Transcription of Round Table Discussion at the Ukrainian Historical Conference, London, Ontario, 31 May 1978
I was unable to locate the text online in a suitable format, prompting me to scan it and make its valuable content accessible to a broader audience.
Comment
One of the most remarkable experiences I had after relocating to London in 2020 was the discovery of the cultural heritage preserved by the Ukrainian diaspora. Since 1991, there has been a significant shift in Ukraine's cultural landscape. The epicentre of Ukrainian culture, encompassing free science and art, began returning to the regions where the independent state had emerged. This renaissance has led to the development of new cultural expressions, while also unearthing a wealth of materials that were previously relegated to the neglected shelves of libraries, archives and private collections in the West. These materials remain an indispensable element of the contemporary cultural tapestry of the Ukrainian people.
For me, gaining access to such a cultural heritage was akin to discovering a crucial missing piece in the mosaic of my national identity. The encounter with the published works of Drahomanov, Lypynsky, Mykyta Shapoval, Pavlo Kovzhun, Mykhailo Rudnytsky, Shevelov, and their broader context was genuinely enlightening. They bridged a significant gap in my cultural background, offering a modern Ukrainian perspective on the world through an unfiltered lens. As someone who received their education and upbringing during the post-Soviet era, a time when the concept of Ukraine and its separation from Russia often felt rigid and nebulous, this immersion in the diaspora's cultural richness was nothing short of a profound revelation and transformation—a second national awakening, following the initial one inspired by the events of the Maidan.
One of the most valued things in my life is the opportunity to unearth, delve into, and physically engage with these materials. While some of them are easily accessible to the public through fantastic digital libraries like 'Diasporiana,' regrettably, not all are. Acquiring some of these materials necessitates scouring through various stores and archives and making purchases. This has been my experience since 2020: I explore the world through platforms such as Discogs, acquiring music, and I also acquire books, particularly those that have been retired from library collections. Today, I'd like to delve into the content of one such book.
After stumbling upon one of the most influential figures in Ukrainian historical studies, Ivan L. Rudnytsky, thanks to a lecture by Yaroslav Hrytsak, I embarked on an extensive search for his books, hoping to include them in my library. One of such works is ‘Rethinking Ukrainian History’1. The nine essays that re-examine major aspects of Ukrainian history including Kyivan Rus’, the Ukrainian nobility and elites, Cossack Ukraine and the Turco-Islamic world, the growth and development of Ukrainian cities, the evolution of Ukrainian literary language, the role of the city in Ukrainian history and the urbanization of Ukrainian cities since the Second World War.2
Among the materials presented in that book, one of the most astonishing gems, in my view, is the brilliant discussion transcript found at the end. It features a gathering of distinguished scholars from the late 1970s, engaging in a profound discourse on the topic of periodisation and terminology in Ukrainian history. This panel includes luminaries such as Omelian Pritsak, the inaugural director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and George Shevelov, a world-renowned Slavic linguist. Among them is Orest Subtelny, acclaimed for penning the first accessible English-language overview of Ukrainian history, alongside numerous other brilliant and free-thinking individuals
The transcript offers an intriguing read as it delves into the challenges of that time, and in doing so, it may illuminate hurdles that in my opinion persist in the contemporary context of Ukrainian identity. This discussion not only contributes to my understanding of the pivotal concept 'Ukraine is Europe,' a cornerstone of the Revolution of Dignity but also reveals the intricate nature of 'Ukraine' as an idea. It prompts us to ponder whether it is defined by its geography, its people, or a harmonious fusion of both. This query remains profoundly relevant, especially within the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, where the ultimate resolution unfortunately remains uncertain.
I genuinely hope you will enjoy reading the text below as much as I did. The time I spent scanning and editing it was well worth the effort. I preserved spelling and punctuation to reflect the transliteration of that time, with one exception — I replaced 'Kiev' with 'Kyiv' everywhere to avoid anachronism.
I would also be delighted if you decided to subscribe to my Substack blog. Additionally, for anyone who makes it to the end and is interested in reading the rest of the essays, you can find the scanned text of the book here, or you can purchase a paper copy here or here.
Transcription
MEMBERS OF THE PANEL:
Omeljan Pritsak (Harvard), Chairman Taras Hunczak (Rutgers)
Ivan L. Rudnytsky (Alberta)
Orest Subtelny (Hamilton College)
Frank E. Sysyn (Harvard)
Lubomyr R. Wynar (Kent State)
DISCUSSANTS:
Mark Antonovych (Ukrainian Historical Association)
Alexander Baran (Manitoba)
Lubomyr Hajda (Harvard)
Patricia Herlihy (Wellesley College)
John-Paul Himka (Alberta)
Oleh S. Pidhainy (Symon Petliura Institute)
George Y. Shevelov (Columbia, emeritus)
OMELJAN PRITSAK:
Before we start the discussion, I would like to say a few prefatory words. University-level teaching of Ukrainian history is now becoming a reality both in the United States and Canada. It is time, therefore, to reflect on some of the basic problems connected with teaching Ukrainian history in this new framework.
The difficulties, both external and internal, are immense. The external ones include the very legitimacy and the place of Ukrainian history in the curricula of the departments of history at North American universities. On this continent, not the universitas, but the fragmented departmental structure is the basis of academic life.
There is no doubt that departments of history are suspicious of the need and right of Ukrainian history to enter their structure. There are two clear reasons for this. The first is the reluctance on the part of every establishment to give civil rights to a newcomer, unless he has proven his maturity. The other reason is deeply rooted in the intellectual background of the North American academy. Heel's distinction between the historical and non-historical nations, later fully accepted by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, is still the standard for assessing the right of any nation to have its own history. Since there was no Ukrainian state in the nineteenth century, Ukraine was neglected or relegated to the role of a so-called non-historical nation. It is worth noting that at the end of the eighteenth century, a representative body of continental and British historians decided to publish a corpus of universal history in monographic presentations, and an entire volume was devoted to Ukrainian history. The volume consisted of two parts: part one concerned the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Cossacks and part two dealt with the history of the Kingdom of Galicia and Volodymeria. The work in question appeared in Halle in 1796, and the author was the Austrian historian Johann Christian Engel. A few decades later, however, the scholars responsible for the Gotha Universal History (A. H. L. Heeren and F. A. Ukert), following Hegel, did not consider it necessary to devote a special volume to Ukrainian history. Sic transit gloria mundi. From this time Ukrainian history lost its legitimate place in universal history, and universal history and Ukrainian history have remained on non-speaking terms ever since.
Now it is time — and the duty of a body like the one gathered here to start the dialogue again. No doubt, there are some discrepancies in theories, tools and methods between the more developed West European and American histories and, as it were, "underdeveloped" Ukrainian history. So it is necessary for representatives of Ukrainian historical scholarship to learn how to apply these methods to the study of Ukrainian history. Certainly, no North American university or any given department can be used to promote a "cause." Therefore, it is necessary for Ukrainian history to be presented in the same way as any other national history. In this endeavour we face a tremendous problem with definitions of various kinds.
What is Ukraine as a subject of history? Stefan Tomashivsky put the question as early as 1920. Is Ukrainian history the history of the Ukrainian people, that is, ethnic history? If we were to accept this definition, we would run into difficulty, for we would face a theoretical discrepancy: ethnic matters belong to social anthropology rather than to history, so they cannot be used as criteria for historical research. Is it the history of Ukraine as a state or nation-state? Here there are again problems because something is lacking — the continuity of the state. Is it possible to have a history of something which at times has been discontinued? Thus there are, indeed, many problems.
I don't pretend that I will present a solution. I would just like to stress that problems of this nature exist. Now as to the basic term: from time to time I hear from colleagues that to use the name Ukraine is probably unjustified. The name Ukraine is not historical, they say, since it only appeared in relation to the Ukrainian territory from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The answer to this is very simple. I think there is no difficulty in applying the term "Ukrainian" to the history of that country in the same way as there is no difficulty in applying the term Spain or Spanish in dealing with what is called Spanish history. Everybody who studies Spanish history knows that the term España is not of Spanish but of Provencal origin and that it was a foreign word in Spanish. Even a monarch as great as Philip II was never styled the Emperor or King of Spain but bore the title "the Catholic King of Castile [because Castile was important], Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Jerusalem, Portugal, Navarre and the Indies." The term Spain had not yet appeared, but still Spanish history encompasses that period. I could give many other similar instances but this example must suffice. So we will agree that the term Ukraine applied historically makes sense.
We will encounter many other problems, of course. For example, what should be done about the Polovtsians or the Pechenegs or the Crimean Khanate? Where do these belong? Unfortunately. Professor Alan W. Fisher, a specialist in Crimean Tatar history, is not able to be with us. However, in conversation, we agreed that the history of Ukraine should be based on its contemporary territory. From that point of view, the history of the Bosporan Kingdom or the Pechenegs or Khazars or the Tatars is a part of Ukrainian history. This is one opinion, but we have here a round table so we can discuss the matter. I also invite everyone in the audience to participate when the panel's presentations are finished.
