Ukraine’s Thirty Years’ War
Russian Internal Affairs Minister PСtr Valuev’s edict [banning virtually all Ukrainian publications] of 1863 and the Ems Ukaz of 1876 [a secret imperial decree of Alexander II, prohibiting the import of Ukrainian books and public readings and stage performances in the language] also meant persecution of the Ukrainophiles. Indeed, all those loving things Ukrainian were assumed to propagate the prohibited language, so all of them had to suffer the consequences. In the early 1860s, Pavlo Chubynsky was exiled to the province of Arkhangelsk; Oleksandr Konysky to Vologda and then Totma and Bobrintsi. Dmytro Palchyk, of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, to Kherson province. One could love Ukraine, but as a rule only out in the cold.
History repeated itself in the mid-1870s. Mykhailo Drahomanov had to emigrate from Ukraine. Chubynsky was prohibited to reside in Ukraine, so he went to St. Petersburg and worked for the Ministry of Transport. Among the inmates was Borys Hrinchenko, then quite young... There is something today’s Ukrainians ought to know about: our language has survived precisely because all those dissidents fought to keep it alive and also because there were all those millions mostly living in the countryside, cherishing their mother tongue. Languages not practiced daily tend to die out.
DRAHOMANOV’S MISSION
The period since the date of the Ems Ukaz to its cancellation could be described as Ukraine’s Thirty Years’ War, a war waged by a nation to win the right to be one.
Mykhailo Drahomanov’s role in it was unique. He was sent abroad by the Kyiv Old Hromada to publish and simultaneously propagate Ukraine in Europe. Drahomanov was perfectly equipped to carry out the mission. He was a gifted wordsmith and scholar, knew several languages, had spent three years training at European universities, and he was a talented public figure and thinker generating political ideas. Drahomanov belonged to the left radical wing of Kyiv’s Stara Hromada [Old Community], in contrast to the “moderate” cultural one trying to keep out of politics. He was, in his own words, “a Socialist of the Western European school but not a Russian nihilist.” In fact, he had serious differences with the Russian nihilists, without whom Russian Bolshevism would not have been likely to emerge. He rejected terror as a method of political struggle, believing that “mental propaganda,” rather than “bloody uprisings,” was an effective way to improve society. Nor did he accept the “nationalist self-induced blindness of the Russian revolutionaries” manifest in their “centralizing” and basically imperial sentiments.
In the fall of 1876, Drahomanov settled in Geneva and set up a Ukrainian publishing house destined to last for 43 years. He bought the premises and equipment from a group of Mikhail Bakunin’s followers, with financial aid from another ОmigrО, Serhiy Podolynsky, one of his associates, born to a wealthy family. Among his output at the time were five issues of the journal Hromada, popular political booklets, a collection of folk materials, fiction (“Shevchenko’s Verse Banned in Russia,” the poem Maria, Panas Myrny, and Ivan Bilyk’s novel Do the Oxen Low When the Manger Is Full?, Panteleimon Kulish’s collection of verse, The Bell, and more). All this printed matter was then smuggled into Russia.
Drahomanov explained the mission in his autobiography: “I set myself the following plan of literary work: (1) provide as much material as possible to study Ukraine and its people, its cultural initiatives and aspirations for freedom and equality; and (2) use this material and a statement of Western European liberal and social democratic ideas to help organize political study groups in the lands of Ukraine, Russia, and Austria, so they could undertake to liberate the people in cultural, political, and social terms.”
The way Drahomanov went about his mission is evidenced by the following fact: in 1878, Paris hosted an international literary congress. He had specially prepared himself for the event and published a pamphlet, Ukrainian Literature Persecuted by Russian Government, copies to be disseminated among the delegates and the chairman to be persuaded to include a pertinent “protective” clause in the [final] resolution. Paris newspapers carried excerpts from the booklet. Turgenev in his speech at the congress seconded Drahomanov’s protest and the entire text was entered in the minutes with copies in German, Italian, Spanish, and Serbian available to the congress participants.
Shortly after the celebrated scholar’s death (1895), Ivan Franko, who had been influenced by Drahomanov’s ideas in his youth, summed it up: “All his endeavors were one great homily on tireless work for the good and progress of our people.”
INTERDICTIONS NOTWITHSTANDING
Several years after the Ems Ukaz (in 1882, to be precise), a Ukrainian professional drama company appeared in Yelyzavethrad [currently Kirovohrad in Ukraine], directed by Marko Kropyvnytsky, a perfectly paradoxical occurrence that requires explaining. How could it happen in the first place? It is common knowledge that laws have never been strictly observed in Russia, yet in this case the situation was different.
First, it was a carrot and stick policy. In 1880-81, Russia’s minister of the internal affairs was Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov, of Armenian parentage. Publicist Mykola Mykhailovsky wrote of him, “the mouth of a wolf and the tail of a fox.” His was a policy of “kindness, politeness, and accessibility with regard to the people, along with harsh measures to combat sedition.” Pestered by numerous requests, the minister issued a secret circular, in October 1881, whereby Ukrainian drama performances and concerts were allowed, albeit subject to restrictions: an evening’s repertoire with a Ukrainian play had to include a Russian one with the same number of acts. In reality, local authorities often connived at breaches of the clause. Local drama companies observed it as a pure formality, adding a single-act Russian vaudeville to the program for appearance’s sake. Often it was played to an empty audience save a night watchman and people who came only to watch the Ukrainian play.
