University College London

Mykhailo Dragomanov and the Ukrainian National Movement

Author(s): D. Doroshenko
Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 16, No. 48 (Apr., 1938), pp. 654-666
Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London,
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV
AND THE
UKRAINIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT
ON 20 June, 1935, fell the fortieth anniversary of the death of
Michael Dragomanov, the well-known Ukrainian scholar and
politician, who exercised a great.influence on the development of
the Ukrainian national movement in Russia and, to a considerable
extent, also in Austria, from the last decade of the Igth cen-

tury down to the Revolution

of I9I7.

In order to understand

Dragomanov'sexact place in the history of the Ukrainianmovement,

it is necessary to evoke, however briefly, the historical surroundings
in which Dragomanov grew up and worked.
He was born in 1841, in a well-to-do country family belonging
to the landed gentry in the province of Poltava, much in the same
environmentas his famous fellow-countrymanGogol. The provinces
of Poltava and Chernigov, which only shortly before constituted
the so-called " Hetmanshchina," were the only part of the Ukrainian
territory which enjoyed, to the end of the I8th century, a
political autonomy with the elected Hetman at its head, its own
army, administration and finances. Though the Russian Government, taking advantage of the unsuccessful rising of Mazepa,
curtailed this autonomy systematically and reduced Ukraine, at
the end of the I8th century, to the status of an ordinary
Russian province, the country retained for quite a long time its
distinctive character of life, its old traditions and, above all, its
old culture, which even at the end of its autonomous period stood
so high, compared with that of Russia as reformed by Peter the
Great, that British travellers, for instance, were unanimous in
praisingit and comparingit to the conditionsof life in a contemporary
English province.' The rulingclasses of the Ukraineof the Hetmans,
the old Cossack nobility, not satisfied with their own very good
schools (the Academy in Kiev, and colleges in Chernigov,Pereyaslav
and Kharkov) sent their sons to West European Universities,while
common people had schools and " hospitals" for poor and orphans
in every village. The famous Academy in Kiev was a centre from
1 Joseph

Marshall in his Travels in the years 1768-1770,

London,

1772,

and especially Ed. Dan Clarke, who travelled in Ukraine in I799 and gave a
description of his stay there in his Travels in various countries of Europe,
Asia and Africa, London, i 8 i.
654

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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

655

which the culture radiated not only to the Ukrainian provinces

under Russia and Poland, but to the whole East of Europe and the
Christian Balkans. Ukraine furnished to Russia teachers, bishops
and high officials: it is enough to recall here the names of Theophan
Prokopovich and Stephen Yavorsky, who led the Russian Church
during the reign of Peter I, Alexis and Cyril Razumovsky, Count
Zavadovsky, Count Hudovich, Prince Bezborodko, Troshchinsky,
and Prince Kochubey, who acted as advisers to the Russian Tsars,
from Elizabeth to Alexander I.
But while absorbing the cultural forces of Ukraine for the use
of the Russian Empire, the Russian Government endeavoured to
assimilate Ukraine and reduce it to the level of other Russian
provinces. The economic independence of Ukraine was systematically destroyed by cutting the country from direct intercoursewith
abroad and turning it into a colonial market for the new Muscovite
industry. Along with administrative centralisation, the Russian
Government attempted a cultural assimilation of Ukraine. The
first victims of this policy were the UkrainianChurchand Ukrainian
schools. The pulse of the national Ukrainian life visibly weakened;
and only ethnographersand antiquaries,true to the fashion brought
over from Western Europe with Romanticism, tried to rescue and
preserve for posterity the traces of ancient traditions, especially
the folklore.
It seemed that the Ukrainian nation was condemned to disappear from the pages of history and to be assimilated by the
Russian nation. That it was not so, is due in the first place to the
influence of Western European ideas-of Romanticism, with its
interest in the common people, of Liberalism,of the ideas of political
and social emancipationwhich gradually spread among the cultured
representatives of the Ukrainian gentry and came in contact with
the still slumbering nation and historical traditions. These two
currents met and helped each other to produce what is known as
the Ukrainian renaissance. Its components were in the first place
members of the Ukrainian aristocracy, while its outward expression
was moder Ukrainian literature which made use of the popular
idiom-the Travestied kEneid of Ivan Kotlyarevsky (I789)-as
opposed to the artificial learned language saturated with Latin
and Church-Slavonicwords and expressions, and also the development of historical and ethnographical studies. The period of the
Napoleonic wars, and of the upheavals connected with them,
revived the political aspirations of the Ukrainian aristocracy.
In the first two decades of the Igth century Ukraine was
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THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

