Ahatanhel Krymsky’s Ukrainian idea of universal human systems of coordinates
WAY OF THE CROSS
If a child can read at the age of three and a half, his parents have ample grounds to claim that God has endowed him with extraordinary abilities. Such abilities can either further develop or remain untapped. Everything depends on the circumstances of life. Ahatanhel, the son of a geography teacher and former postal clerk whose Crimean Tartar ancestors had left Bakhchysarai for the Polish Kingdom in the seventeenth century, was lucky. The father, who could and did work to improve himself, handed down his best qualities to his son. He also taught his brain to work indefatigably and uninterruptedly. Thanks to his father’s incredibly rich library and especially to his own early-developed willpower, the young man showed exceptionally rapid intellectual growth
The would-be academician went to the pre-gymnasium at Ostroh (1881-1884), the Second Kyiv Gymnasium (1884-1885) and, finally, to the famous Pavlo Halahan College (1885-1889). Consider but one fact: after graduating from Halahan College, the 18-year-old youth knew 15 languages, including seven modern European and such ancient ones as Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, and Turkish. Until the end of his life Krymsky constantly added new languages to this list.
Ahatanhel continued his education at Moscow’s Lazarev Institute of Oriental Studies (1889- 1892) where he acquired profound knowledge of not only the languages but also the history, culture, and philosophy of Eastern peoples — from the Arab world (one especially close to him) to Turkey, Persia, and India. What made a major contribution to this was a scholarly expedition to Lebanon (1896-1898), following which the still young researcher was soon offered a professorship at his alma mater, the Lazarev Institute.
Yet, what made Krymsky unique is the fact that he organically combined deep Oriental research (among his hundreds of works are A History of Turkey, A History of Persia and Its Literature, Persian Theater, A History of Modern Arabic Literature, and An Essay in Balkan Literature) along with exceptionally fruitful work in Ukrainian studies. It will be recalled that it was Krymsky, already permanent secretary of the All- Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1918-1928), who made an invaluable contribution to the standardization of the Ukrainian language: it was he who founded the Commission on the Living Ukrainian Language (1918), published together with Serhiy Yefremov and Hryhory Holoskevych the several volumes of a Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary, Ukrainian Grammar (vol. 1, 2, 1907-1908), an unusual (and the first of its kind) historical commentary on the development of Ukrainian, and simultaneously an analysis of its current status. Finally, what in fact became Academician’s Krymsky’s priceless achievement was drafting the first Basic Rules of Ukrainian Orthography (1921).
By far the most dramatic page in the outstanding scholar’s life was his tenure as first permanent secretary of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Krymsky went to work at the academy together with its first president, Volodymyr Vernadsky, guided, above all, by a passionate desire to really promote the national, cultural, and spiritual renaissance of the Ukrainian people. He had to face a host of difficulties, the main problem being the intention of the Bolsheviks to take complete control of the academy.
The first signs of this appeared in 1921. By force of circumstances, it was Academician Krymsky who had to bear the main burden, defending the institution’s internal independence. Already in late 1921, the People’s Commissariat for Education of the Ukrainian SSR sent its representative, in fact a political commissar, to the academy. Under the new charter imposed on it, all of its members were subject to confirmation by the People’s Commissariat (read: government). Krymsky appraised this fact as follows, “This is a creature of an awfully stubborn and obtusely scholastic person patterned on Gogol’s insane Colonel Koshkarev.” Yet, it is largely due to the efforts of Krymsky that the academy managed to maintain proper standards. For example, in 1925 the Institute of the Ukrainian Language alone employed 200 research associates who compiled in those years dictionaries of 37 scientific terminology dictionaries (figures supplied by L. Matvyeyeva and E.Tsyhankova, researchers of A.Y.Krymsky’s life and work).
The great scholar resolutely opposed the reprisals against and persecutions of prominent scholars. He assisted in securing the release of Academicians Korchak- Chepurkivsky, Ptukha, and Steblytsky from prison. Krymsky noted, “The esteemed title, Doctor of Some Sciences, should not be awarded for some weak research. But let me draw your attention to the circulating rumors that rich people, those who now have money, take advantage of the poor living standards of old researchers and hire the latter to do scientific research for them and thus receive — in fact, buy — a doctorate” (this in 1924!).
In May 1928, under pressure of the People’s Commissariat of Education (in fact, of the Communist Party of Ukraine Central Committee), Academician Krymsky had to resign his office. This was the beginning of the scholar’s personal tragedy. A year later OGPU (secret police — Ed.) arrested his scholarly secretary (and adopted son), talented young researcher Mykhailo Levchenko who, among other things, helped the increasingly poor-sighted academician to work. The world-renowned scholar wrote the OGPU investigator, one M. Goldman, on August 8, 1929, “A loyal son of Soviet Ukraine, a staunch advocate and servant of Soviet power, an old meritorious scholar, I request — no, implore — you not to hinder my scholarly pursuit. To this end, please return me my scholarly secretary, M. Z. Levchenko...” The entreaty did not help: Levchenko was deported to the Solovky prison camp, where he soon died.
Academician Krymsky was arrested by the NKVD on July 20, 1941 at his parents’ estate in Zvenyhorodka, Cherkasy oblast, and escorted to Kustanai, Kazakhstan, where he died of starvation and cold in the prison infirmary. He was 71. This happened on January 25, 1942, over sixty years ago.
LESSONS STILL TO BE LEARNED
Encyclopedism is a patriotic category. What convincingly proves this is the life story of Ahatanhel Yukhymovych Krymsky who, although a unique connoisseur of Oriental history and culture, was simultaneously an eminent researcher of Ukraine. He identified himself as a “wholehearted Ukrainian and non-socialist” who did his utmost to introduce the Ukrainian idea into the worldwide system of coordinates. Let us admit: what a contrast this is with certain present-day “intellectuals” whose “patriotism” hopelessly suffers from provincialism and, moreover, primitivism... In Soviet times, Krymsky was not given his due, although — let us be fair — five volumes of his selected works were published. But why is something of the sort continuing even now? Is the reason really in the scholar’s non-Ukrainian ethnic origin? I wish it were not so, for it is a maxim that the civilized countries of Europe have long been proud of their sons of any ethnicity.
A humanist and encyclopedist (even in his History of Turkey he described willingly and in detail the epochs of peaceful and fraternal cohabitation of the people of different faiths — Turks, Greeks and Slavs — in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), Ahatanhel Krymsky, when still only eighteen years old, set himself the goal: “Only then will I be of use for Ukraine when I have a broad view of the world.” He fulfilled this program. Let us ponder these words. It is in fact the project of twenty- first century Ukraine!
