Mykhailo Hrushevskyi

Early life

Mykhailo Hrushevsky was born on 29 September 1866 to a Ukrainian noble family in Chełm, in Congress Poland, an autonomous polity in the Russian Empire. His father Serhii Fedorovych Hrushevsky was a son of an Orthodox priest from the vicinity of Chyhyryn, who had come to Chełm to teach Russian language at a Greek Catholic gymnasium in 1865. Serhii Fedorovych's father, Fedir Hrushevsky was a highly-decorated official (his awards included the two Orders of Saint Anna and the Bronze Cross, and a title of nobility). Later, upon enrolling into Saint Volodymyr University, in Kyiv, Mykhailo received blessings from his grandfather who had graduated from its History Department.

Mykhailo's mother, Glafira Zakharivna Oppokova, was born into a family of Orthodox priests in the village of Sestrynivka, Berdychiv povit, Podillia Governorate. Due to specifics of Serhii's employment, the family frequently changed their place of residence: two years after Mykhailo's birth, in 1868, Serhii was employed as a teacher at a classical gymnasium in Łomża; one year later the family moved to Kutaisi, and in 1870 to Stavropol. Despite having been educated in Polish and Russian herself, Glafira worked to teach her children Ukrainian language. Mykhailo spoke warmly of his parents and described them as real patriots of Ukraine, who managed to instill a sense of national pride in their children.

In 1880 at the age of 14, Mykhailo was sent by his parents to Tiflis, where he attended a local school. During that time he developed an interest for Ukrainian history and literature. Every year the family would spend their vacations in Ukraine, which allowed the boy to purchase the latest books on those topics. An especially important role on the formation of young Hrushevskyi's views was played by historical and ethnographic works by Mykola Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish, Volodymyr Antonovych, Apollon Skalkowski, Mykhailo Maksymovych and Amvrosy Metlinsky, as well as articles on Ukrainian history, literature and folklore published in Kievskaia starina magazine. During that period Hrushevskyi developed an ambition to become a leader of patriotic Ukrainians.

While still studying at the classical gymnasium in Tiflis, Hrushevsky started writing belles-lettres, and in 1885 one of his stories appeared in the newspaper Dilo. After finishing his courses one year later, Hrushevsky enrolled into Kyiv University, studying history under the mentorship of Volodymyr Antonovych. During his studies in Kyiv he established ties with members of the Old Hromada and Ukrainophile students of Kyiv Orthodox Seminary. His first scientific paper dedicated to the history of Southern Rus was published in 1890. During that period Hrushevsky co-operated with the almanac Kievskaia starina and Shevchenko Scientific Society. His master paper dedicated to the history of Bar starostwo saw the light in 1894. In the same year, at the recommendation of Antonovych, Hrushevsky was appointed professor of the newly created chair of Ukrainian history at the University of Lviv.

Later life and death

Back in Ukraine, Hrushevsky was elected to the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and concentrated on academic work. Above all, he continued writing his monumental History of Ukraine-Rusʹ. In 1929 the historian was elected member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Although political conditions prevented his return to public politics, he was caught up in the Stalinist purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In 1931, after a long campaign against Hrushevsky in the Soviet press, he was exiled to Moscow, where his health deteriorated due to difficult conditions and persecution. Soon after arriving to Moscow, he was arrested due to accusation of being part of a "Ukrainian nationalist centre", but in January 1933 his case was closed, officially due to the scientist's death (possibly a mistake). In 1934, while vacationing at the Academy of Sciences resort in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, Hrushevsky died of sepsis soon after a routine minor surgery at the age of 68. He was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.

At the time of his death, Hrushevsky was being shadowed by the Soviet GPU. Secret police reports (probably fabricated by the GPU in Ukraine) were sent to Moscow, claiming that had been considering defection to the West, and afterwards the government resolution and approval of his official obituary were published remarkably promptly, as if already prepared: the suspicious circumstances effectively made him a martyr for the Ukrainian cause.

Following his death, a significant portion of Hrushevsky's personal library and archive was transferred to the custody of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv, though a subset remained with his family and was later acquired by the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky had five younger siblings: sister Hanna and brothers Zakhariy, Fedir, Oleksandr and Vasyl. Oleksandr (1877–1943) was married to Olha Hrushevska (Parfenenko) (1876–1961). Hanna Shamraieva had two children, Serhii and Olha.

Hrushevskyi's wife, Maria-Ivanna Hrushevska (November 8, 1868 – September 19, 1948), was from 1917 was a member of the Central Rada and a treasurer for the Ukrainian National Theatre. Their daughter Kateryna Hrushevska was born in 1900. In July 1938 she was arrested on accusation of "anti-Soviet activities" and held in Kyiv's Lukyanivka Prison. According to official documents, she died in 1943 in exile in Novosibirsk. Maria herself died in 1948 in Kyiv, having never learnt about her daughter's death.

Criticism

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 Kievan Rus' to the Cossacks as part of Ukrainian heritage. He viewed the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia as the sole legitimate heir of Kievan Rus, which opposed the official scheme of Russian history, which claimed Kievan 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 Kievan 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. Among Hrushevsky's prominent critics was Harvard University professor of Ukrainian studies Omeljan Pritsak. According to Pritsak, Hrushevsky's neglection of the role of political elite in Ukrainian history led to disruption of the nation's historical narrative.