656

covered with a network of secret political societies, Masonic lodges

which were in close relations with similar societies in Russia and
Poland. The reaction which followed the failure of the Decembrist
rising of 1825 and the suppression of the Polish insurrection of
I830-I83I,

also subdued the Ukrainian separatists.

The final

equalisation of the Ukrainian aristocracy in rights and privileges

with the Russian quieted down the Ukrainian Fronde, but did not
put a stop to the Ukrainian national movement. The leading part
in the national life passed from the aristocracy to a new social class
which received in Russia the general name of "intelligentsia,"
and which consisted of the " ddclasse" elements of the same aristocracy, of state officials, of persons exercising liberal professions
and representatives oi the clergy and, later on, of the peasants
is so far as they succeeded in obtaining education and reaching a
higher social level. This class, similar to the Western European
" bourgeoisie,"was distinguishedby its tendency towards democratic
reforms and general political and social emancipation. The specific
political conditions in Russia contributed to the rapid radicalisation
of the Russian as well as the Ukrainian " intelligentsia." Their
interests and aims being rathersimilar,though in Ukrainethe national
element was naturally stronger, they joined their efforts. Soon,
however, there manifested themselves great divergences due to the
different psychology and different national and cultural traditions
of the Russians and the Ukrainians.
The programme of this phase of development of the Ukrainian
national movement is embodied in the statutes of the " Brotherhood
of SS. Cyril and Methodius" in Kiev (1846-1847). It dreamed of a
free federation of all Slavonic peoples and put forth, as the practical
aim, propagandaof a social and cultural emancipationof the popular
masses. The chief interpreter of the ideas of the Brotherhood was
Shevchenko, a poet of genius, himself a liberated serf. His
" Kobzar" (1841) remains to this day a national poetical Gospel
of the Ukrainians. The Russian Government lost no time in
putting an end to this movement. From that time began the
persecution of the Ukrainian national movement by the Russian
Imperial government which, with short intervals, lasted until the
Revolution of I9I7.

This persecution forced the Ukrainian patriots to look to the

Russian liberal and revolutionary movements for help. At the
time of the general political revival following the Crimean defeat,
the Ukrainians worked hand in hand with representatives of liberal
Russia. The Russian " intelligentsia" of Moscow and St. PetersThis content downloaded from 161.53.27.4 on Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:45:21 UTC
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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

657

burg received with enthusiasm the Ukrainian poet Shevchenko

on his return from exile in the Caspian desert, as a martyr for freedom. The best Russian publicists and journalists, such as Aksakov,
Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevshy in Russia, and Herzen in his
Kolokol in London, wrote on behalf of the Ukrainians, defending
their right to use the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian literature.
Turgenev translated into Russian the Ukrainian stories of Maria
Markovich (Marko Vovchok). The well-known Russian revolutionary Bakunin declared that, as the Ukrainians would probably
form an independent nation of 20 millions they could, of course,
enter into an alliance with either Poland or Russia, whichever they
chose, but that they must remain independent of the hegemony
of either of them.2
The Ukrainians' own aspirations at that time were very modest.
The well-known Ukrainian historian Kostomarov, in his letter to
Herzen published in Kolokol (No. 6I, I860), wrote that the Ukrainians were grateful to Alexander II for his intention of abolishing
serfdom,and merely wished that it should be complete, embodying
all political and social rights for the peasants and removing all
obstacles in the way of the development of the Ukrainian language
and its use in schools. "More than that," wrote Kostomarov,
"we do not expect for ourselves, beyond the wishes that we have
in common with the whole of Russia." In the review Osnova
published in I861-62 in St. Petersburg by former members of the
" Brotherhood of SS. Cyril and Methodius," the Ukrainians did
not go beyond these modest wishes, and the entire activity of the
Ukrainian patriots was concentrated on the organisation of
Ukrainian schools and the development of Ukrainian literature.
The general reaction produced in Russia by the Polish rising of
1863 also dealt a heavy blow to the Ukrainian national movement.
The Russian Government, urged by its chauvinistic press, saw the
spectre of Ukrainian separatism as a result of a " Polish intrigue."
In 1863 it was forbidden to teach Ukrainian in the schools, and to
print Ukrainianschool-booksor popularbooks for uneducatedpeople.
Even the Ukrainian translation of the Bible was forbidden.
Numerous Ukrainians in Kharkov, Poltava and Chernigov were
arrested and sent into exile to the Northern provinces of Russia.
The result of these repressionswas only that the more active elements
among tile Ukrainians joined the ranks of Russian revolutionary
parties, in the hope that general political freedom in Russia would
2

