Doroshenko's Survey of Ukrainian Historiography • Kievskaya Starina and Its Closer Collaborators

Crushed by government repression, the efforts of the Ukrainians in Kiev to organize their scholarly activities were renewed in the 1880's, and were crowned with success by the founding of Kievskaya Starina (Kievan Antiquity). The Ukrainian movement p195 in the 1870's was still not sufficiently strong to have withstood the repressions imposed upon it in 1876. The same people, members of Stara Hromada (Old Community) who had sent Drahomanov abroad for planned political action of a radical nature, soon ceased to support him, abandoning their intention of stirring up wide discussions on political problems. They came to regard Drahomanov's activity as harmful, since it hindered the "reconciliation with the government" (with very small concessions to the Ukrainians, which in the end remained unfulfilled, by the government) as demanded, for instance, by the old Kostomarov in his articles in Vestnik Evropy in 1881‑82. Instead of the recently developed wide interest in social work, the tendency was now to cultivate "apolitical culture," that is to encourage research in Ukrainian history, archeology, language, literature, art, and ethnography in order to preserve the foundation of the Ukrainian national revival, yet at the same time to be strictly confined to a purely academic interest.

In the development of the national idea this signified a serious retreat, although as far as Ukrainian historiography was concerned, this meant progress in assembling new materials and publication of new studies which, however, steered clear of controversial subjects and avoided any synthetic or ideological approach, a fact regretted by Drahomanov.

In 1873 a Historical Society of Nestor the Chronicler was founded at Kiev University. When, in 1881, V. Antonovych was elected its chairman the Society received a new lease on life. From then on the Society's Chteniya published more Ukrainian material, chiefly historiographic (O. Lazarevsky, I. Kamanin). The activity of Antonovych as professor at the University also helped in the concentration and training of Ukrainian scholars. Finally in 1882, owing to the efforts of Teofan Lebedyntsev, the monthly Kievskaya Starina was founded. The significance of this periodical in Ukrainian historiography is so great that it deserves special mention.

Teofan Lebedyntsev (1826‑1888) was a member of a clergyman's family in the province of Kiev. He was a contributor to Osnova and to local Kiev periodicals, and he edited the second p196 volume of the first series of Arkhiv Yugo-Zapadnoi Rossii (1864) containing documents on the struggle between the Orthodox and Uniate Churches in the eighteenth century, and a treatise on the well-known protector of the Haydamaks, the Archimandrite Melkhisedek Znachko-Yavorsky. Lebedyntsev is to be credited with the organization of the Kievskaya Starina, which attracted many distinguished contributors, giving it a clear national character. After Lebedyntsev, the editor of the Kievskaya Starina was the Starodub landowner, Oleksander Lashkevych, followed by Yevhen Kyvlytsky, and after 1893 by Volodymyr Naumenko who continued to hold this post until 1907 when, for one year, Kievskaya Starina was changed to a Ukrainian monthly Ukrayina (Ukraine). This was also the end of the publication which is justly regarded as an encyclopedia of Ukrainian historiography. For reasons of space it is impossible to give here the contents of the Kievskaya Starina during the twenty-five years of its publication. Suffice it to say that among its contributors were the following scholars: M. Kostomarov, V. Antonovych, M. Drahomanov (whose articles appeared under the nom de plume of P. Kusmychevsky as well as others), P. Yefymenko, O. Yefymenko, O. Lazarevsky, M. Storozhenko, A. Storozhenko, M. Dashkevych, P. Zhytetsky, K. Mychal'chuk, O. Rusov, Ya. Shulhyn, N. Molchanovsky, V. Horlenko, M. Shuhurov, V. Naumenko, I. Luchytsky, M. Petrov, S. Holubev, V. Ikonnikov, D. Bahaliy, M. Sumtsov, I. Franko, A. Skal'kovsky, V. Shcherbyna, O. Levytsky, M. Vasylenko, M. Hrushevsky, A. Krymsky, M. Bilyashevsky, V. Hnatyuk, and others.