After agreeing that there is such a thing as the history of Ukraine and deciding what it means and includes, we can start discussing the next question — periodization. We must know the territory and then deal with the periodization, for unless we know the object, we cannot deal with the second question. Then we can turn to terminology which is connected with every aspect of our topic.
Enough words on my part. I ask Professor Rudnytsky to present his thoughts on periodization and terminology.
IVAN L. RUDNYTSKY:
A. Periodization
There exist two basic periodization schemes in respect to Ukrainian history: one is to be found in Soviet historical literature and the other is prevalent among pre- and non-Soviet Ukrainian historians. The Soviet periodization scheme is an application of the well-known Marxist theory of socio-economic "formations." Mankind allegedly advances through the stages of primeval communism, slave-owning society, feudalism, capitalism and socialism. This pattern of development is supposed to possess universal validity, although differences in the rate of progress among individual peoples are recognized. Accordingly, in their treatment of Ukrainian history Soviet scholars single out the epochs of feudalism (from the inception of Kyivan Rus' to the middle of the nineteenth century), capitalism (from the 1860s to 1917) and socialism (since the October Revolution). In Soviet historiography this periodization framework enjoys the authority of an official dogma. It is imposed rigidly and no deviations are tolerated.
Ukrainian historians outside the USSR, on the other hand, following in the footsteps of their nineteenth-century, populist predecessors, commonly speak of "the princely era," "the Lithuanian-Polish era," "the Cossack era" and finally of an "era of national rebirth."
I do not find either of those two periodization schemes altogether satisfactory, although both may be partially valid. This is not the place to engage in a critique of the Marxist philosophy of history. It may suffice to say that for someone who is not convinced of the ontological priority of the economic factor in social and historical life, the basing of periodization exclusively on economic "formations" begs the question. It seems also extremely doubtful that a single, unilineal pattern of development can be devised for the entire human race. Leaving aside these objections of principle and keeping the debate on an empirical level, the obvious weak link in the Soviet-Marxist periodization scheme of Ukrainian and East Slavic history is the "feudal formation." It simply does not make historical sense to subsume a millennium, extending from Riurik to Nicholas I, under the label of feudalism. This does not imply that I deny the existence of feudalism, or at least of feudal-type tendencies, in the history of Ukraine. But to serve as a useful instrument of historical cognition, the concept ought to be applied much more restrictively. Medieval Rus' did not originally possess a feudal structure, and the process of feudalization in the Kyivan state gained momentum only in the course of the eleventh century. One will concede that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to which the majority of Ukrainian lands belonged from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century, was essentially feudal. But it is preposterous to designate in this manner the Cossack body politic of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moreover, most Western students deny that imperial Russia up to the emancipation of the peasants and the "great reforms" of the 1860s may legitimately be considered feudal.
The rejection of the Marxist system of periodization does not necessarily imply a retention of the older scheme, evolved by pre-revolutionary Ukrainian historians of the populist school. Its chief deficiency is parochialism. Concepts such as "the princely era" and "the Cossack era," which cannot be extended to other countries, artificially isolate Ukrainian historical processes from a broader context. In addition, the populist periodization scheme suffers from conceptual looseness in the determination of the specific character of individual epochs. Let us take a look at the so-called "Cossack era," which was the favourite subject of populist historians. There is no doubt that Cossackdom was a most important phenomenon in the history of seventeenth-century Ukraine. But, prior to the Khmelnytsky revolution, the Cossacks were hardly central in the life of the Ukrainian people as a whole. Neither must we forget that at no time were the western Ukrainian territories deeply affected by the Cossack movement. Therefore, it is inaccurate to designate the whole epoch from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries as the Cossack Era.
What do I, then, propose in place of the two periodization schemes which have been found wanting? I think that there is no need to devise a special periodization for Ukrainian history, because the common European pattern can be well applied to Ukraine, with only minor adjustments. I am referring to the familiar great epochs of European history, namely Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern Times, including such further subdivisions as the High and Late Middle Ages, Early Modern Times, etc. As a university teacher of Ukrainian history, I have divided the subject into the following four courses, arranged chronologically: Ancient and Medieval Ukraine, Ukraine in Early Modern Times, Nineteenth-Century Ukraine and Twentieth-Century Ukraine.
A full elaboration of the proposed periodization scheme cannot, of course, be attempted here. I would like, however, to add a few explanatory remarks. Owing to the establishment of a string of Greek settlements along the northern Black Sea littoral and to their impact on the hinterland, and owing to the later extension of the Roman protectorate over the Bosporan kingdom, Ukraine became, at least marginally, a part of the world of ancient, Greck and Hellenistie-Roman civilization. The history of medieval Ukraine can be easily divided into three sub-periods: the epoch preceding the emergence of Kyivan Rus' (sixth-ninth centuries): the lime of the united Kyivan realm, of the so-called Kyivan federation and of the Galician-Volhynian state (tenth to mid-fourteenth centuries); and finally the epoch of Lithuanian overlordship (from the middle of the fourteenth century to the Union of Lublin, 1569). It is evident that these divisions correspond to the European Early, High and Late Middle Ages. The one significant difference is that in Ukraine the medieval era lasted longer than in the West. It ended only with the Union of Lublin which radically altered the political status of Ukrainian lands, introduced a new social system based on the estates and opened the country to the influences of the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter Reformation. The early modern era in Ukraine lasted from the Union of Lublin to the late eighteenth century. The dominant social structure during those two centuries was that of the estates, of which Polish-type "gentry democracy" and the Cossack order were the two rival variants. The Baroque was the unifying theme in the cultural and intellectual life of that era.
In Ukraine, as in Western Europe, the ancien régime ended in the late eighteenth century. Among the events which marked the transition to a new historical epoch, the Nineteenth Century, the following were among the most significant: the abolition of Cossack autonomy; the Russian conquest of the Black Sea coastal areas and the closing of the steppe frontier; the partitions of Poland; and, in the cultural sphere, the impact of the Enlightenment and of Romanticism. As a period of Ukrainian history, the Nineteenth Century extended from approximately the 1780s-90s to 1914. I have analysed the characteristic features of that age in several previous articles, and I will not recapitulate my findings here. May it suffice to say that this was the era when, in the wake of profound social and cultural changes, the modern Ukrainian nation was beginning to emerge. This trend toward nation-building was, of course, not peculiarly Ukrainian but rather common to all the "submerged peoples" of Europe, from Ireland to the Balkans. The First World War and the resulting revolutionary upheaval were the opening of the recent and contemporary era, the Twentieth Century, which is still in progress today, in Ukraine as well as in Europe as a whole.
I think that the proposed periodization scheme offers three advantages. It is based on the actual structuring of the historical process itself; it organically integrates Ukrainian history into the course of general European developments; and, at the same time, it reveals the undeniable fact of Ukraine's relative backwardness and marginality in comparison with the geographical core of Western civilization. Ukraine experienced all the stages of Europe's evolution, but common European social and cultural trends usually reached Ukraine alter some delay, and often in an attenuated form.
B. Terminology
It is legitimate, I believe, to apply retrospectively the modern national term, “Ukraine”, to past epochs in the life of the country and the people, when the term did not yet exist or possessed different connotations. The case of Ukraine is not unique in this respect. French historians do not hesitate to include Celtic, Roman and Frankish Gaul into the history of France, in spite of the fact that the term “France” emerged only later and originally applied to the area of Paris alone, the Isle de France.
However, a conscientious student should be aware of the danger of anachronisms. Therefore, he will pay close attention to the actual content of terms at any given time and to their semantic evolution. For instance, in early nineteenth-century official usage "Ukraine" referred to the Slobozhanshchyna region. This explains why contemporary writers could contrast "Ukraine" (the Slobidska- Ukrainian province) with "Little Russia" (the provinces of Chernihiv and Poltava, corresponding with the former Hetmanate). Polish sources of the nineteenth century speak regularly of "Volhynia, Podillia and Ukraine," the latter meaning the Kyiv region. Going further back in time, in the seventeenth century "Ukraine" meant the land under Cossack jurisdiction. Therefore, the name did not extend to Galicia, Volhynia and Transcarpathia. In those latter territories the term "Ukraine" prevailed only in the course of the present century, in the wake of the modern national-liberation movement and recent political changes.
A vexatious problem, with which we all are only too familiar, is that the Ukrainian people's older name, "Rus'," has been appropriated by the Russian nation and state. This nomenclature exercises a powerful hold on the minds of Western scholars who usually tie modern Russia to medieval Rus', which they refer to as "Kyivan Russia." In this manner modern Ukraine has been deprived of its historical foundations and, so to say, left suspended in the air. Little wonder that Ukrainians react strongly against this spoliation of what they consider their legitimate historical inheritance.