Letters of M. A. Bakunin to A. I. Herzen and N. P. Ogarev, Geneva,

I896, page 431.

TT

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658

THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

also bring national freedom to Ukraine. In the persons of Lyzohub,

Kybalchich, Zhelyabov, Kravchinsky and many otlherwell-known
members of the revolutionary party "Narodnaya Volya," the
Ukrainian intelligentsia paid a heavy tribute to the Russian revolutionary movement. At the same time, deprived of legal possibilities
of developing their national culture within the bounds of the Russian
Empire, the Ukrainians transferredthe centre of their literary and
national activities to the neighbouring Galicia, where, under the
protection of the Austrian Constitution, it was possible to publish
Ukrainian books, and to found literary and scientific societies
with the help of the local Ukrainian population. After ten years
of reaction, the Ukrainian national movement once more raised
its head in Kiev.
It was at this period that on the arena of the Ukrainian national
life appeared a young professor of History in the University of
Kiev, who had already travelled all the way from cosmopolitan
Liberalism of the usual Russian type to Ukrainian nationalism,
based on the Western European ideas of general progress. Dragomanov often emphasised in his autobiography the fact that one
of his uncles had been a member of the secret society of " United
Slavs" in the first quarter of the Igth century. His father,
who had spent 24 years in St. Petersburg, knew French and
English well enough to be able to translate French and English
poets, and held opinions that were "a mixture of Christianity,
I8th century philosophy, Jacobinism and democratic Caesarism." Thus Dragomanov inherited liberal and humanitarian
ideas which later on underlay his political "Weltanschauung."
These ideas were strengthened in him during his school-time in
Poltava under the influence of Liberal teachers, who succeeded
in implanting in him not only a taste for historical studies, but also
the love of political freedom and hatred of social iniquity. On
the other hand, Dragomanov grew up under the influence of
Ukrainian surroundings in the little provincial town of Gadyach.
National Ukrainian traditions, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian
folk-songs, folk-tales, legends, festival rituals-all this gave
him a thorough knowledge and understandingof Ukrainianfolklore
and ethnography, which helped him in his subsequent scientific
studies in this domain. The happy harmony of family surroundings and school influence, so rare in the life both of
Ukrainians and of Russians, left its imprint on Dragomanov's
moral and intellectual personality: his clear and wholesome mind,
free from complexes, from the introspective indecision and inward
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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