The Diary of M. Khanenko (1884‑86); Daily Notes by Yakiv Markovych (1893‑97); Memoirs of Mykhalon Lytvyn, (M. Tyshkevych) (1889); Diary of St. Ośwęcim (1882); Notes of Bozhko Balyka (1882); Notes by the Confederate Karol Chojecki 1768‑76 (1883); Notes by Baron de‑Tott on the Tatar Invasion of the Steppe Ukraine in 1769 (1883); Notes of the Nobleman from Novo-Oskol, Ostrozhsky-Lokhvytsky 1771‑1846 (1886); Notes by P. Seletsky 1821‑1846 (1884); Memoirs by B. Poznansky of the p197 Polish Uprising in the Ukraine 1863 (1895); Memoirs of M. Chalyi (1890‑96); correspondence of several prominent Ukrainians in the nineteenth century, including the letters of Kulish, the "Lyubetsky Archives" of Count Myloradovych (1897), as well as a wealth of documents.

In 1899‑1901 Arkheologicheskaya letopis' Yuzhnoi Rossii (Archeological Chronicle of Southern Russia), edited by M. Bilyashevsky, appeared as a supplement to Kievskaya Starina. In 1902 this supplement became an independent periodical (1902‑04). Apart from that, Kievskaya Starina printed scores of treatises and articles on the history of Ukrainian culture, especially on art. Beginning with 1897, Ukrainian belles-lettres began to appear in the Kievskaya Starina. (Earlier Russian censorship had allowed only old literary works to be reprinted in Ukrainian, while in new works only local dialogues could be printed in Ukrainian.) From 1897 on Kievskaya Starina became the leading organ of Ukrainian literature in the Dnieper Ukraine, since in addition to literary works it also published reviews, bibliography, and literary chronicles.

The closing down in 1907 of Ukrayina which was the continuation of Kievskaya Starina was a severe blow to Ukrainian historiography despite the existence of several other literary and scholarly periodicals.

In 1911 Gubernskaya Uchenaya Arkhivnaya Komissiya (The Learned Archival Commission) of the Province of Poltava issued a Sistematicheskii ukazatel' zhurnala Kievskaya Starina (1882‑1906), compiled by members of the Commission: I. Pavlovsky, V. Shchepot'ev, A. Yakovsky, and the student, B. Chyhryntsiv. Corrections and additions to the above book were made by Volodymyr Doroshenko in his Sistematychnyi pokazhchyk do Kyyivs'koyi Staryny i Ukrayiny (A Systematic Guide to the journals Kievskaya Starina and Ukrayina), Lviv, 1912, (reprint from ZNTSH, vol. CIX. [. . .]

Taking stock of the material with which Kievskaya Starina enriched Ukrainian historiography, it is at once obvious that the largest part of it was devoted to the history of the Hetman State of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and to the p198 history of the Left-Bank Ukraine in general. The chief authority in this field was Oleksander Lazarevsky116 (1834‑1902). A descendant of a Cossack gentry family in the District of Konotop, a graduate of St. Petersburg University and a lawyer by profession, Lazarevsky (together with several of his brothers) was a friend of Shevchenko in the last years of the poet's life, and took an active part in the publishing of Osnova. These circumstances explain Lazarevsky's outlook and his Populist sympathies. Lazarevsky began to write in the 1850's, contributing to the Chernigovskaya Gubernskiya Vedomosti (Chernihiv Provincial News), 1853‑59, a very detailed chronicle of Ukrainian literature, notes and reviews of all the major works in the field of literature and history. In Osnova he published two articles: "Govoril li P. Polubotok rech' pered Petrom I?' (Did P. Polubotok Make a Speech Before Peter I?), Osnova, 1861, VIII, and "Statisticheskiya svedeniya ob ukrainskikh narodnykh shkolakh i gospitalyakh v XVIII v." (Statistical Data About Ukrainian Elementary Schools and Hospitals in the XVIII Century), Osnova, 1862, V.