I do not think that there is any need before this audience to advance arguments against the so-called "traditional scheme of Russian history." Instead of wasting time by proving the obvious, I will rather try to deal with the practical issue: what can be done to correct this situation? The question is of great urgency to those of us engaged in teaching Ukrainian and general East European history in a North American academic environment. My contention is that Ukrainian historians, and more so lay publicists, out of an understandable feeling of frustration, often react to the existing situation in a manner which is both faulty from the point of view of scholarship and self-defeating from the point of view of the desired practical result. By making dubious and unsubstantiated claims, we only weaken our own good case.
Among those exaggerated claims, I count the theory that medieval Kyivan Rus' was exclusively Ukrainian and which denies the Russians and Belorussians any share in this inheritance. A corollary of this is another proposition which asserts that in the medieval, pre-Mongol era there already existed a clear-cut differentiation of the Eastern Slavs into three distinct national branches.
Limitations of time and space do not allow us to enter here into a detailed, substantive discussion of this complex problem. May I, however, mention a point of direct terminological relevance? Contrary to the statement frequently found in Ukrainian historical (and popular historical) literature, the old term "Rus'" was not simply coterminous with the modern term "Ukraine." During the pre-Mongol era, "Rus* had two meanings. In the narrow sense, the name referred to the core of the Riurikid realm, comprising the principalities of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Pereiaslav. In the broad sense, "Rus'" designated all the vast lands under the rule of the House of Riurik and the spiritual authority of the Kyivan metropolitancy. Therefore, not all of modern Ukraine was included in Rus' in the narrow sense, while in the broad sense Rus' comprised also the whole of modern Belorussia and large sections of Russia as well.
Ukrainians object to the rendering of Rus' as Russia. But it cannot be denied that in medieval and early modern Latin, Rus' most frequently appeared as Russia. For instance, the Latin name for the Rus'ke voievodstvo (i.e., Galicia, a land which has never been politically a part of Muscovy and the Russian empire) was palatinatus Russia. Occasionally Rus' was also rendered as Rusia, Ruthenia, Rutenia, Ruzzia, Rugia. One should not expect terminological consistency in the medieval and early modern sources. Following the usage of the papal curia, the East Slavic (Ukrainian and Belorussian) inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were normally named, in Latin, Rutheni. But, contrary to a widespread opinion, sometimes we find this term applied also to the Muscovites. According to another erroneous allegation, the tsardom of Moscow became known under the name of "Russia" only in the reign of Peter I. However, the English Elizabethan traveller and diplomat Giles Fletcher wrote a classical account of contemporary Muscovy, entitled Of the Russe Commonwealth, first published in 1591.
What conclusions do I draw from the preceding observations? I suggest that it would be more profitable for Ukrainian historians to concentrate their efforts on issues of content and substance rather than on those of nomenclature. In dealing with medieval Rus', one ought to stress that not only was its geographical centre of gravity located in an area which today we call Ukrainian, but that also by its political institutions, social structure and cultural make-up the Kyivan state is closer to the mainstream of the Ukrainian rather than the Russian historical tradition. It is possible to defend this reasonable and plausible position without denying that there were elements of the Old Rus' inheritance in the Russian nation and state. Only after having absorbed this substantive insight will Western scholars begin to feel the need to differentiate terminologically between Rus' and Russia. As long as this has not taken place, quixotic verbal polemics against the term "Kyivan Russia" will serve to no avail, and are likely to be counterproductive. Issues of terminology are a subsidiary aspect of historical cognition and cannot serve as its substitute.
Careful reading of contemporary Western scholarly literature reveals that the authority of the "traditional scheme of Russian history" has already been seriously undermined. To bring about its radical revision, Ukrainian historians must produce works of high quality, capable of swaying independent, critical minds by the sheer strength and cogency of their arguments. The task ahead is admittedly difficult but not impossible. It also cannot be circumvented: there are no shortcuts in scholarship. Let us make a start by being honest with ourselves and let us recognize how little we have accomplished so far.
OREST SUBTELNY:
The problems of periodization are difficult in every type of history, but in the case of Ukrainian history this is especially true. We have talked about various characteristics of Ukrainian history such as the discontinuities. I have always seen Ukrainian history not so much as a matter of discontinuity, as a lack of definition. It is often difficult to know what exactly is meant by the term Cossack Ukraine, the Hetmanate or Kyivan Rus'. Therefore, it is not so much a lack of continuity that disturbs me as the vagueness.
This being the case, how does one approach such a vague, sometimes amorphous body of knowledge? I have no well reasoned, systematic answer, just some definitions and considerations which I keep in mind when approaching a problem of this type. First of all, one must establish some basic parameters. They are time and space. One has to establish a certain time period when one speaks of Ukrainian history, and one must establish a certain area. When one speaks of Hetman Ukraine it involves a certain time and space. Seventeenth-century Ukraine, or as Professor Rudnytsky proposes “early modern Ukraine”, gives me a time and a space, too. The only problem is that it doesn't tell us enough. I like to know exactly what I am talking about. That is why I hesitate to use the term "early modern period." I prefer to be more specific.
Establishing time and space in history is the easiest approach. It is a matter of description which is very easy to do. Sometimes one can do it almost arbitrarily. There are books on seventeenth-century France, and we know exactly the time and space. That is the easiest and safest approach; it is also the most broad. One doesn't have to argue about it or substantiate it. However, one may take that as a beginning and as the most general type of approach.
What if one wants to approach Ukrainian history and say something more with one's categories? One must then take the time and space and establish a certain organizing principle. This is a much more difficult approach and it's dangerous. There is usually considerable argument over whether the organizing principle should be based on political, economic or cultural criteria for that given time and space. One must ask: in what area are the most crucial changes occurring? If the answer is economics, the organizing principle might be industrialization or the agrarian system. If culture is considered the most significant factor in the given time and space, it could be Baroque. For politics, one might say the Hetmanate or Soviet Ukraine. The organizing principle tells us much more than does the time-and-space approach alone. It provides thematic as well as chronological and geographic parameters.
One final comment. There is discrepancy between the general and the unique. Professor Rudnytsky has pointed out that he prefers terms such “antiquity“ and "medieval." I think they are fine for general terms, as sometimes you want to point out the uniqueness of the Ukrainian case. form like "Cossack (Ukraine" gives a more precise definition than "Cary modern period." The time and space are there as well as the focus y mocrest, whereas "early modern" is very amorphous, with no organizing principle. I think the key is having an organizing principle that allows an arrangement of materials, so that the reader or listener knows where one is going from the start.
LUBOMYR R. WYNAR:
It is a truism that without clear-cut historical terminology and determination of historical periodization, no effective historical research is possible. According to Professor Rudnytsky, there exists at present only the Soviet and non-Soviet (Ukrainian) periodization of Ukrainian history. He thus omits the Russian imperial periodization which is accepted in many American historical textbooks and monographs. Therefore, I would add a third periodization, the American, which is based on the official pre-revolutionary Russian scheme as well as on the writings of émigré Russian historians.
Mykhailo Hrushevsky advocated the transfer of emphasis in historical investigation from the history of the organized state to the history of people and society. He rejected the official Russian historical scheme because of its artificial construction and stated that the most rational approach to studies of East European history is to present the history of each nationality separately in accordance with its genetic development from the beginning to the present.
It is interesting to note that the present trend in Western (West European and American) historiography follows a similar pattern, stressing the importance of "people" and "society" as key variables in the analysis of the historical process (this new trend was inaugurated by Lucien Febure and Marc Bloch — founders of the Annales school in the 1930s). The emphasis on the study of social issues and the society as major "elements" of historical research constitutes the cornerstone of this "new history." Hrushevsky, at the beginning of the twentieth century, experienced views similar to those advanced today by many Western historians. Presently his major concepts are repeated in modified historical research models.
Now I wish to make a brief comment on another of Professor Rudhytsky's statements. He recommends that Ukrainian historians concentrate their efforts on problems of content and substance rather than terminology. In my opinion, historical terminology is directly related to the (content and substance" of historical research since one has to use clearly defined concepts and terms. Otherwise terminological confusion will occur in historical works.
Ukrainian history is a well-defined field of research, according to Hrushevsky's scheme and the Ukrainian state-oriented historiographical school, which accepted his historical periodization and terminology with few modifications. Thus, at present we do not have a "perfect periodization" and a "perfect historical terminology," but at the same time we are not starting from scratch. Professors Boys Krupnytsky, Dmytro Doroshenko, Oleksander Ohloblyn, Mykola Chubaty, Omeljan Pritsak and many other historians have contributed to this topic.