659

disharmony that were the curse of generations of Russians. He

entered life with a healthy, well-balanced and harmonious nature.
At the beginning, as we have said, the cosmopolitan turn of mind,
in its common Russian variety, predominated. Even though he
admired Shevchenko, his ideal was Herzen with his Kolokol, and
he preferred Walter Scott's historical tales to those of Kulish.
As distinct from most of his countrymen, Dragomanov came to
embrace the cause of Ukrainian nationalism not through theoretical
and speculative considerations or emotions, but in trying to meet
the practical necessities of the Ukrainian popular masses.
As a student of Kiev University, Dragomanov took an active
part in the organisationof the so-called " Sunday Schools " for town
workers. Because pupils of these schools knew no other language
than the Ukrainian, it was necessary to teach them in their own
language, and compile Ukrainian school-booksfor them. Nominated
in 1863 docent of History in the University of Kiev, Dragomanov
divided his time between his historical studies and his pedagogical
and journalistic activities. At that time was inaugurated in
Ukraine the " zemstvo," or local elected self-government. Among
other things it had to build up a system of elementary schools for
the population. The question arose, in what language should this
elementary instruction be carried on, in Russian, only partly understood by the population, or in Ukrainian? The question was taken
up by the Press and debated at length. Dragomanov wrote in the
papers and reviews of St. Petersburg in defence of Ukrainian, on
the ground of educational expediency. This brought him in touch
with the Ukrainian patriots in Kiev. At the same time his studies
in comparative religion and mythology of the Aryan peoples led
him to studies of Slavonic folklore in general and Ukrainian in
particular. Together with Professor V. Antonovich he undertook
a scholarly publication of Ukrainianhistorical songs, and in 1874-75
there appeared two volumes which included Ukrainian historical
songs to the end of the I7th century. With this publication Dragomanov made his name among European scholars: the
Athenaeumand the Saturday Review3gave the opinion of English
scholars, who greeted his books as a valuable contribution to studies
in European folklore.
Ukrainian scholars in Kiev had no chance of associating and
working under their own colours; so they organised a complete
investigation of Ukrainian archaeology,philology, folklore, statistics
3 The Athenasum,29 August, I874, No. 2,444, and The Saturday
Review,
Vol. 39, June, 1875.
TT

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660

THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

and national economy, and art, under the auspices of the SouthWestern Section of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in
Kiev. In a short time they developed brilliant scientific activity,
and could show the results of it to the European scholars assembled
in Kiev for the ArchaeologicalCongressof I874. W. R. Morfil in
the columns of the Athenacumand G. Roleston in the Saturday
Review gave a high appreciation of the result of this work; and
Alfred Rambaud wrote in the Revue des deux Mondes that the
Ukrainians were " picking up the membradisjecta of their nation."
Dragomanov was one of the most active members of this learned
body. While continuing his work in his own branch of historical
research, that of Roman history-The Position of Women in the
First Century of the Roman Empire (1870), Tacitus and Roman
History (I87I)-he published at the same time, besides the two
volumes of Ukrainian Historical Songs, a volume of Ukrainian Folk
Legendsand Tales (1876) and a whole series of studies in Ukrainian
folklore, literature and history, besides his articles in different
reviews in defence of the Ukrainian language and the right of the
Ukrainians to use it in schools, in church and elsewhere. During
his travels abroad on behalf of his historical studies, Dragomanov
met Western European scholars and contracted a lasting friendship
with such men as Gaston Paris, W. R. Morfil,De Gubernatis,Elisee
Reclus4 and others. He began to contribute to French, English
and Italian scientific reviews,6 writing on Ukraine and its national
aspirations. In his own country Dragomanov became, together
with Professor V. Antonovich, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian
national movement. His political views tended towards a wide
decentralisation of the Russian Empire on the basis of national
autonomies, a liberal constitution and a parliamentary system.
Within the limits of Ukrainianlife, Dragomanovstood for a thorough
education of the population by means of good schools, good popular
books and the development of Ukrainian literature on Western
European lines.
The achievements of the Ukrainians in Kiev in the first half
of the seventies alarmed the Russian authorities in St. Petersburg,
inspired by the reactionary elements from Kiev. It was suggested
that the Ukrainian scientific movement involved not only the
danger of separatism but also of revolutionary Socialism. DragoThe volume La Russie d'Europe in the Elisee Reclus' Nouvelle Geographie
Universelle, Paris, I880, contains a contribution by Dragomanov: the
statistical, ethnographical and political part of it was written by him.
6 he A thencoumpublished his article "
Ostap Veresai: The Last Menestrel
of the Ukraine," and his reviews of several new books on Ukrainian folklore.