While working in the 1860's in Chernihiv, Lazarevsky came across a part of the so‑called "Rumyantsevsky Opys"117 and on p199 the basis of it he wrote his excellent monograph "Malorossiiskie pospolitye krest'yane (1648‑1783)" (Little Russian Peasants, 1648‑1783), Zapiski Chernigovskago Statisticheskago Komiteta, 1866, I, where for the first time he proved by documentation that serfdom in the Left-Bank Ukraine was introduced not by the decree of Catherine II, but as the result of a long social and economic development which lasted almost a century and a half.118 Apart from that Lazarevsky published "Obozrenie Rumyantsevskoi opisi Malorossii" (A Review of the Rumyantsev Description of Little Russia) in the Chernigovskiya Gub. Vedomosti, 1866‑68, 1873, and separately.

From that time onwards, Lazarevsky concentrated all his research on the internal history of the Hetman State, the ancient families, the ownership of land, and population. Most of his writings were published in the Russkii Arkhiv (1870's) but with the appearance of Kievskaya Starina he became one of its chief contributors, printed in it his studies, materials, notes and reviews. Some of his works were published in Chteniya of the Society of Nestor the Chronicler. The following are the most important works by Lazarevsky:

2. "Ocherki stareishikh dvoryanskikh rodov Chernigovskoi gubernii" (A Survey of the Old Nobility Families of the Province of Chernihiv), Zapiski Chernigovskago Statisticheskago Komiteta, 1868, II.

3. "Ocherki iz byta Malorossii v XVIII v." (Sketches from Little Russian Life in the Eighteenth Century), Russkii Arkhiv, 1871, No. 11, 1873, No. 3.

4. "Ocherki malorossiiskikh familii" (Sketches on the History of Little Russian Families), Russkii Arkhiv, 1875, I‑III, 1876, III.

6. "Lyudi Staroi Malorossii" (Men of Old Little Russia), Kievskaya Starina, 1882, I, III, VIII, 1884, I, 1885, V, 1886, I, VII, 1887, VI‑VII, VIII, 1888, X, 1893, XI.

p200 7. Opisanie Staroi Malorossii. Materialy dlya istorii zaseleniya, zemlevladeniya, upravleniya (Description of Old Little Russia, History of Settlement, Landownership, and Administration), vol. I, Polk Starodubsky (The Starodub Regiment), Kiev, 1888 vol. II, Polk Nezhinsky (The Nizhen Regiment), Kiev, 1893; Polk Prilutsky (The Pryluky Regiment), Kiev, 1902. This is Lazarevsky's main work which comprises a vast amount of material based on documentary sources and is, according to Hrushevsky, a reference work for all students of the history of the Hetman State.

8. Iz istorii sel i selyan Levoberezhnoii Malorossii (The History of the Villages and the Peasants in the Left-Bank Little Russia), Kiev, 1891.

9. "Istoricheskie ocherki Poltavskoi Lubenshchiny XVII‑XVIII v." (Historical Survey of the Lubny District in the Province of Poltava in the XVII and XVIII Centuries), Chteniya Obshchestva Nestora Letopistsa, Kiev, 1896, XI.

11. "Lubenshchyna i knyaz'ya Vishnevetskie" (The Lubny District and the Princes Vyshnevetsky), Kievskaya Starina, 1896, I‑III, and separately, Kiev, 1896.

12. "Prezhnie izyskateli malorusskoi stariny (Poletiki, Ya. Markovich, A. Martos, A. Markovich)" (Earlier Researchers into Little Russian Antiquities, Poletykas, Ya. Markovych, O. Martos, O. Markovych), ibid., 1891‑97. These articles as well as many others were printed in Ocherki, zametki i dokumenty po istorii Malorossii, five fascicles of which appeared in Kiev, in 1891‑1899.