Regarding periodization, I fully agree with Professor Rudnytsky that we should follow in the steps of German and French historians and apply the name of Ukraine to all periods of Ukrainian history. I also accept his periodization terms: the ancient and medieval periods of Ukrainian history, the medieval period subdivided into Kyivan State and Halych-Volhynian State, and the Lithuanian period. Some historians use the term «Lithuanian-Ruthenian" to designate the latter period. This is questionable. A more flexible categorization would be "Ukrainian lands under Lithuanian rule" or "Lithuanian period." In regard to the modern period, I recommend "Ukraine under the Polish Commonwealth and the development of Ukrainian Cossacks." There is no reference in Professor Rudnytsky's paper to the Ukrainian Cossack Hetman state. I think this period and term is essential, since it relates to political, social and cultural processes in Ukrainian historical development. This term and period is eliminated in Soviet historiography which follows Marxist periodization and official guidelines of the Communist party. I recommend reinstating the term "Ukrainian Cossack Hetman State" for the second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century. (The end of this period is reflected in major political events landmarks: liquidation of the office of hetman by Empress Catherine II in 1764; the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich, 1775; the abolition of Ukrainian courts and transformation of Cossack regiments into regular Russian military formations, 1783.) This period is followed by the Russian and Austrian occupation of Ukrainian territory. The proper term for this era would be "Ukraine under Russia and Austria and the Ukrainian national rebirth in the nineteenth century." Finally, we have "Ukraine in the twentieth century and the restoration of Ukrainian statehood," with a number of sub-periods.
The above-mentioned periodization may serve as a basis for further analysis of this important subject. Professor Pritsak attempted to introduce the term "Rusians" (with a single s) in order to designate Ukrainians in medieval times. This term is accepted in some publications and rejected in others. Some of my colleagues interpret this innovation as the term "Russia" (with a double "s’”), only misspelled. I suggest that the terms "Rus' people" or "Ruthenians" should be considered.
At present we are faced with a terminological problem: confusion of the Ukrainian with the Russian and Belorussian historical processes. (E.g., the Harvard scholar Samuel Cross has stated that Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians "are nonetheless parts of the same nation …" Similar views are expressed by other scholars.) American and West European historians, in researching special topics in East European history, in many instances limit themselves to Russian historical literature and sources. Such an approach from a methodological and subject viewpoint is not justified and should, therefore, be critically re-examined.
I urgently recommend that in the future we form a special committee on East European historical terminology which would consist of historians, linguists, geographers and specialists in other relevant subject areas. The major objective of this proposed committee would be to clarify the terminological chaos in regard to various periods of Ukrainian, Russian and Belorussian history. This question has also been raised by Henryk Paszkiewicz in his monograph The Origin of Russia, in which he states that historical research would be facilitated if the relevant terminologies pertaining to East European history were internationally regulated.
TARAS HUNCZAK:
As I see it there are several problems. For Hegel it was enough to say that history is the unfolding of world reason. Everyone thought: here is a great man, he speaks wise words. Nobody knew exactly what it meant; I sometimes doubt that he could have defined it, but it sounds good. We try to put our particular stamp on that definition. That brings us to the next German luminary, Leopold von Ranke. He was slightly more disciplined, a professional historian. He said the objective is to find the content of that unfolding world reason and we can only do it if we discover how things actually happened in the past, wie es eigentlich gewesen ist.
We know that the past cannot be recovered completely. Think about this day since you got up in the morning. Try to remember everything in its complete content. Now if we have difficulty recreating our immediate past, how in the world- not to use any other word can we presume to recall or recreate the entire past. Therefore I personally don't treat those things too seriously. I don't subscribe to the magiia slova — the magic of the word that one simply applies the proper label and solves all the problems.
Admittedly, historians are a special breed of people. We create schemes o help us understand periods, but then we sometimes turn then into immutable categories. I think Professor Rudhytsky has a very good point. He says we should concentrate on the substance and not expend all of our efforts reaching for a verbal definition. By the time we are able to define something, we no longer have the energy to deal with the problem itself. While I essentially agree with what Professor Rudnytsky has to say about periodization, I disagree with certain aspects of his presentation.
In the West, periodization has been characterized by developments that were peculiar to the West European community the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, etc. Authors and writers are developing all kinds of perspectives which we can use to put things together and match events with a particular era. However, developments in Eastern Europe are not characterized by the same experiences as found in the West. While we can always fill the categories with content, the periodization might be incorrect. As an example, one might agree there was a type of social interdependence in Ukraine that might suggest feudalism. My opinion, however, is that feudalism which entails contractual relationships with protection for both parties is not applicable to the East European experience.
I agree that one very useful term is the "early modern period." Since people like to attach characteristics to periods, I also will resort to this practice. What do I consider to be the early modern period? It starts around the time of the Union of Lublin. This is not because of the event itself, but rather because of some significant developments that coincide with it. The development of the Cossack organization and the church controversy are two of the many things that went into the making of a new consciousness, including political awareness. The latter eventually manifested itself when the Cossacks ceased to be mere adventurers and became a politically conscious force. The era ends with the reign of Catherine II. The second period extends from 1790 to 1917, with the final one lasting from 1917 to the present. This is probably as good a division as any.
As a teacher of history my problems are slightly different. Whereas some may teach primarily Ph.D. candidates, I teach undergraduates. The graduate student is forced to articulate the problems at a different level than a struggling undergraduate. My problems are practical ones, such as the shortage of textbooks in the English language. It may sound mundane, but it is a genuine problem. It is much easier for me to introduce my students to any number of historiographical concepts, since I was introduced to them by my professors. Sometimes I like to make excursions on my own. But such practical problems as finding textbooks are of a daily order.
The last point I want to make is about the terminology of Rusia or Russia. Looking at old maps of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, we also find the term Rusia Moscovitica. On no old map did I find the designation Rossia. In the seventeenth century the map-makers were still working from the old premise.
FRANK SYSYN:
I had hoped that one of the topics we could deal with here was the nuts-and-bolts of teaching courses in Ukrainian history: presentation, methodology, textbooks and reading material. Of course, questions of periodization and terminology are basic to these matters.
In planning university courses we must look into the reasons why students wish to study Ukrainian history. It is my impression that courses in Canada have a considerable segment of students who take the courses to find out about the country of their ancestors and to comprehend the Ukrainian cultural and political milieu that they participate in, without being sufficiently prepared to do so by formal education. A second segment is composed of students who specialize in Slavic regional studies and see that they need background on Ukraine to understand fully Russian and East European history and Slavic languages and literatures. Finally, a third segment consists of students of history who have chosen a course on Ukrainian history for the same reasons they might choose French or Japanese or Iranian history: curiosity, course distribution requirements, reputation of instructor (particularly his grading practices) or scheduling requirements. It is the high proportion of the first group of students that marks Ukrainian history courses off from most others at Canadian and American universities, although one presumes that German and Italian history courses may have a similar content and that courses in Canadian history in Canada or American history in the United States may at times be chosen for reasons similar to those that lead the Ukrainian Canadian or Ukrainian American to choose Ukrainian history. Yet given the small enrolments most Ukrainian history courses have, we face a very diverse student body with varied preparations and expectations. Our problems are to deal with an engineer of Ukrainian descent with no training in history, a student of Russian literature who is looking for a perspective differing from that offered in traditional courses in Russian history, and a history student who knows about medieval France, but has little idea where Ukraine is. We must construct syllabi, lectures and reading lists that can serve all constituencies without dropping to the lowest common denominator.
My courses in Ukrainian history at Harvard in the past two years have differed in their constituency from courses in Canada by their lack of students of Ukrainian descent. Yet my two years' teaching experience at Harvard was preceded by two years of teaching Saturday mornings at a local Ukrainian school. Hence, I have taught all segments.
In the Saturday schools my initial attempts to excite an audience of ten-to fifteen-year-olds about the intellectual problems in studying national history, the opportunities of understanding Latin and Byzantine, sedentary and nomadic, Islamic and Christian civilizations as they overlapped in the Ukrainian lands, and to face the challenges of tracing a Ukrainian culture, civilization and community evolving in a complex matrix of states and other cultures on the Ukrainian lands met with unmitigated disaster. At the end of the first year, Volodymyr the Great, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Taras Shevchenko and Symon Petliura were jumbled in examination answers as contemporaries in an amorphous Ukrainian experience. My students wanted simple explanations that would tell them about their people through the ages and explain puzzling factors of their contemporary existence (why the press called them Russians, why people said they had no country because they had no independent state, why some Ukrainians are Orthodox and others Catholic). Their desires were neither to indulge in an intellectual exercise, nor to use data from Ukraine to study historical theories and methods, nor to approach East European or early modern history through a study of Ukraine, but rather to obtain a systematized body of knowledge that would place them in a historical community, the Ukrainian nation. I perhaps exaggerate their desires as opposed to their parents' earnest wishes, but I was struck by how little need there was to argue why one should study Ukrainian history. For even the most recalcitrant students, the answer was clear--they should know about Ukrainian history because they were in some way Ukrainian. They were frustrated in doing so because of their abominable level of study of general history and geography in American schools and because the complex political, cultural and social history of Ukraine and its people was not as easy to compartmentalize and present as that of the United States, their chief frame of reference. How can one explain Orthodoxy and Uniatism to a group that never heard of Byzantium? The second year I taught names and dates in a clearly structured chronological survey.