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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

66i

manov became the object of special hatred and denunciations on

the part of the reactionary press. As a result of this there was a
new wave of repressions: the Kiev Section of the Imperial Geographical Society was dissolved, liberal papers were suspended, and
a special decree (I876) forbade the printing of Ukrainian books,
Ukrainian performancesin theatres, the singing of Ukrainian songs
at concerts and the import of Ukrainian books printed in Galicia.
These measures were followed by personal persecutions: many
Ukrainians were dismissed from posts held by them in the universities or in the state service, and some were banished to remote
Russian provinces. Dragomanov was also dismissed from the
University and only escaped banishment by leaving Ukraine for
abroad. Ukrainian patriots in Kiev entrusted him with the
establishment of an Ukrainian review in Europe, to acquaint
European public opinion with the aspirationsand wrongs of Ukraine.
He was promised regular financial help, in addition to the assistance
of some Ukrainians who had left the country at the same time.
Dragomanov founded an Ukrainian printing office in Geneva and
started the review Hromada,in Ukrainian, and also issued a series
of pamphlets in European languages on Ukraine. In all his publications Dragomanov championed political freedom for Russia and
social reforms and national autonomy for the non-Russians of the

Empire. He severely criticised the hypocrisy of the Russian

policy: " They declare war on the Turks for the 'liberation of the
Balkan Slavs' while other Slavonic peoples under Russian rulePoles, Ukrainians and White Russians-have not the most elementary national rights." Dragomanov was a warm admirer of the
British political system, and always said that English democracy,
the oldest and the strongest in Europe, should serve as an example
to other nations, especially to his own country. Later on, in his
lectures at the University of Sofia, he used to say that the future
belongs to the British: among the other peoples in the world, the
British nation stands out by its love of freedom,its respect of human
dignity and its readinessto defend right and law. He also attached
much importance to the so-called " zemstvo" in Russia as the first
step from local self-governmentto a sound constitutional and parliamentary system. One of the principal books which he wrote
during this period was a monograph entitled Historical Poland and
Russian Democracy (1882). Here Dragomanov made a critical
examination of the revolutionary movements in Russia together
with the Polish and the Ukrainian problems and the principle of
decentralisation for Russia. This book was followed (I884) by a
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programmeof political and administrative decentralisationof Russia

on the basis of wide local autonomies. This programme was
elaborated to the smallest details. He called it "A Free Union
(Vilna Spilka). An attempt at a political and social programme."
At the same time Dragomanov completed his Ukrainian Historical
Songs by editing in Geneva in 1883-1885 two more volumes, comprising the songs of the I8th and I9th centuries.
While Dragomanov was conscientiously carrying out the task
entrusted to him by his political friends in Kiev, and, in doing so,
grew more and more radical in his views, the political atmosphere
among the Ukrainians underwent a great change. The general
political reaction which set in after the murderof the Tsar Alexander
II, the breaking up of revolutionary parties, and harsh repressions
against Ukrainian national organisationsin Kiev, Odessa and other
towns, depressed and disheartened the Ukrainian patriots. They
lost all hope of attaining anything for Ukraine by way of revolutionary conflict. Some of them, as for instance the old historian
Kostomarov, tried to " reconcile" the Russian Government with
the Ukrainians, by telling it over and over again, in the columns
of differentRussian reviews, how unfoundedwas its fear of Ukrainian
patriotism: " All that the Ukrainians wish," he said, "is to be
able to develop their literature and to teach the peasants their own
language in the elementary schools and in the church." Many
Ukrainian patriots, putting aside their political interests, confined themselves exclusively to literary or artistic activity, availing
themselves of the temporary relaxation, in the years 1882-84, of
the Draconian measures against everything Ukrainian. Under
these conditions Dragomanov's activity in Geneva seemed to his
former political friends not only unnecessary and undesirable, but
actually dangerous, because it provoked and constantly irritated
the Russian authorities. Misunderstandingsarose between them
and Dragomanov, until a complete breach followed (I885). On
the other hand Dragomanov did not satisfy the still extant revolutionary elements. He said himself that, though a Socialist in his
opinions, he was sure that the realisation of socialist ideals was
possible only by gradual development after a high standard of
culture had been attained, in other words by evolution and not by
means of sanguinary risings. Dragomanov severely condemned
the terroristictactics of the Russian revolutionaries,and was accused
by them of being an agent of the Russian government. For a time,
owing to all this, Dragomanov felt very isolated and lived in retirement, chiefly engaged in his folklore studies. Some of them were
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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