The need to make concessions for the “locals” was explained by the constant and alarming presence of the powerful Ukrainian element. Amateur drama groups were spreading on an increasing scale. There was a certain social contract on Ukrainian performances: people expected them. In January-February 1882, for example, the Kropyvnytsky Company, including Sadovsky, performed seventeen Ukraine plays in Kyiv. Within several weeks! Among them were Natalka-Poltavka, Nazar Stodolia, Matchmaking at the Village of Honcharivka, Shelmenko, Officer’s Servant, etc. That spring the company opened the [theatrical] season in Yelyzavethrad, a provincial center of the Russian Empire that would quickly win the reputation of “the cradle of the Ukrainian theater.” Kropyvnytsky and Sadovsky invited Mariya Asadovska- Khlystova to join the cast. From then on the actress was known throughout the Russia Empire as Mariya Zankovetska.
Actually, it was yet another factor causing the paradoxical situation with the Ukrainian theater, of which the critic Durylin wrote that it “did not exist... since 1876 until 1881.” Most importantly, [theatrical] personalities appeared, primarily Kropyvnytsky, the brothers Tobilevych — people that could accomplish what seemed impossible to do.
Starytsky, Konysky, and Hrinchenko also did, succeeding in putting out books and almanacs in Ukrainian, restrictions notwithstanding. The first such almanac to appear in Dnipro Ukraine after the Ems Ukaz, was titled Luna [Echo] (Kyiv, 1881), courtesy of Konysky. Another almanac, Rada [Council], appeared in 1883. Ivan Franko compared it to “the first spring thunder after long months of biting cold, slush, rain, and decay.” Fedir Plotnir, an ethnic Ukrainian resident and local history expert of the New Prague recently presented me with a copy of that rare publication. In fact, he was a most remarkable figure. He received his Ostarbeiter compensation at the age of 82 and used the money to publish a history of New Prague, having gathered the material by bits and pieces all his life.
It is a whole tome. The list of contents features verse by Olena Pchilka, Hrinchenko, Shchoholev, Starytsky, Nechui-Levytsky’s Mykola Dzheria, The Recruit, a story by Hnat Kary (Ivan Tobilevych), Starytsky’s drama Ne sudylosia, and Mykhailo Komarov’s “Bibliographic Index of New Ukrainian Literature (1798-1883).” Leafing through this volume is like glimpsing science-fiction newsreels showing dramatic scenes from the Ukrainian Thirty Years’ War.
BEHOLD YOURSELF AND GO YOUR WAY!
Ukrainian Galicia (Halychyna) was an extremely important factor, the Ukrainian Piedmont during the trying time of war. In the late nineteenth century, it was part of Austria-Hungary, which became a constitutional monarchy in 1848. Ethnic Ukrainians were also persecuted, yet the authorities never thought of banning their mother tongue. Also, the Ukrainians living in Halychyna, then known as Rusyny or Ruthenians turned out to be immune to assimilation, in distinct contrast to the Dnipro Ukrainians who had long been taught that they were “as good as other Russians.”
In the 1890s, Lviv was an acknowledged Ukrainian cultural and political center. There were Ukrainian journals, publishing companies, educational associations, and political parties. Such parties began to emerge in Eastern Ukraine, in 1900. Interestingly, it was then Mykola Mikhnovsky, a trained lawyer, issued his Samostiyna Ukrayina [Independent Ukraine], outlining the concept of a Ukrainian state, bringing it forth as a political priority.
Actually, the national revival process received a powerful impetus in the late 1890s, climaxing in the proclamation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and Western Ukrainian National Republic. Then everybody had to travel a winding and thorny road to establish their republics, however short-lived. It was a strenuous nationwide effort, demanding utmost exertions from both common folk and political leaders. Ivan Franko addressed it in his poem Moses (1905), reminding the reader of the biblical truth: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way.
That same year 1905, with the First Russian Revolution going on, the government had to make concessions to the Ukrainian community. At the time the Ukrainians did not demand an independent nation state. Instead, they insisted on having national schools, press, language, and book publishing. And they had to respond to pitched Russian chauvinist Black Hundred resistance of all sorts and at all levels. In the end, the tsarist government formed a special commission to explain the Ukrainian language, whether it was a language or just a dialect.
“No, it is not a dialect but a full-fledged language,” read the findings. The commission included prestigious academicians, among them FСdor Korsh and Aleksandr Shakhmatov. Their kudos made possible the Russian Academy’s memorable enactment On the Cancellation of Restrictions on Little Russian Printed Matter (1905). The document actually invalidated the ill-famous Ems Ukaz...
Was this the end of the Ukrainian Thirty Years’ War? Perhaps, except that a short while later the autocratic regime would launch another crusade against all things Ukrainian.