While I do not equate our university students of Ukrainian descent with my Saturday school students, I do believe they share some characteristics. What I hope is that we can use their desire to know "their" history, Ukrainian history, as a means to broaden their understanding of historical problems and surrounding cultures. Thus, the more students of segment two and three we attract, the better our courses and the general level of Ukrainian historical research in North America will become. But what do we have to offer these segments? For the second, the Slavic and East European specialists, the answer is clear: Ukraine and Ukrainians bulk large in the history and culture of the region. For the third segment, we can hardly argue that Ukraine and Ukrainians have played as great a role in the world and world civilization as France and the French. Yet we can justifiably argue that this people and land, so often a borderland and a transition zone, provide fruitful material for delving into a number of interesting problems (e.g., cultural continuity, relations of sedentary and nomadic peoples, contacts of Eastern and Western Christianity, modern nation-building). Our problems arise when we try to construct courses that allow for both an orderly presentation of systematized information and for a discussion of the problems, questions and controversies that each of us faces in our scholarly work on the Ukrainian past.
Our problems are greater than those of our colleagues in English or Italian history for two reasons. First, we work in a field that is underdeveloped, impacted by extra-scholarly, political struggles and stagnant in recent years. Every historian feels acutely that his area is somehow understudied and filled with unanswered questions. Historians of Ukraine know what it is to work in a field where frequently even the first stages of collecting sources and data have not been attempted. Second, we have woefully inadequate textbooks and very little auxiliary reading material. No anthologies of translated sources exist: suitable articles in English are few and still at times inaccessible. Some might question our very ability to offer courses at this juncture. I believe, however, that by offering courses we create a demand for the creation of the new textbooks and materials that we need. Hence, I see this conference and its discussion of questions of periodization and terminology as a positive step.
To me periodization and terminology are primarily conceptual tools for organizing and describing the past. They become counterproductive when they hinder rather than assist our understanding of people, events and processes. I support Professor Rudnytsky's proposals because they do not attempt to impose an all-encompassing theory for periodization. Hence, I also agree with Professor Hunczak that the desire for order should not lead us to distort the material. After all, even the subject of "Ukrainian history" is a controversial topic. I, for example, am uncomfortable with Professor Pritsak's argument that Ukraine is a well-defined territory and the subject of Ukrainian history encompasses all that took place within this area. I do not believe that we can forget that it is the Ukrainian people with their cultural traditions who constitute Ukrainian history, since for long periods Ukraine was neither a state nor a well-defined administrative unit and the borders of Ukrainian settlement frequently changed.
Terminology is, of course, an important issue because by the choice of terms we often express deeper conceptualizations. Specialists in East European history may well know that Kyivan Rus', Muscovy and imperial Russia represent very different entities, but by referring to all these areas as "Russia" they do not convey this understanding to their students. We are, of course, torn between the desire to maintain terms as they were used in each period and the recognition that names should reflect our understanding of communities and events. The change of collective designations for Ukrainians from rusyny to malorosiiany to ukraintsi with regional variations in usage creates considerable tension. Yet the employment of so many terms for a people that was clearly demarcated and perceived as a historical community is cumbersome. Hence, we may well use "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" as long as we make clear what names were used in various periods.
We may never agree on periodization and terms for our own teaching and writing. What is more important is that each of us produces the textbooks, source books and essays that will make the teaching of our history possible. It will not be through "correct" terms and periodizations that we shall succeed in teaching Ukrainian history, but by providing our students with the intellectual tools to grapple with the Ukrainian past.
PRITSAK:
Undoubtedly, introducing a periodization which is already somewhat familiar to the student has many advantages. There is a danger, however. I am not as pessimistic as my friend Professor Hunczak, who believes that we cannot reconstruct the past. Certainly, we cannot reconstruct millions of past events. Yet it is important to establish their distinctive features and to view the past using functional and structural models. Otherwise it would make no sense to have history as a scholarly discipline in the curriculum of a university. Probably it would be better to have history as a subdivision of fiction or something like that, where everyone could create his or her vision according to individual emotion and mood.
What is historically important? I suppose that, in answering this, linguistics has made better progress than historiography. It has isolated what it considers to be of central importance: the phonemical structure, i.e., some thirty to fifty distinctive phonemes out of thousands of sounds. Only this makes it possible for a language to function. The phonemes and not the sounds allow us to understand each other. History requires its own equivalent of a phonemical structure.
I agree with Professor Hunczak that to use the term "feudalism" in reference to Eastern Europe makes no sense. Certainly a distinctive feature here is the bilateral contract. If you don't have a contract, a juridical relationship, there is no feudalism. The fact that there are several principalities on one territory instead of one kingdom does not establish the existence of feudalism. This can be shown to have existed at different times in different parts of the world, even outside Western Europe; but this is not feudalism.
I would not suggest that we historians invite linguists, sociologists and representatives of other disciplines and ask them to participate in the establishment of our terminology. This would be very dangerous. Every discipline must have its own terminology based on the problems which the given discipline investigates. I have a spoon and a pencil. I cannot use the pencil to eat or the spoon to write. The bountiful terminology of linguistics or atomic physics is of no use to historians.
If we look at Ukrainian development and compare East European with West European development, we can see very clearly that beginning with the twelfth century there is a divergence. Something completely different is happening in the East and the West. In the twelfth century the West experienced a renaissance, followed by scholasticism, whereas in Ukraine scholasticism did not occur until the seventeenth century. What is very important is that in the West secular civilization developed, beginning with Humanism and the Reformation. These two movements did not have a pervasive influence in Eastern Europe. Secular development in Eastern Europe began in 1804-5 when Alexander I established the first secular universities at Kazan and Kharkiv and reorganized the University of Moscow. For the first time in Eastern Europe we had secular schools, and for the first time we had a secular civilization. I think this is of tremendous significance.
Then there is another issue. If we have feudalism in Western Europe, what do we have in Eastern Europe? We have the patrimonial system, and this system remains there still. Even today the ruler, the central committee of the Communist party, claims a monopoly on everything on thinking, on political action, on economic decisions. Outside the party, no other body is allowed to participate in politics. This is something of great importance and we should take it into consideration. However, after 1848 in Galicia, for the first time one part of Ukraine was engaged in a societal development within a constitutional system, a state system which was no longer patrimonial. This is also of great importance.
I am also considering the very important event that occurred in 1848 in Western Ukraine and in 1861 in Eastern Ukraine. Until these dates, the number of people who were regarded as human beings was about 100,000 in Galicia and about 150,000 in "Russian" Ukraine, altogether not much more than a quarter of a million. After these dates, millions of former serfs became human beings.
I would not agree with Professor Sysyn that territory should be ignored. Certainly, a territory alone without a society cannot be the subject of history. But a society has to be stationary on a territory, otherwise we do not have a higher society, we do not have a polity. Only a political human being is the subject of history. Here ethnos, religion and many other things are just part of what a homo politicus is.
SUBTELNY:
These kinds of things we could talk about for a long time. However, we are talking about labels. We want something practical. We want labels to tell us something about time, space and what is going on. Professor Rudnytsky's labels tell us about time they don't go any further than that. They don't tell us anything about space, nor about what is going on. Because Ukraine has a very complicated history, the problem of space in Ukrainian history — whether it is Russia or the Habsburg empire or where the steppe ends — is very undefined.
What we should perhaps try to do is put down the most practical label and avoid philosophical discussions as much as possible. I realize that the two are related, but we are looking for something which establishes time, space and what is going on, not something that leads us into involved philosophical discussions.
JOHN-PAUL HIMKA:
I disagree. The question is the organizing principle versus the problematically neutral scheme of periodization which Professor Rudnytsky proposes. Each of these approaches has its own relevance in its own place. The whole virtue of the periodization scheme proposed by Professor Rudnytsky is that it is precisely a periodization scheme, almost a punctuation scheme. It is useful for dividing up courses, surveys, encyclopedia articles providing a paragraphical way of thinking about history. The organizing principle, on the other hand, is something that will apply when one looks at certain problems. But to use it as a basis to divide history is, unfortunately, not only to bring up certain issues, but also to detract from other issues.
To call the nineteenth century "the Age of National Awakening" is to overdefine it. For example, the growth of industry in southern Ukraine is an important phenomenon and one that has been neglected in historical research, probably because we only see the national awakening. Also, at the same time as the national awakening, in Ukraine, as throughout much of Europe in the nineteenth century, there was a new social awakening. For Ukrainians most decisive was the growth of peasant consciousness. And wherever there were actual industrial workers, there was also a new kind of class consciousness emerging, of a different order than had existed in any previous era. The pristine neutrality of the scheme Professor Rudnytsky proposes seems to me to encourage openness to the multiplicity of historical problems. This periodization, moreover, has the special merit of putting Ukrainian history firmly within — to use Oscar Halecki's phrase — “the limits and divisions of European history.”
HUNCZAK:
Just one word. I do not subscribe to the view that we have a holy confusion in the study of history; otherwise I would not be in this discipline. What I wish to say is that we cannot recover the past completely in every dimension. I do take history as a serious discipline, unlike Voltaire who said that history should be taught for entertainment rather than for instruction.