663

published in Galicia, others in Kiev, in the review KievskayaStarina

-of course under a pseudonym.
Soon, however, he found a new field for his practical activities,
to which he was drawn by his nature and his very active temperament. At the end of the seventies he entered into close relations
with some Ukrainians from Galicia, mostly young students, and
found among them faithful followersand disciples. In his numerous
letters and articles in the reviews founded by them, Dragomanov
criticised severely the reactionary, inert and superficialnationalism
of the then leading Ukrainian political party in Galicia, the socalled "Narodovci." He called for active political work based
upon the principles of progress; for the realisation of the constitutional rights which, though existing in theory, practically did not
exist in Galicia. He recommended,above all, concentration on the
education of the popular masses, mostly peasants, on their organisation and political training. Under his influence and theoretical
leadershipthere was founded in Galicia the so-called Radical Party,
which made a great appeal to the peasants and secured the election
of representatives both to the local Diet and to the Reichsrat in
Vienna. Invited in I889 to occupy the Chair of History in the
University of Sofia, in Bulgaria, Dragomanov continued to influence
the Radical Party in Galicia from Sofia, as he had done from Geneva,
and to take an active part in the literary and political life of Galicia
by contributing to reviews and papers, especially the monthly
review Zhyttei Slovo founded in Lvov and edited by his pupil, a very
gifted Ukrainian poet and scholar, Ivan Franko. At the same time
he published his valuable scientific papers on folklore and comparative religion in the Mdlusine, a French review edited in Paris,
and also in the Bulgarian Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija. To
this period belongs his book on the history of European Constitutions (Stari chartii volnostei), beginning with the English Magna
Carta. This book was published both in Ukrainian and Bulgarian.
Dragomanov's books found their way to Ukraine and were
very much read, especially by the new generation. The growth of
the radical movement in Galicia gave hope and encouragement to
this new generation in Ukraine, and they lent their moral and
material support to this movement in the hope that national achievements in Galicia would also benefit the Ukrainiansin Russia. Some
of the older generation of the Ukrainian patriots reproachedDragomanov for his neglect of the nationalistic side of the Ukrainian
movement, and accused him of attaching too much importance to
mutual relations with the Russians when Dragomanov insisted on
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THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

a more intimate contact with the Russian Liberals.6 But the

young generation from the beginning of the nineties followed
Dragomanov, and his influence became decisive in both parts of
Ukraine, Austrian and Russian.
Dragomanov was still comparatively young when a grave illness
brought him to his grave; he died in Sofia on 20 June, I895. But
he had the great moral satisfaction, shortly before his death, when
at the end of I894 his followers in Galicia celebrated the thirtieth
anniversary of his literary activity, of seeing that the whole Liberal
Ukrainian "intelligentsia," both in Austria and Russia, unanimously acknowledgedhim as their leader.
Numerous collective messages, sent from all the more or less
important centres of Ukraine by representatives of the younger
generation, laid stress on the fact that it was Dragomanov who had
" raised the Ukrainian national movement from a purely literary
and ethnographical basis to the level of political and social questions, and connected it with the problems of national economy
and international justice." "It was Dragomanov," they said,
" who declared that the Ukrainian national movement could have
no future nor become a political power so long as there was no
political liberty in Russia." By political liberty he understood
also national liberty for nations other than Russians. Evidently
Dragomanov expected the decentralisation of the Russian Empire
and the federation of the nations comprising European Russia to
benefit the Russians as well.7 The part played by Dragomanov
in working out a new ideology for this phrase of the Ukrainian
national movement is very well expressed in these declarations
of his contemporaries.
At the beginning of the 20th century these ideas of Dragomanov were officially accepted by all Ukrainian parties both in
Austria and Russia, and formed the basis of their respective
political programmes. Autonomy of Ukraine within a Russia
reconstructed on the federative basis was proclaimed by the
Ukrainian National Fraction in the First and Second Dumas, and it
was embodied in the programme of all Ukrainian political parties
next to the demand for wide social reforms. The same points were
put forward by the Ukrainian Central Rada at the beginning of
the Revolution of 1917. On the other hand the Ukrainians in
6 They had in mind especially his two books: Chudatski dumky pro ukrainsku
natsionalnu spravu (1892) and Lysty na Ukrainu Naddnyprzansku (I894) in
which he maintained that the Ukrainian national movement was cosmopolitan
in its aims and national only in its form.
7
Pavlyk, M., M. P. Dragomanov, Lvov, 1896, pp. 66-ff.

