Cultural Development

In the history of Ukrainian culture, the period from 1861 to 1914 was most creative and fruitful. Largely because of the great social, economic, and political changes that occurred during this time, creative forces emerged that produced imposing achievements, despite government repression.

If in the 18th century the level of their general education had been a source of pride to Ukrainians, particularly on the Left Bank, in the 19th century it became one of their greatest shortcomings. The extent of this catastrophic reversal is illustrated by the fact that while in 1768 the three largest counties in Chernihiv province had one elementary school per 746 inhabitants, in 1876 they had only one such school per 6750 inhabitants. The introduction of serfdom and the conviction on the part of the government and the nobles that serfs had no need of education were primarily responsible for this decline. The elementary schools that did exist in the early 19th century were almost all parochial and depended on the contributions of impoverished villagers for their survival.

The situation improved somewhat after the emancipation (1861), especially in the 1870s when the zemstva took over responsibility for general education. Frequently staffed by progressive individuals, the zemstvo school committees, which provided 85% of the schools’ budgets, expanded construction of new schools, improved pedagogical techniques, and introduced subjects such as mathematics, history, and geography in place of the traditional rote learning of religious texts.

The quality of teachers, many of whom were idealistic university students, also improved. Nonetheless, serious problems remained. Because education was not mandatory, about two-thirds of the peasants sent their children to work in the fields rather than to the schools. Despite appeals from the zemstva, teachers, and celebrated pedagogues, the government refused to allow the use of Ukrainian in the elementary schools, thereby placing Ukrainian pupils at a distinct disadvantage. Finally, on the Right Bank, where no zemstva were allowed until 1911, educational improvements were minimal and the educational level of the region was the lowest in all of European Russia. There was, of course, great variability in the literacy rate in Ukraine: at the turn of the century, while only about 20% of the village population was literate, the rate in cities was about 50% – and among workers in Kiev and Kharkiv it reached as high as 60%.

Secondary education, which consisted mainly of the gymnazia, also improved considerably. There were several types of gymnazia: Most offered a seven-year course of study, others only a partial four-year course; some were of the classical type that stressed the study of Greek, Latin, and logic; others emphasized modern European languages, sciences, and mathematics. By 1870 women’s gymnazia, designed for the preparation of teachers, were formally sanctioned. Almost every provincial center, and even many county seats, had a gymnazium and by 1890 there were 129 throughout Ukraine.

With the establishment of a university in Odessa in 1865, the number of universities in Ukraine rose to three. Their combined enrollment increased from 1200 in 1865 to over 4000 in the 1890s. The social background of the students also underwent considerable change: in 1865 more than 71% were sons of nobles, but by the 1890s over 60% were sons of the clergy, burghers, and merchants. As of 1878, women gained access to the universities. In the final decades of the 19th century, the most important issues at these universities, which enjoyed a reputation for excellence, were as often political as academic. Worried that they served as a breeding ground for radicals, the government severely limited the autonomy of the universities in 1884, and student strikes and protests against these measures kept tensions high. After 1905, Ukrainian students launched a campaign to introduce the teaching of Ukrainian subjects on the university level. By 1908 they attained some success at the universities of Kharkiv and Odessa where not only courses but several chairs in Ukrainian studies were established. However, the faculty of Kiev University, which was noted for its conservatism, staunchly refused to give in to Ukrainian demands. As the postrevolutionary reaction set in throughout the empire, even the few Ukrainian courses in Kharkiv and Odessa were abolished. Scholarly achievements

Inspired on the one hand by the brilliant scientific discoveries of the early 19th century and reacting against the emotionalism of Romanticism and fuzzy metaphysics of idealism on the other, the intellectuals of the Russian Empire turned in the late 19th century toward positivism, with its promise to provide concrete and verifiable proofs and measurements of physical and social phenomena. This trend was encouraged by the emphasis that Russian universities placed on laboratory training, which stimulated teachers and students to work together in solving scientific problems.

Some of the scientists of imperial as well as European fame who worked in Ukraine were M. Umov, founder of the school of theoretical physics in Kiev; N. Beketov, an innovative chemist in Kharkiv University; O. Liupanov, a mathematician in Kharkiv; the embroyologist A. Kovalevsky, whose work won the praise of Charles Darwin; and I. Mechnikov who, together with M. Hamaliia, established in Kiev in 1886 the first microbiological laboratory in the empire. Although there were some Ukrainians among the leading scientists in Ukraine, a disproportionately large number of them were Russians. This fact can be explained, in part, by the predominance of Russians in cities where universities were located and their easier access to higher education.

Ukrainians, for their part, were more in evidence in the social sciences. Of the historians, who studied Ukraine’s past in and of itself rather than as an adjunct to Russian history, the most famous was the talented, energetic, and ubiquitous Volodymyr Antonovych, one of whose many illustrious students was Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Other Ukrainian historians of note were Oleksander Lazarevsky, Oleksandra Efimenko, and Dmytro Bahalii. Even Russian historians in Ukraine, such as Gennadii Karpov and Mikhail VladimirskyBudnov, devoted much attention to the history of the land in which they lived, although (as might be expected) their interpretations differed radically from those of their Ukrainian colleagues. Outstanding Ukrainian scholars in other disciplines were the legal specialist Volodymyr Kistiakovsky, the economists Mykola Bunge and Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovsky, the orientalist Ahatanhel Krymsky, and the linguist Oleksander Potebnia.

Scholars in Ukraine benefited greatly from the numerous scholarly societies, commissions, journals, as well as libraries and archives, that appeared after 1861. A historical commission, the Provisional Committee, which existed from 1843 to 1917 and was chaired for over a decade by the indefatigable Antonovych, published dozens of volumes of archival documents relating to Ukraine’s past. In 1873, a historical society, the Society of Nestor the Chronicler, began to concentrate on Ukraine’s history, and in 1882 the Ukrainophiles of the Old Hromada established Kievskaia starina, a valuable journal of Ukrainian studies (written in Russian). After the revolution of 1905, the Kiev Scholarly Society, which openly proclaimed its intention to develop and popularize various branches of learning using the Ukrainian language, came into being. Its membership rose rapidly from 54 in 1907, to 98 in 1912, and to 161 in 1916. However, the government still found ways to restrain the appearance of Ukrainian books. As a result, of 5283 books published in Ukraine in 1913, only 176 were in Ukrainian. Literary development

Remarkably, Ukrainian literature not only survived but flourished, despite – or perhaps as a response to – the cultural repression that marked the period from 1876 to 1905. As the numbers of university graduates grew, the number of authors and the size of their readership also expanded. Moreover, the vibrant Galician press provided ample opportunities for East Ukrainian authors to bypass tsarist censorship. An indication of how far the literary movement had progressed beyond the handful of authors and readers of Ukrainian literature of the early 19th century was the massive and enthusiastic participation of thousands of Ukrainian intelligentsia and dozens of Ukrainian authors from both Eastern and Western Ukraine in the dedication of a monument to Kotliarevsky in Poltava in 1903.

The vibrant growth of Ukrainian literature was also a result of its successful adoption of new literary styles. Romanticism, which had exerted great influence on Ukrainian culture in the early 19th century with its focus on the national uniqueness of a people, its love of folklore, its fascination with history, and its stress on national language, had faded by the latter part of the century.

Although it did contain some elements of Romanticism – notably the focus on the village and the peasant – Ukrainian Realism finally went beyond the limits of the ethnographic and began to explore the social and psychological dimensions of life. One of the first realist authors was Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, who concentrated on the changes that had occurred in the Ukrainian village after the emancipation. Nechui-Levytsky’s writing often evoked a sense of betrayal, a puzzled questioning of why life, instead of becoming better, became worse. In his Kaidasheva simia one of the characters asks why “God’s earth is so gay and beautiful and yet the lives of the people are so ugly.” For Nechui-Levytsky, it was the extreme inequality between the rich and poor imposed by the alien bureaucratic-military “Muscovite” regime, and especially its school system, that was responsible for the extreme poverty, ignorance, superstition, and moral degeneration that he saw in village life.

An even more penetrating treatment of the life of the peasantry was provided by Panas Myrny (Rudchenko). Unlike Nechui-Levytsky, Myrny did not limit himself to social inequality but probed deeply into the psychological impact of injustice on the individual. In his Khiba revut voly …? (“Do Oxen Bellow…?”), he examined how evil begets evil. The protagonist, the decent if rebellious peasant Chipka, is so frequently abused, exploited, and cheated that he abandons his traditional values and turns into a violent predator whose moral nihilism bursts forth in the statement: “If I could, I would destroy the whole world… so that a new and better one would arise in its place.” Another representative of the realist trend was Anatol Svydnytsky, whose novel Liuboratsky dealt with the impact of foreign culture, specifically Polonization and Russification, on several generations of a Ukrainian clerical family.

The numerous poets of this period are much more difficult to categorize. Most noteworthy were Stefan Rudansky, an unusually talented writer best known for his witty, biting, aphoristic work Spivomovnyk; Leonid Hlibov, author of popular fables; and Pavlo Hrabovsky, whose poems were so critical of the tsarist regime that he was condemned to spend most of his life in Siberia.

As a new generation of authors emerged by the turn of the century, they attempted more and more frequently to go beyond the rigid, utilitarian strictures of Realism, to apply modernistic techniques, and to express individualistic perceptions. This tendency was reflected most impressively in the work of Eastern Ukraine’s two leading literary figures of this period – the novelist Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky and the poetess Lesia Ukrainka. In his Fata Morgana, Kotsiubynsky focused on the traditional theme of social strife in the village. However, his method of describing it was extremely innovative. Using words like an impressionist uses paint, he created the sense of suspense and tension that arises in individuals in situations of terror, hatred, and panic. His “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” reflected both the real and mythical world of the Hutsul village and explored the constant movement between the conscious and subconscious world of the individual.

Laryssa Kosach-Kvitka, whose pen name was Lesia Ukrainka, was born into one of Ukraine’s most cultured families. Her mother was the noted author Olena Pchilka; her uncle was the famous Drahomanov; and she was related to the composer Mykola Lysenko and the playwright Mykhailo Starytsky. Although she had the benefit of an excellent education that included travel to Europe and the study of French, Spanish, English, German, Greek, and Latin, as well as Russian and Ukrainian, she was plagued by poor health, which never allowed her a painless, carefree day in her life.

It is remarkable, therefore, that her deep, finely wrought poetry exudes inspiring strength, vigor, and optimism – qualities captured in her poem Contra Spent Spew (“To Hope against Hope”). In her early lyrical poems, such as “Wings of Song” and “Thoughts and Dreams,” the influence of Shevchenko is still evident. But gradually Ukrainka turned to new motifs that were not strictly Ukrainian and that showed a desire to address universal issues. This new approach became evident in her “exoticism” – which used themes from ancient Greece, Palestine, Egypt, revolutionary France, and medieval Germany – and in her treatment of the varieties of love, the confrontation between power and liberty, and the relationship between the poet and society. Her dramatic poem “Forest Nymph” is a powerful portrayal of the clash between an exalted ideal and base reality.

Another departure from village-oriented Realism was the work of Volodymyr Vynnychenko, perhaps the most popular Ukrainian writer and playwright of the prerevolutionary era. His early naturalistic works, such as “Rabble” and “Beauty and Strength,” sketched the lives of provincial townspeople and hired laborers in a world of dying village traditions and crumbling morality. More innovative were his treatments of such rare characters in Ukrainian literature as the revolutionary confronted by psychologically complex (albeit somewhat artificial) situations, as in his novel Zina. Vynny-chenko’s favorite theme, however, was the personality of the cynical egoist (most forcefully presented in his “Memoirs of a Pug-Nosed Mephistopheles”), who in order to be totally honest with himself, finds himself ready to commit any crime so long as his actions are in harmony with his feelings, convictions, and will.

If one adds to the above-mentioned authors such West Ukrainian writers as Vasyl Stefanyk, Olha Kobylianska, and the incomparable Ivan Franko, it is evident that Ukrainian authors, even when measured by West European standards, represented a truly impressive array of talent. Thus, by the turn of the 19th century, Ukrainian literature, which only a generation earlier had been struggling for its right to exist, earned a secure place for itself among the major Slavic literatures. The theater

An especially popular and important medium of Ukrainian culture during this period was the theater. Relying heavily on Ukrainian ethnography at the outset, it offered an attractive combination of acting and singing. A decisive factor in its development, and one of the few concessions made by the regime to the Ukrainian movement, was the government’s permission in 1881 to use Ukrainian on the stage. This made the theater the only medium of Ukrainian culture that could develop more or less freely; it therefore quickly became the focus of much creative energy and talent. The impact of the theater went beyond the artistic, for many Ukrainians felt their first spark of national pride and consciousness upon seeing a well-performed play in their often-denigrated native language.

Almost immediately after the government’s decision, the first Ukrainian professional theater was founded in Yelysavethrad (Kirovohrad) in 1881 by Marko Kropyvnytsky. One year later, the troupe numbered over 100 members. By the 1890s, there were at least five professional troupes that performed with great success throughout the empire and boasted repertoires of twenty to thirty plays each. Clearly, the theater had come a long way from the 1860s, when it could draw on only a few plays in Ukrainian, such as Kotliarevsky’s Natalka Poltavka, Shevchenko’s Nazar Stodola, and Hulak-Artemovsky’s “Zaporozhian beyond the Danube.”

Credit for this rapid development belongs to a handful of talented, energetic, and enterprising individuals, such as Starytsky, Kropyvnytsky, and the remarkable Tobilevych family, members of which went by the stage names of Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Mykola Sadovsky, and Panas Saksahansky. Not only did each of these individuals organize his own troupe, but all were outstanding actors, directors, producers, and, in the case of Karpenko-Kary, playwrights. A leading “star” of the Ukrainian theater was Maria Zankovetska.

Ideologically and culturally, as well as economically and socially, the turn of the 19th century was a period of accelerating change. On all levels the traditional order was beginning to crumble and everywhere there were signs of a search for new ways. This was especially evident in the intelligentsia’s growing concern with ideology. In Ukraine, the two main ideological currents that came to the fore were nationalism and socialism. The more firmly these two ideologies took root, the more crucial became the question of their relationship to each other. For many Ukrainian activists it became clear that without a socialist dimension, the national movement had little chance of moving beyond its limited, cultural parameters. By the same token, many Ukrainian socialists realized that, without addressing the national issue, socialism in Ukraine would remain a weakly rooted movement consisting mostly of non-Ukrainians. Efforts to find a satisfactory combination of the two ideologies, such as those attempted by RUP, did not produce generally acceptable results and – as the Ukrainians entered the 20th century – the relationship between the two ideologies remained unresolved.