RUDNYTSKY:
This question was directed to me by Professor Wynar: What do I mean by saying that Ukrainian historians should concentrate on issues of content rather than on terminology? Obviously, we cannot write history without using terminologies, but I suggest that it is probably more fruitful to develop issues of terminology when dealing with problem of substance and not just tilt for words as so often historians, and especially pseudo-historians and journalists, do.
We should not get enraged when we hear the term "Kyivan Russia," even if we don't like it. Instead, let us demonstrate that Kyivan Rus' or Kyivan Russia was more similar to Ukraine than to Muscovy. Then the question of labels will follow by itself.
Now, why did I omit the Russian imperial scheme of periodization? I did not include it for the very simple reason that in the traditional scheme, as still used in American texts, there is simply no place for Ukrainian history. Whatever we may say of our Soviet friends, we see textbooks of Ukrainian history appearing, so we know the subject is recognized after a fashion. The Kluchevsky scheme, from which the American textbook historiography is derived, has no place for Ukrat and history as such. This is why I made no reference to that traditional scheme.
Here are some points which are of a more central nature. Either I do not fully understand Professor Pritsak's reasoning, or, if I understand him correctly, I would tend to disagree. This refers to my proposed periodization scheme. Can the common European scheme be applied to Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine? I will refer to the two strongest political and historical minds Ukraine has produced in the last hundred years, who stood at opposite poles but who agreed on this specific point. I refer to Drahomanov and Lypynsky. Both thought that what makes the distinction between Ukrainian history and Muscovite and Russian imperial history is that the basic framework of European history applies also to Ukraine, albeit in an imperfect form. For instance, there is a reflection of the Renaissance, or at least Humanism, in Ukraine; there is also a reflection of the sixteenth-century religious struggle. The European Reformation and Counter Reformation came to Ukraine two or three generations later, in the form of a religious crisis in the late sixteenth century. Drahomanov says specifically that Ukraine has passed through all the major stages of Europe's historical development, although with delays and breakdowns. This is the main difference between Ukraine and Russia, historically.
Obviously, this grid cannot be successfully applied for the interpretation of Russian history. For instance, Muscovy does not fit into the European Middle Ages nor into the pattern of early modern absolute monarchies. It is sui generis. Its frame of reference is different. It may be compared rather with the Near Eastern despotic monarchies, as Plekhanov has correctly stated in the "Introduction" to his History of Russian Social Thought.
Here is another point which is related: the concept of a patrimonial state, with which I am familiar and which derives from Max Weber. Do you think that pre-Mongol Kyivan Rus' and the Lithuanian Grand Duchy were patrimonial states?
PRITSAK:
Yes, certainly.
RUDNYTSKY:
Well, I beg to disagree. If I think that the Byzantine empire or, later, Muscovy were patrimonial states, I perceive the so-called Kyivan federation as something very different, because of its lack of bureaucracy and standing armies, its decentralization of power, considerable mobility and elements of popular participation.
PRITSAK:
Perhaps I can give you an example. Take the Kingdom of Galicia and Volodymeria in 1340. Only the king or prince or duke was representative of his state. The boyars had no say. When the king disappeared, the state disappeared, without any resistance. Hrushevsky and other historians could not understand how it could disappear completely without any trace. I am not talking about the Kyivan period, because our sources might not be adequate; but I am talking about 1340. The prince and the state were identical. Prince Danylo could nominate his koniukh to be bishop one day, then dismiss him the next. Everywhere else in Europe the ecclesiastic and secular dignitaries could have a say. Think of the Magna Carta and the Golden Bull. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, it just happened that all of the old dynasties were dying out. The Piasts, Arpads, Premyslids. The same thing happened to the dynasty in Galicia and Volodymeria. However, these other states survived the dynastic crisis: Galicia did not.
RUDNYTSKY:
Here I am going to appeal to the rights of the estates against the crown in interrupting Professor Pritsak. I am struck by the fact that so many prominent historians who have dealt with that era …
PRITSAK:
Drahomanov was an excellent specialist in ancient history but he was not a specialist in medieval history. He was a very good specialist in Roman history. He knew very little about medieval Ukrainian history. Lypynsky's field of research was the Khmelnytsky era.
RUDNYTSKY:
I think of scholars like Vernadsky, Dvornik and others who stress the individualistic, decentralized, libertarian character of pre-Mongol Rus', in quite clear contrast to later Muscovy. I feel that to move from twelfth-century Kyiv to fifteenth-century Muscovy is to move to a very different world.
I do not want to continue this line of argument, but wish to make another point. I do agree with Professor Wynar that there is a very strong trend in contemporary Western historiography toward social history — interest in popular movements, popular revolts, outlaws. These topics have become very common in English, French, North American historical literature. Hrushevsky was a man of a different age, a genuine Ukrainian populist of the early twentieth century. But he happens to be in tune with this latest trend in Western historiography. Now we come to the right of the historian to select his own problems and approaches. I am not particularly interested in social history. I prefer pragmatic political history and the history of ideas. Of course, history may deal with anything that happened in human society. Biography, history of art, of music, of science, of fashions, of technology — everything can be treated historically. However, I would go along with Professor Pritsak that the centre of gravity, the centre of research is the history of organized political communities, and so I do not personally give preference to diffuse popular trends.
Now here is a question of one's philosophy. I believe that it is a misunderstanding to assume that philosophical questions arise because somebody looks into the blue and then begins to fantasize about it, has fanciful ideas. Philosophical problems arise from dealing with concrete issues. If you think about being, about the realities of human experience, then you deal with philosophical problems. Each discipline, without exception, has its philosophical dimension. Medicine, law, physics — any discipline — becomes philosophical once one begins to question the discipline's basic principles. Obviously, this also applies to our study. History is an empirical discipline; it deals with empirical realities. But to grasp empirical realities we have to go back to first principles and this means to think philosophically. I would not speak disparagingly about very great thinkers. For instance, the view of Professor Pritsak is the classical Hegelian view, namely, that history deals primarily with politically organized communities which we have commonly called states. So this is still a living concept today, after more than a century and a half. We can say that we do not accept it, but we should not treat it lightly.
One final comment, about chronological limits. This is how I try to introduce innocent undergraduates to chronological problems, how I try to make them think, at least to some extent, historically: on 31 December 475, people go to bed and say: "Well, here we are in Antiquity." Then they wake up on 1 January, on what is now the next year, and say: "Thank God! Now we have reached the Middle Ages." This is obviously not the way things happen. All history is a continuum, but one with changes. It is out of practical necessity, simply to divide books into chapters and to organize the subject matter, that we pick certain dates as dividing points. In a thousand years- assuming that mankind will survive-perhaps the first flight to the moon in 1969 will be considered the beginning of a new age in the history of mankind. But for those who have lived through this, it is part of one continuous life story of the people of that generation. These are very simple things which we should not forget.
SYSYN:
The time limit which Professor Rudnytsky has set down, 1569, is also the lime Professor Pritsak sees as the first emergence of the state on Ukrainian territory. The next period is the early modern period, which Professor Rudnytsky wants to end around 1800. It is also the time which Professor Pritsak sees as the beginning of his centres of secular learning. So their conclusions, happily, are about the same.
MARKO ANTONOVYCH:
I have a small question about periodization in connection with what Professor Pritsak has said. Until 1340 we have one periodization for all or Ukraine. But afterward, there are separate developments in east and west. Maybe we should try to establish one periodization for the whole of Ukraine. This is a very important question, and I would appreciate some comments.
ALEXANDER BARAN:
I think that a common history for both east and west is a good idea, but I don't know how we can create complete periods for both sections. For the first period, we agree on ancient and medieval history, which ends with the fall of the Galician-Volhynian Kingdom. Then we have the early modern period which ends at the end of the eighteenth century. Thus we divide almost a thousand years into two parts. Then the next two periods are just two centuries — not even two complete centuries.
Why can't we divide the whole thing into four parts: namely ancient, medieval, early modern and modern? Certainly we have to divide the medieval period into two parts, the Kyivan and Galician Rus' and then Lithuanian Rus'. The early modern period would be the Cossacks before the Hetman state and the Hetman state itself. The recent period could also be divided into two parts the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. This would be much clearer.
OLEH S. PIDHAINY:
When I began teaching back in 1964 my main problem was how 10 treat the interplay between four active communities: Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Belorussia. Also, I was troubled by the fact that Ukraine was part of various states. Then I thought that perhaps one could develop an acceptable scheme on the basis of Hrushevsky's scheme for the Eastern Slavs, expanding it to include other major groups in Eastern Europe. So I suggest that a possible way to deal with Ukrainian periodization is to hans de it within the larger framework of East European history. Basically East European history would become a special complement to West European history. I propose five major divisions. The first would be the era from the eighth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. This would be the tine from the Scythians to the period of the Völkerwanderung. The second era would be when Eastern Europe was under Byzantine influence, plus the great influence of Rome. That would be from the seventh century A.D. to the fall of Byzantium, in 1453. This would include the rise of Kyiv and its disintegration, plus the period of Lithuanian rule. The third period would begin in 1453 at the time of the rise of Poland and end with the Battle of Poltava in 1709. At this time Poland was up for grabs and Catherine II liquidated it. The fourth period would encompass the rise of the Russian empire from 1709, which established the dominance of Russia in Eastern Europe, through to 1917, the date of the revolution. The fifth period would be since 1917. Basically, there is Greek influence in the first period; Byzantine influence including the Kyivan state in the second; the third period is the rise of Poland; the fourth, the rise of Russia; and the fifth period is the disintegration of the Russian empire and the rise of the Soviet Union.