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MYKHAILO DRAGOMANOV.

665

Austria demanded the reconstructionof Austria as a federation of

nations on the basis of a stricter observanceof the equality of rights,
and the unification of Ukrainian territories (East Galicia, Bukovina
and CarpathianRussia) into one Ukrainian autonomous land.
The events of 1917 and the Bolshevist movement in Russia
mixed up the cards for Ukrainian politicians. New circumstances
demanded new solutions. Ukrainians were at once confronted
with a double task: that of building up a new Ukrainian State
amid a very complicated international situation, and introducing
radical social reforms in the conflagration of a revolution unprecedented in history. Destructive Bolshevist currents, spreading
at first among the Ukrainian peasants and workmen, paralysed
the creative political elements in Ukraine, and these elements
succumbed under the wholesale pressure of Red Moscow. Russian
federation and social reforms, two important principles advocated
by Dragomanov, were realised in a form from which the soberest
and most faithful of his followers shrank back with revulsion.
After the new Ukrainian State finally succumbed in I920 in an
unequal struggle with the Soviets, there began in the minds of
Ukrainians,especially of political emigrants, a deep crisis of political
conception, a fundamental re-estimation of values that is still going
on to this day. The whole activity of Dragomanov has been subjected to a new critical discussion: he is being severely criticised for
his excessive Russophilism; bitter reproaches are heaped upon him
for his neglect of the idea of an independent Ukrainian State.
But his critics are completely lacking in historical perspective:
they commit the errorof judging a politician in the light of historical
events that took place much later. Dragomanov was, and could
not help being, bound up with his time. His political ideas and
his work were the result of the preceding evolution of Ukraine in
the course of the Igth century. In "accusing" Dragomanov
one should therefore " accuse" all his contemporaries, as well as
the former generations of Ukrainians who gave up the idea of
political independenceof Ukraine; but he failed to see the elements
which could bring about and maintain that independence. It was
Dragomanov's view that even if Ukrainian independence could be
brought about by a favourable configurationof outward forces and
political events, in order to maintain it the country needed sufficient
creative forces; these he failed to see at that time.
True, there were in Dragomanov's teaching and in his work
some errorswhich we see clearly now, and which were also pointed out
by some of his contemporaries. Such, for instance, was his preaching
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666

THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

of cosmopolitanideas in a land and among a people that were bereft of

the most elementary national rights. Such was his negative attitude
towards the Churchand the clergy in Galicia. On the other hand,
Dragomanov's political ideas and his activity were imbued with
a noble idealism and a deep love of his country and people. His
high ethical principles are a peculiar characteristic of his whole
personality. "A clean job demands clean hands ", "No purpose,
however lofty, can excuse foul means "-such were his favourite
maxims. In his case these were no mere words, but rules of conduct
in public and private life. He demandedthe same from his followers
and adversaries. His high ethical standard had an extremely
valuable educational influence on the Ukrainian national movement,
which displayed, at least before the Revolution, an exceptionally
high ethical level. All the shortcomings of Dragomanov's political
doctrine are explained in the light of his surroundings; and they
are redeemed by the services which he rendered to his people and
his country, as a champion of political and national emancipation
not only of Ukraine, but the whole of Eastern Europe. As a scholar,
by his valuable works on folklore and history, he greatly contributed
to Ukrainian science and literature, and made his country known
to wider circles in Western Europe.
D. DOROSHENKO.

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