13. "Sudy v Staroi Malorossii" (Courts in Old Little Russia), ibid., 1898, VII‑VIII.

14. Zamechaniya na istoricheskiya monografii D. P. Millera o malorossiiskom dvoryanstve i statutovykh sudakh (Comments on the Historical Monographs by D. P. Miller on Little Russian Nobility and the Statute Courts), Kharkiv, 1898.

15. "Zametki o Mazepe" (Comments on Mazepa) regarding the book by F. Umanets', Kievskaya Starina, 1898, III, IV, VI.

p201 16. "Iz semeinoi khroniki Berlov," (The Family Chronicle of Berlos, ibid., 1899, I.

Kievskaya Starina also published diaries of Markovych and Khanenko and several other monuments edited by Lazarevsky. He was also the editor of family archives: Sulymovsky Archive containing family documents of the Sulymas, Skorupas and Voytsekhovyches of the XVII‑XVII centuries, Kiev, 1890; and the Lyubetsky Archive of Count Myloradovych, Kiev, 1898.

Undoubtedly the greatest authority on the old Hetman State, Lazarevsky contributed a great deal to the clarification of the problems and controversies presented by this period of Ukrainian history. His opinion of the social and political system of the Hetman State in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was very negative. As if on purpose, he dwelt on the darker sides of this period, and therefore Russian attempts to destroy the Hetman State appeared justified. While analyzing separate phenomena of Ukrainian history, Lazarevsky often disregarded the wider historical frame of reference and therefore left a one‑sided interpretation of the history of the Hetman Ukraine, and especially of individual figures and of the Cossack elders. This is what Hrushevsky wrote on Lazarevsky's approach to history:

In their sharp criticism of the Cossack elders, Lazarevsky and his school were somewhat one‑sided and unjust since they blamed the Cossack elders in matters in which the policy of the Russian government in the Ukraine was also partly responsible. Furthermore, they emphasized the economic exploitation pursued by the Cossack elders and failed to see their more idealistic instincts. Yet the Cossack elders were undoubtedly Ukrainian patriots and their ambition to rise to a higher level of culture cannot be explained by their desire to get rich. The idea of Ukrainian autonomy which these Cossack elders defended could not be explained in terms of any material advantages they hoped to gain for themselves. Often they sacrificed their estates and their careers for the sake of this ideal. Yet Lazarevsky's school, while seeing the economic gains accruing to the Cossack elders, forgot to describe the reverse side of the picture and therefore often produced biased interpretation.119 [. . .]

p202 Just as Lazarevsky devoted himself to the history of the Left-Bank Ukraine, another close collaborator of the Kievskaya Starina, Orest Levytsky (1849‑1922), studied the Right-Bank Ukraine, in particular Volynia, specializing in the social life of the 16th‑18th centuries. Levytsky came from a gentry family in the Province of Poltava; his father was a clergyman. A graduate of Kiev University, in 1874 Levytsky became secretary of the Kiev Archeographic Commission. Later he was among the closest collaborators of the Kievskaya Starina, and still later of the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kiev.120 His major works are:

1. "Ocherk vnutrennei istorii Malorossii vo vtoroi polovine XVII veka" (A Survey of the Internal History of Little Russia in the Second Half of the XVII Century), Kievskiya Universitetskiya Izvestya, 1874‑75, and separately.

2. "Afanasy Filippovich, igumen brest-litovskii i ego deyatel'nost; v zashchitu Pravoslaviya ot Unii" (Afanasy Filippovich, the Abbot Brest Litovsk and his Activity in Defense of the Orthodox Church Against the Church Union), ibid., 1878.

3. Opyt izsledovaniya o letopisi Samovidtsa (An Attempt to Analyze the Chronicle of Samovydets') preface to the text of the Chronicle by the Kiev Archeographic Commission, Kiev, 1878.