LUBOMYR HAJDA:
I have just one comment, and that is that the various periodizations which people have proposed conflict, I think, with a principle that everyone seems to agree with: that what constitutes the scope of Ukrainian history is the present territory of Ukraine. I am thinking particularly about my area of interest, Crimea and the southern steppe regions; I am afraid that these regions do not always fit into the periodizations that have been proposed by most discussants. We should be flexible enough in our periodization to take into account the different regional developments of the Ukrainian territories.
RUDNYTSKY:
I am always in favour of flexibility and I believe there is good cause for it in this case. On the one hand, we can say that all that happens on the territory of Ukraine is legitimately part of the Ukrainian historical process. But, on the other hand, one also has to insist on flexibility because the territory itself is not unchangeable. For instance, if you look at Soviet publications they take the present frontiers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as sacred limits. In dealing with prehistoric cultures, they show on a map only the territory of the Ukrainian SSR at the present time. What is beyond is left blank. This is the territorial principle pushed to the point of absurdity.
We must keep in mind that the territory of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ukraine was not identical with the Ukraine of today. As professor Shevelov reminded us in his after-dinner address yesterday. the territory of Ukraine ended just south of Kyiv. That was the end of settled land. Then there was no-man's land and then the Crimean Khanate. This does not mean that you should not be interested in the history of the Crimea. Still, I do not think that the history of the Crimean Khanate is an integral part of the history of Ukraine in the same way as that of the Galician-Volhynian state or Bohdan Khmelnytsky's state, which are central to Ukrainian history. In contrast, I would consider the Crimean Khanate only marginally a part of Ukrainian history. If you say you are the legitimate heir of the Crimean Khanate, you are referring to an uprooted people whose survivors are now dispersed in Kazakhstan and elsewhere. There are historical entities which have become extinct: for instance, the ancient Mayas. The Crimean Tatars have also become largely extinct. We sympathize with them, although our ancestors felt differently.
So let's be flexible about this. An ethnic community can be a carrier of history, but so can a political entity. You can write, for instance, a history of the Habsburg empire, which existed for hundreds of years and which was a political entity with a very definite identity. The peoples which composed that empire still live today, but the Habsburg empire no longer exists; it ended in 1918 — nothing comes after that. On the other hand, you can write a history of the Czech people even at the time they were incorporated in the Habsburg empire. You can write history on different levels and from different perspectives. There is territorial, statist, ethnic history and so on. I think they are all legitimate and they can co-operate.
HUNCZAK:
You cannot deal at the same time with territorial and national history. I think that that is impossible. If I interpret you correctly, Professor Rudnytsky, you are suggesting that the history of Ukraine should deal with national Ukrainian history, and that only those elements that participated in this historical process to some degree would have to be defined as belonging to the Ukrainian nation.
The civilization that existed in medieval times is understandable to me when I deal with West European historiography. We can go to the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, the beginning of the Renaissance — we know what is happening at that time. One could go through in one's mind all the institutions and intellectual trends and all that would be totally inapplicable to Ukraine.
The point is that the Eastern spirit in the fifteenth century was altogether different. East European experience is taken not just from Ukraine; these experiences are totally different. For Ukrainian history, a terminology has to be devised that is appropriate to the development of that particular time.
SYSYN:
I think we have a problem with defining "spirit of the age." Savonarola, who came into the limelight well into the "Renaissance," didn't seem to know it and didn't act in an appropriate way for a Renaissance man. Living in a backward land, luri Drohobych, too, appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he, as a man of the new learning, was very atypical for his society. But he did actually live in the fifteenth century. We forget that just being together in the same place around the same time doesn't necessarily mean that people live in similar ways at the same level of civilization.
I think that Ukrainians always had contact with what was going on among European peoples. In other words, Ukrainians cannot be separated from general European civilization. Of course, at many times in its evolution Ukraine was so different from what was going on in the rest of Europe that it cannot fit into general European categories, and it was certainly influenced by "non-European" peoples and societies. But it doesn't bother us at all to think of Norway as part of Europe. Norway was at a very different level than, say, Italy and at a very different level, obviously, than Greece. But all three — Norway, Italy and Greece — are European. Why shouldn't this be applicable also to Ukraine?
RUDNYTSKY:
May I continue with your line of thought and then maybe refer to some other things. What is European history? It is not simply a geographical concept. Think of Spain, or Iberia, under Moslem rule: Andalus. It is not that all European is good and all non-European is bad. Andalus was culturally much superior to contemporary Europe. But, obviously, Moslem Spain was not part of the European world, although it had a great cultural influence on it and Spain, Iberia, is geographically part of Europe. The Balkans were cut off from Europe by the Moslem conquest. Everything south of the Danube for a good four hundred years was lost to Europe. Now, I think, there is a good deal of agreement among historians, including Russian historians, as well as Westerners writing about Russia, that post-Mongol Muscovy Muscovite Russia does not belong in the European context socially or culturally. Muscovy was a world apart until Peter and even beyond. The Westernization of Russia by Peter and his successors was a problematic affair, as recognized by many Russian historians and social thinkers.
In contrast to this — and here I return to the point which Professor Pritsak and myself debated — I realize how delicate this problem is and that we should approach it with an open mind — if we think of Rus' of the eleventh or twelfth century, with all of the differences which existed between Kyiv and Paris or Goslar, they were still parts of one world. Rus accepted religion and higher culture from Byzantium and Bulgaria. But still, I would say, the political and social arrangements in Kyivan Rus' were closer to the contemporary European pattern than to Byzantine theocracy. Byzantine theocracy was not transplanted to Kyiv for the simple reason that the Caesar still existed in Constantinople. Byzantine theocracy could be transplanted to Moscow at a time when it had disappeared in Constantinople; but the grand dukes of Kyiv, even laroslav, were unable to create a replica of Byzantium. I submit that the grand dukes of Kyiv were not Byzantine basileis: they were something very different. I propose it not as a definite statement, but with a question mark. This refers to Professor Pritsak's concept of a patrimonial state. In the West, too, the state of Charlemagne was an attempt to imitate the Byzantine system. Obviously, Charlemagne wanted to revive the Late Roman-Byzantine system. The emperors of the Saxon and Salian dynasties tried the same thing and actually they continued to try this down to the Hohenstaufens. Also, the Hohenstaufens tried to continue the Byzantine patrimonial model, but they failed. Thus we can see that the difference between East and West was not absolute.
There is also the development of another system which we call, for simplicity's sake, feudal. I suggest that the process of decentralization in Rus' entailed the growth of a multiplicity of local centres. It was, of course, not exactly the same as Western feudalism, but was a parallel development, despite the absence of formal contractual relations between prince and boyar in Rus'. On this point we may perhaps agree with Soviet historians' stress on feudalism. On the other hand, Soviet historians tend to minimize the importance of the Mongol invasions. The Mongol invasion was a cataclysm which engulfed an Atlantis Old Rus'. Subsequently, the emerging Muscovite state used some elements of the Kyivan inheritance but basically was quite different.
BARAN:
The trouble is that we are mixing everything up. We cannot simply take over the divisions of Western civilization and apply them to Ukrainian history. Why? Because the two areas were divided from each other by cultural tendencies. In the West there was the medieval period, then the Renaissance, then the Baroque, Absolutism and the Enlightenment. These did not occur in Ukraine. Like the West, we experienced a Middle Ages, but it was considerably different. Our Renaissance came two hundred years later, at the time of the late Reformation. It was, as Professor Pritsak says, a Renaissance without humanism, without secularization. So we missed the most important influences on Western development. We must realize that Ukraine's development diverged from that of Western Europe. This is also true of the Balkan nations. They had the greatest divergence. For instance, they were not affected by the Renaissance, the Baroque, even by the Enlightenment, since under Turkish rule those trends couldn't penetrate.
I teach Balkan history and read the original Bulgarian and Serbian textbooks. They have complete and distinct periodization schemes of their history. It is interesting to note that the Bulgarian scheme and the Serbian scheme, even though they lived in the same situation and had very similar national developments, are completely different. I think that in Ukrainian history we have to find our own pattern of social and cultural trends which would reflect the development of our civilization. This is what our whole task is.
PRITSAK:
I would like to deal with Professor Rudnytsky's question about Kyivan problems. I have devoted approximately forty years of my life to their study. I started to study all possible steppe peoples, not for the sake of the steppe peoples themselves, but to gain a better understanding of the problems of East European and especially Ukrainian history. There was some knowledge, certainly, which I was able to acquire.
