A Symposium and Selected Writings

by Михайло Драгоманов, Philip E. Mosely, Volodymyr Doroshenko

Last year the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. commemorated the 110th anniversary of the birth of Mykhaylo
Drahomanov, the distinguished Ukrainian thinker and scholar. His works, written in the second part of the nineteenth century at a time of cultural rebirth among many Slav nations, represent a signal contribution to the problem of relations between the Slavs and especially between the Ukrainians and their neighbors in a community of free and independent nations.
The problems which Drahomanov faced in his own day still await solution today. Perhaps a constructive approach may be
gained through the study of a man who, like many Ukrainian scholars today, had to leave his native Ukraine and yet came to see
more clearly her place in Europe. “Emigration,” Drahomanov wrote, “is bitter, but under certain circumstances, inevitable. Beginning with the sixteenth century the freedom of England, Scotland, then of France, Germany, Italy, and Hungary could not do without emigration and its literature. The freedom of the Ukraine also demands it” (Letters to the Dnieper Ukraine).
The Ukrainian Academy has formed a special commission for the study of Drahomanov’s works. In particular it is hoped to prepare
an edition of the unpublished correspondence of Drahomanov, a part of which (e.g. correspondence between Drahomanov and
Lesya Ukrayinka) is now at the Academy’s disposal.
The present volume which is published as a special issue of the Annals presents a symposium of studies devoted to Mykhaylo Drahomanov and a selection from his own works. It is intended to acquaint the English speaking world and in particular American
and English students of East European history with the life and work of Drahomanov.
It is hoped that the present issue will inaugurate a series of larger monographs or individual works of Ukrainian scholarship in English translation.
The Editors

Genres: Politics

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Михайло Петрович Драгома́нов — український публіцист, історик, філософ, економіст, літературознавець, фольклорист, громадський діяч, представник відомого роду українських громадських і культурних діячів Драгоманових.
Один із організаторів «Старої громади» у Києві. Доцент Київського університету (1864 —1875). Після звільнення за політичну неблагонадійність емігрував до Женеви, де очолював осередок української політичної еміграції (1876–1889). Професор Вищої школи у Софії (зараз — Софійський університет) (1889–1895).
Брат письменниці та громадської діячки Олени Пчілки, дядько Лесі Українки й Оксани Драгоманової. Його син — Драгоманов Світозар Михайлович.

Reviews

[Serhii Povísenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a strange feeling to hold a book 70 years old, bought on abebooks.com somewhere from an Irish archival bookstore. The preface clearly says

The present volume which is published as a special issue of the Annals presents a symposium of studies devoted to Mykhaylo Drahomanov and a selection from his own works. It is intended to acquaint the English speaking world and in particular American and English students of East European history with the life and work of Drahomanov.

I think the fact that it was published in the US but I found the book in Ireland might be seen as a success of the publishing aim.

The volume consists of two parts. The first part is called Symposium on Mykhaylo Drahomanov. Here are papers of mostly Ukrainian scholars who emigrated to the US after WW2. The Symposium opened with Philip Edward Mosely's paper Drahomanon and European Conscience. Dr. Mosely was an outstanding member of that small band of Americans who, long before World War II, made Eastern Europe the object of their scholarly concerns. His acquaintance with Drahomanov happened thanks to Ivan L. Rundytsky, who after moving to the US in 1952, quickly embedded himself into a small academic group of Eastern European scholars at Columbia University.

The thing that drew Mosely's attention to Drahomanov was his political works which coined the idea that the inner structure of a revolutionary organisation will be replicated by the regime established by such an organisation in case of the success of their revolutionary endeavour. Particularly that piece is presented in the second part of the volume named Selected Writings of Mykhaylo Drahomanov. That political view on revolution was not only important at the end of the XIX century or mid-XX but even today in XXI. Particularly when we want to evaluate the impact of Maidan on the Ukrainian political structure came after and the way how and why the country fights Russian aggression today. But when we go back to the one-hundred-year-old historical event of communism establishment in Russia with all its terror, repressions and genocides, the works of Drahomanov are indispensable to understanding why it all happened. Why? Because he very clearly articulates the preconditions that existed among Russian revolutionary circles and how they were different from the Ukrainian ones. Ultimately that difference resulted in what we know as the Ukrainian War of Independence 1917-1921, Holodomors and mass killings of the Ukrainian communist-national elites in the 30s.

Yet another spotlight of the volume is the first publishing of Ivan L. Rudnytsky's paper called Drahomanov as a Political Theorsit. It's a fundamental essay that surveys the modern democratic foundation created by Drahomanov. His publication in Hromada and numerous letters addressed to members of political opposition to both Russian and Ukrainian in then-existing empires both Russian and Austri-Hungarian resemble the coherent and insightful political and social vision of both the present and the future. Being a forced emigrant driven out by the Russian tsarist regime, he had a chance to inscribe Ukrainian political cause into the European liberal context, align it with it and give an impetus for generations followed to build on. It's not without exaggeration that Drahomaov was called the first European among Ukrainians being the first intellectual who signed himself to be Ukrainian when his papers were published in different European countries. His ideas were known to Max Weber and both men are from the same league.

The volume just gives a glimpse of Drahomanov's legacy. It is a must-read for anyone in the West interested in Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe as a part of a larger European context. Unfortunately among the wide audience in Ukraine, his works mostly remain known to scholars and historians. There is a pedagogic university in Kyiv in his name, which reflects a completely wrong impression of him and his legacy in public cultural space. All of that hides away a tremendous part of the political and cultural consciousness that he wrote about. On the other hand, it could be explained by the fact that the majority of his works were not published in Ukraine during his lifetime and the Soviets banned them entirely except his papers and pamphlets on folklore narrowing his image to provincial scribe. Yet we are indebted to emigration that preserved his intellectual legacy and nourished it. Today, thanks to such resources as diasporiana.org.ua and chtyvo.org.ua, his works have been digitalised and are available for anyone interested. That is a huge step to move the cause in the right direction.