4. "O semeinykh otnosheniyakh v Yugo-Zapadnoi Rusi XVI‑XVII v." (Family Relationships in Southwest Rus′ in the XVI‑XVII Centuries), Russkaya Starina, 1880, XXIX, No. 11.

5. "O sotsinianstve v Pol'she i Yugo-Zapadnoi Rusi" (Socinianism in Poland and Southwest Rus′), Kievskaya Starina, 1882, Nos. 4, 5, 6.121

6. "Vnutrennee sostoyanie zapadno-russkoi Tserkvi v pol'sko‑litovskom gosudarstve v kontse XVI st. i Uniya" (Internal Condition of the West Rus′ Church in the Polish-Lithuanian State at the End of the XVI Century and the Church Union), preface to the sixth volume, part 1, of Arkhiv Yugo-Zapadnoi Rossii, Kiev, p203 1884 — Ukrainian translation in the eighth volume of Rus'ka Istorychna Biblioteka.

7. "Osnovnyya cherty vnutrennago stroya zapadno-russkoi Tserkvi" (The Main Characteristics of the Inner Structure of the Western Rus′ Church), Kievskaya Starina, 1884, VIII.

8. "Yuzhnorusskie arkhierei v XVI‑XVII v." (The South Russian Bishops in the XVI and XVII Centuries), Kievskaya Starina, 1882, I.

9. Ipatii Potei, kievskii uniatskii mitropolit (Ipatiy Potiy, the Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev), St. Petersburg, 1885. [. . .]

10. "Pro shlyub na Ukrayini-Rusi XVI‑XVII v." (Marriage in the Ukraine‑Rus′ in the XVI and XVII Centuries), published under the nom de plume of Levko Mayachynets' in Zorya, 1885. New edition in Literaturno-Naukova Biblioteka, No. 130, Lviv, 1906.

11. "Ocherki starinnago byta na Volyni i Ukraine" (Sketches of the Old Life in Volynia and the Ukraine), Kievskaya Starina, 1889, IV, XI, and 1891, I.

12. "Afanasii Zarutsky, malorusskii panegirist kontsa XVII i nachala XVIII veka" (Afanasiy Zarutsky, the Little Russian Eulogist of the End of the XVII and the Beginning of the XVIII Century), ibid., 1896, II.

13. "Ocherki narodnoi zhizni v Malorossii XVII v." (Outlines of the People's Life in Little Russia in the XVII Century), ibid., 1901, and separately. [. . .]

14. "Obychnyya formy zaklucheniya brakov v yuzhnoi Rusi v XVI‑XVII st." (Common Forms of Contracting Marriages in the South Rus′ in the XVI and XVII Centuries), ibid., 1906, I. [. . .]

15. "Cherty semeinago byta v Yugo-Zapadnoi Rusi XVI‑XVII vv." (Family Life in South-West Rus′ in the XVI‑XVII Centuries), preface to the third volume, part VIII, of the Arkhiv Yugo-Zapadnoi Rossii, Kiev, 1909.

16. "Nevinchani shlyuby na Ukrayini" (Illegitimate Unions in the Ukraine), Zapysky Ukrayins'koho Naukovoho Tovarystva v Kyyivi, III, 1909.

17. "Tserkovni spravy na Zaporozhu" (Church Affairs in Zaporozhe), ibid., IX, Kiev, 1912.

p204 18. "Velychko i yoho 'Kosmohrafiya' " (Velychko and His 'Cosmography'), Ukrayina, 1914, III.

19. "Ob aktovykh knigakh, otnosyashchikhsya k istorii Yugo-Zapadnago kraya i Malorossii" (Books of Documents Relating to the History of the Southwestern Land and Little Russia), Trudy XI arkheologicheskago s'ezda v Kieve, v. II.

