the independent Ukrainian republic. From 1924 to 1931, in Kyiv, he organized historical studies at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. An extraordinarily prolific writer, he produced some 2,000 scholarly works. His magnum opus, the Istoriia Ukraïny-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus'), appeared between 1898 and 1937. These ten published volumes (in eleven books) trace Ukrainian history from the earliest times to the post-Khmelnytsky era in the late 1650s. The History was internationally acclaimed at the time of its publication, but in Soviet Ukraine after the 1930s no scholarly references to it were permitted to appear. Attempts in the 1960s to "rehabilitate" Hrushevsky and his works failed, and it was only in the late 1980s that the Ukrainian public began to regain access to the History.

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

old history
but interesting to delve into
regardless of your historical preferences and bias

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Historian

Hrushevsky wrote his first academic book, Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, on the history of Bar, Ukraine. As a historian, he authored the first detailed scholarly synthesis of Ukrainian history, his ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus, which was published in the Ukrainian language and covered the period from prehistory to the 1660s.

In the work, he balanced a commitment to the ordinary Ukrainian people with an appreciation for native Ukrainian political entities, autonomous polities, which steadily increased in the final volumes of his master work.

In general, his approach combined rationalist enlightenment principles with a romantic commitment to the cause of the nation and positivist methodology to produce a highly-authoritative history of his native land and people.

Hrushevsky also wrote a multi-volume History of Ukrainian Literature, an Outline History of the Ukrainian People and a very popular Illustrated History of Ukraine, which appeared in both Ukrainian and Russian editions.

In addition, he wrote numerous specialised studies in which he displayed a very acute critical acumen. His personal bibliography has over 2000 separate titles.

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

Thus, he claimed the ancient Ukrainian steppe cultures from Scythia to Kyivan Rus to the Cossacks as part of Ukrainian heritage. He viewed the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia as the sole legitimate heir of Kyivan Rus, which opposed the official scheme of Russian history, which claimed Kyivan Rus for the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality and Imperial Russia.

Secondly, to give real depth to the continuity, Hrushevsky stressed the role of the common people, the "popular masses" as he called them, throughout the eras.

Thus, popular revolts against the various foreign states that ruled Ukraine were also a major theme.

Thirdly, Hrushevsky always emphasised native Ukrainian factors rather than international ones as the causes of various phenomena.

Thus, he was an anti-Normanist, who stressed the Slavic origins of Rus, internal discord as the primary reason for the fall of Kyivan Rus and the native Ukrainian ethnic makeup and origins of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

(He considered runaway serfs especially important in the last regard.)

Also, he stressed the national aspect to the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries and considered that the great revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to be largely a national and social phenomenon, rather than simply a religious phenomenon.

Thus, continuity nativism, and populism characterised his general histories.

On the role of statehood in Hrushevsky's historical thought, contemporary scholars still do not agree.

Some believe that Hrushevsky retained a populist mistrust of the state throughout his career and that it was reflected by his deep democratic convictions, but others believe that Hrushevsky gradually became more and more for Ukrainian statehood in his various writings and that to be is reflected in his political work on the construction of a Ukrainian national state during the revolution in 1917 and 1918.

[Mihai Zodian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mykhailo Hrushevsky was an important Ukrainian historian and politician. He was the first president of Ukraine, which emerged for a few years out of the Russian Empire until it was conquered by the Communists. Published in the 1940s, A History of Ukraine is an abridgement and extension of his major 10-volume work, which aimed to consolidate Ukrainian political culture for a more popular audience. I recommend it to students of modern national identity and contemporary international relations.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s A History of Ukraine covered a wide time frame, spanning from prehistory to the 20th century. Ukraine and Ukrainians are polysemic terms because they refer to a land, an idea of a modern country, its inhabitants or specific ethnic groups, sometimes in parallel. The narrative is mostly about elites, and the author was aware of its limits, emphasizing the incompleteness of the records. I found interesting information in this book and selected a few items because of their relevance to Romanian history.

An interesting story from Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s work is about Stephen the Great, the ruler of Moldova. It was the period of dispute over Pocutia in Galicia with Poland in the late 15th century, and the local population (probably the elite) saw him as a savior. This inspired the oldest printed song in the future Ukrainian language, where Moldova is called Wallachia, probably because of the language. Stephen encouraged a revolt led by Petru Muha/Mukha in Pocutia, according to A History of Ukraine, several years before his victory in Bukovina, and today, the ruler is a heroic figure in Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

Another story is about Cossacks contemporary with Mihai the Brave the leader that united Wallachia (the original one), Moldova, and Transylvania. In the late 16th century, Semerin (Severyn) Nalyvaiko gathered a host in Volhynia, at the time under Polish rule and he took part in campaigns against Moldova, in the context of the wider Holy League war against the Ottoman Empire. As described by Mykhailo Hrushevsky in A History of Ukraine, he rebelled against his Polish overlords, who wanted to enthrone Jeremiah Movila in Moldova, but he was defeated. Movila became the ruler of Moldova, was deposed by Mihai the Brave, and was reinstated with the help of another Cossack commander, Samiylo Kishka.

A nephew of Ieremia, Peter Movila/Mohyla established the Collegium, today the Academy in Kyiv, Semerin Nalyvaiko is considered a hero in Ukraine, as is Mihai the Brave in Romania. This is part of Romantic-inspired visions of history, in which modern national movements looked into the past in order to find models. There are also nostalgic literary practices that contrast a glorious past with a decayed present to inspire activism. While it served a function at its time, this manner of interpreting the past is not considered entirely scientific today.

Additional sources
George Marcu, “Bătălia pentru Pocuția” apud Enciclopedia României.
Mukha rebellion, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Petro Mohyla, Encyclopedia Britannica.
Severyn Nalyvaiko, Encyclopedia of Ukraine

[Marlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insider's view of the history of Ukraine. He was an academic who led the government of the Ukraine after the Russian Revolution and during the Civil War.