First of all, if you take what we normally call the Kyivan state, it was actually a blend of two systems. On the one hand, there was the traditional, or Khazar, system. We should not forget that Iaroslav was a kagan and that he was addressed as a kagan even by Ilarion. Byzantine, Oriental and other sources also refer to him as a kagan. On the other hand, there was the Byzantine system. Certainly, the system in Kyiv was not a pure Byzantine system, for obvious reasons. One can say there were also Northern elements Old Scandinavian and Old Germanic. It is not just a matter of accident that the ruler of Kyiv was styled either kagan or konung. We are dealing with a kind of syncretism which was very complicated and certainly we cannot go into all the details now.
I can only stress that what existed in Kyiv had nothing to do — very little to do, to be more careful — with the political ideas and structures in the West, especially after 1054, which was a very great divide. There was a profound difference between Kyiv and Paris, or Kyiv and Regensburg, or Kyiv and any other place in the West; even Kyiv and Cracow or Giezno. Already in the twelfth century we can see this very clearly from a study of the Polish sources or, for that matter, by comparing the Kyivan and the Hungarian courts. It would make no sense to try to westernize something which was quite different.
There is no doubt that the Kyivan system was not identical to the later Muscovite system either. The Muscovite system was not just a replica of Byzantium. There were also other influences. But what is very important is this: everything which we had in Kyiv — even, as I was able to prove, the Old Scandinavian system — was based on the Khazarian model. In the Kyivan system we find two versions of the Khazarian system plus the Byzantine factor, all having roots in the patrimonial system, which allows for a myriad of variants.
If you have a species called dog, you can have a Saint Bernard, or a Pekinese, or poodle or any other breed. They look completely different, but there is still a common denominator which makes them dogs. So in this way we can also look at the patrimonial system.
WYNAR:
It is all very well to discuss these problems, but there is another one which is very critical. Frank Sysyn mentioned it. Several of us must face students and there are no general textbooks in Ukrainian history. What are we going to do about this problem of textbooks? What are we doing for the students?
PRITSAK:
We must realize that there are two levels of problems scholarly historical research and history as a subject of instruction in university curricula- and we will not be able to settle everything. I might add that I have been working for a number of years on the preparation of a history of Ukraine in several volumes.
PATRICIA HERLIHY:
It is just a wee voice. I hope that when this history of Ukraine emerges and is in our hands, you will have made a definitive periodization of Ukrainian history which the rest of us can follow.
[Laughter from audience]
PRITSAK:
It is not so easy. It has never been easy to establish anything concerning the Ukrainian past that everyone will accept.
GEORGE SHEVELOV:
I am an observer here, no more than that. It seems to me, as an outsider, that you should first establish the basis of your periodization, because it sounds to me, to use the word that was used in other applications, like “confusion.” But in this case it is a confusion of various criteria. Sometimes I hear that the criterion proposed is political, sometimes it is rather juridical or legal. The definition of feudalism which I heard is, to my ears, very juridical and not strictly political. There are also cultural considerations.
It would be advisable to agree first on what criterion you would base your periodization. Then also make it clear before you proceed any further- after selecting one criterion whether you intend to elaborate a periodization which would also cover other criteria; that is, a periodization based on, say, the political criterion, but which would also apply to cultural developments, to developments in language, in arts. Or you could base your periodization on one criterion to the exclusion of all others, with the understanding that others can elaborate their own periodization.
From my own experience, I can say that I frequently faced the problem of periodization in my book on Ukrainian phonological history. I based it on external criteria, that is, I just followed the stages in the development of the literary language. There is not much room for controversy here. The division between to use conventional terms — Kyivan Rus' and Lithuanian Rus' is obvious. So is the distinction between the Lithuanian and the Polish periods. So is the distinction between the time before 1720 and the time after 1720. Thus I take 1720 as an orientation date.
Only in the conclusion to my book do I suggest, as a kind of preliminary hypothesis, a periodization on the basis of the internal phonological development. That is what I reported briefly and in a very simplified way yesterday. But ideally the phonology, the history of literature and political history should each have their own periodization. Then the possibility, or lack of possibility, of finding any common denominators should be explored. As long as you do not make clear for what purpose and on which criterion you base your periodization, you will not arrive at anything but a “Babylonian confusion of tongues.”
PIDHAINY:
May I say that Professor Shevelov's idea appeals to me very much and I think that culture should be the basis for such a periodization. Culture would be a very useful concept, because it would also bring to light the linguistic ties of the various Slavic nations. In other words, I am suggesting that we view Ukraine as part of the East European civilization, based upon the closeness of language of the Western Slavs and the Eastern Slavs. This is based upon the common cultural background of being the battlefield between the Latin influence and the Greek influence. Only in this way will we be able to develop a periodization of Ukrainian history.
WYNAR:
My only suggestion is that in the future a special task force be formed to deal with the problem, and then probably some results could emerge. It is not manageable to come to conclusions concerning periodization or terminology here. We have made a good start and we should continue in the future as a special committee or task force.
RUDNYTSKY:
May I comment on this. I think that our profession is both a co-operative and a very individualistic one. It is impossible to visualize some high authority which would decree that from a certain date on we must all follow the same terminology. Each one of us should apply our ideas to the best of our ability. The final responsibility belongs to the individual scholar who has to write according to his lights, his understanding. I don't see the possibility of an authoritative academy which declares: “This is the rule.” It cannot be done that way, at least not in a free society. But what is needed is more discussion, more exchange, more clarification.
To return to the first point which Professor Wynar directed at me. The reason that the so-called traditional scheme of Russian history was accepted was not that in the United States some holy synod or some central committee told American scholars to use it. It happened simply because there were these highly respected historians — classical nineteenth-century Russian historians — who exercised such an impact that other people followed in their footsteps. I think this is the only way we can hope to have an effect, not in a prescriptive way, but by producing works of lasting value which will then be able to convince people.
WYNAR:
May I add to this. The reason, in my opinion, that the Russian scheme was adopted by many American historians is that in the 1930s-40s we had a number of Russian historians at major American universities: Michael Florinsky at Columbia, Nicholas Riasanovsky at Berkeley, Leonid Strakhovsky at Georgetown, Michael Karpovich at Harvard, Anatole Mazour at Stanford and George Vernadsky at Yale. In the 1930s they didn't have access to primary sources and thus concentrated on writing historical textbooks. There is an interesting monograph by Elizabeth Beyerly on Russian historians in exile, published in Holland (The Europocentric Historiography of Russia: An Analysis of the Contribution of Russian Emigre Historians in the U.S.A., 1973). The author illustrates the intense influence of émigré historiography on American historical writing and university curricula. I see a direct relationship between American historical studies and the influence exercised by Russian émigré historians.
PRITSAK:
Now as we conclude our session I would like to stress that, although we have not solved our problem of periodization or terminology, I still believe that this exchange was very beneficial. I agree with Professor Wynar and Professor Shevelov that a seminar or working group, rather than a holy synod, be established to do something about this problem.
At the beginning of this session I stressed that at present we are facing a new situation and that we should do something about it. Of course, Ukrainian history is not the first national history to be presented. There are, fortunately, histories of the United States, Canada and single European and Asian nations. There are principles expressed in them. There also exist theoretical works. I suppose it would be very useful to divide the task among four or five members of the panel: to establish how many theories there are about what constitutes a national history. Then they might apply these various theories to Ukrainian history and see how well they fit.
Also, as Professor Shevelov has pointed out, first we could try to work with an external criterion. This is why I am concerned about the concepts of patrimonialism and secularization. Until 1800 not a single secular book was printed in Ukraine. After 1800 we had secular books. Of course, I am not saying we must use this periodization-pre-secular, secular but it might be useful as an external reference. After this has been established, we might apply "phonological" and other criteria, using linguistic terminology. Finally, having prepared the external and internal criteria, we could probably find a common denominator. But this has to be studied; it will not come from nothing. The Holy Ghost will not help us. It demands very serious work.
Fortunately, models do exist. Let us study them, and let us start the experiment. As you know, we have to reach a level of abstraction. Every scholarly discipline, including history, can only be pursued on the level of abstraction. The subject of history is not Napoleon as a human being, but his historical function- i.e., the function of Napoleon's actions. We cannot get to Napoleon and weigh him or smell him; that will not help us and it makes no sense. In this way, as we bring everything to the level of abstraction, we may reach agreement. As long as you have two apples and four oranges, it is very hard to find a common denominator; but if you have the numbers 2 and 4 and 5, you can find a common denominator. Two apples is not an abstraction, but 2 is an abstraction. In this way I hope we will find what we need.
Finally, it only remains for me to express my gratitude to everyone, panelists and non-panelists, for sharing wonderful suggestions and ideas, for sharing our troubles and hopes.
References
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135811.Rethinking_Ukrainian_History
https://www.ciuspress.com/product/rethinking-ukrainian-history