All Levytsky's works are based on archival materials. He possessed the great gift of delineating the characteristic features of a period or a person and portraying them in a dramatic manner. This talent manifested itself particularly in his historical tales, such as "Ganna Montovt, is zhizni volynskago dvoryanstva XVI v." (Hanna Montovt, from the Life of the Volynian Nobility of the XVI Century), Kievskaya Starina, 1888, I‑III; "Anna Aloiza, knyazhna Ostrozhskaya" (Anna Aloiza, the Ostroh Princess), Kievskaya Starina, 1883, XI. Later Levytsky published several more of his tales in the Literaturno-Naukovyi Vistnyk; these appeared in book form, entitled Volyns'ki opovidannya (The Volynian Tales), Kiev, 1914.

Bibliography

Kievskaya Starina, 1902, V. (contains Lazarevsky's biography and a list of his works); M. Hrushevsky, "Pamyati Oleksandra Lazarevs'koho," ZNTSH, v. 47, Lviv, 1902; D. Bahaliy, "A. M. Lazarevsky," Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveshcheniya, 1902, IX; "A. M. Lazarevsky," Chteniya Nestora, v. XVII, No. 2, Kiev, 1903; Ukrayina, 1927, IV (articles by M. Hrushevsky, M. Vasylenko, and others); Ukrayins'kyi Arkheohrafichnyi Zbirnyk, vol. II, Kiev, 1927 (a symposium of documents with a supplement of bibliography of Lazarevsky's works and works about Lazarevsky, compiled by M. Tkachenko); V. Bidnov, "Oleksander Lazarevsky," Literaturno-Naukovyi Vistnyk, Lviv, 1927, V; O. Ohloblyn, "Oleksander Lazarevsky (1834‑1902) i ukrayins'ke rodoznavstvo," Rid ta Znameno, IV, 1947.

M. Hrushevsky, "Orest Levytsky," Ukrayina, 1924, I‑II; M. Vasylenko, "P. O. Levystky," Zapysky Sotsiyal'no‑Ekonomichnoho Viddilu VUAN, v. 1, Kiev, 1923.

The Author's or the Editor's Notes:

117 Rumyantsevsky Opys presents materials of the general inspection of the Left-Bank Ukraine (Hetman State), carried out by the order of the Governor General, Count Pyotr Rumyantsev, in the second half of the 1760's. This Opys embraced all the ten regiments of the Hetman State and contained detailed information on population, economy and landownership. Later the materials of the Opys were in the custody of the Chernihiv, Poltava, and Kiev archives. Part of the material was destroyed, e.g., by fire in Poltava. After many transfers, the files of the Rumyantsevsky Opys were concentrated in the Kiev Central Archives of Ancient Documents in the late 1920's.

Rumyantsevsky Opys is a valuable source of the history of the settlement, economy, landownership, and also social relations and life in the Left-Bank Ukraine (Hetman State) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Only a small part of the material has been used by the scholars, a still smaller part was published. O. Lazarevsky and Mykola Konstantynovych compiled and published Obozrenie Rumyantsevskoi Opisi (Review of Rumyantsevsky Opys), but only a part (the greatest) of the Opys was mentioned.

For more about the Rumyantsevsky Opys, see D. Bahaliy, "General'naya Opis' Malorossii," Kievskaya Starina, 1883, XI; and a reference book, Tsentral'nyi Arkhiv Davnikh Aktiv u Kyyevi, edited by V. Romanovsky.

118 Was republished in 1908 in Kiev with a preface by M. Vasylenko. The Ukrainian translation in vols. XI‑XII of Rus'ka Istorychna Biblioteka.

120 O. Levytsky was a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and in 1921‑22 was its acting president.

121 The abridged translation of this work, with a preface by D. Čiževsky was published in The Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U. S., vol. III, No. 1 (7), New York, 1953, pp485‑508.

p194 Kievskaya Starina and Its Closer Collaborators

Bibliography

The Author's or the Editor's Notes: