Ranking Friends and Brothers

Although Ukrainian bureaucrats and intellectuals played the principal roles in subordinating Ukrainian national mythology to its Russian counterpart, Moscow was not unmvolved in the process After regaining the strategic initiative in the war by late 1943, party leaders indicated their displeasure with the proliferation of non-Russian national memories by denouncing the History of the Kazakh SSR, but the press did not report the incident until 1945 ²⁷The centre objected primarily to the cult of Kazakh national heroes who had fought against tsarist Russia, a crime that Danylo of Halych and Bohdan Khmelnytsky had never committed, however, Moscow also demonstrated its dissatisfaction with the growth of Ukrainian his­torical mythology

Ahn the liberation ofKiev, the Ukrainian authorities enlisted a group of writers io compose an open ‘Letter from the Ukrainian People to the Great Russian People’ for publication in Pravda It is significant that the text does not designate Ukraine as a second ‘great’ nation of the USSR, although it claims that the two fraternal peoples achieved all their historic victories together A paean to Russian- Ukrainian friendship and Russian guidance, the letter attempts to present all the Ukrainian ‘great ancestors’ as comrades-in-arms of the contemporary Russian heroes Aleksandrov, however, interpreted the text as presuming that there were ‘two leading peoples in the Soviet Union, the Russians and the Ukrainians,’ while it was ‘known and universally accepted that the Russian people [were] the elder brother in the Soviet Union’s family of peoples ’ As well, the head of Agitprop dismissed as fictitious Ukrainian claims that Danylo of Halych had somehow assisted Aleksandr Nevsky in his victories over the German knights during the early 1240s In the end, Pravda published a report on a mass rally in the newly liberated Kiev, rather than the letter itself²⁸

Nonetheless, the signals from Moscow remained confusing Just as Aleksandrov criticized the unfortunate letter for insufficiently worshipping the great Russian people, Dovzhenko learned on 26 November that Stalin had banned his novel and film script, Ukraine tn Flames In January 1944 the Politburo convened in the Kremlin with a group of Ukrainian functionaries and leading writers to discuss the faulty work During the meeting, Stalin personally accused Dovzhenko of‘revising Leninism’ by emphasizing national pride over the principle of class struggle Although the excessive national pride in question was Ukrainian, Stalin did not claim that it detracted from the Russians’ greatness, instead, he resented the opposition of Ukrainian patriotism and allegiance to the working class, party, and the kolkhoz system ²⁹ This intervention (discussed in more detail in the next chapter) for a short time obscured the actual direction of ideological change ahead to the empire, rather than back to class solidarity

Watching for further signals from above, Ukrainian bureaucrats and intellectu­als groped their way to a new official interpretation of their national past Striking the right balance between national history and class analysis, as well as between Ukrainian national pride and kowtowing to the Russian elder brother, proved no easy task

Thus, the Ukrainian ideologues themselves discarded the first major attempt at a new history text as a failure The KP(b)U Central Committee archives preserve the 1943 typescript of a school textbook of Ukrainian history that was never published No party resolutions on this book’s preparation or abandonment can be traced, and its existence in itself is a puzzle, since there was no such school discipline as Ukrainian history (Instead, the republic’s pupils studied the history of the USSR) Given that the manuscript was written by Petrovsky, the top Ukrainian historian, edited by Rylsky, one of the republic’s leading poets, and read by the powerful Kornuchuk, however, it does not seem untoward to surmise official sponsorship of the project Although the Ukrainian party’s wartime ar­chives are incomplete, one can reasonably conclude that during 1942-3 Ukrainian leaders entertained the idea of introducing national history into the curriculum Two surviving pieces of correspondence support this hypothesis In November 1942 Petrovsky reported to the secretary for ideology, Kost Lytvyn, that work on the textbook was almost completed, and in March 1943 Lytvyn informed him that the question of the textbook ‘would be definitively resolved in the nearest fu­ture ’³⁰ Exactly why the project was abandoned is not clear The file contains a rather negative review by Mykola Bazhan proving that by 1943 the author of the patriotic ‘Danylo of Halych’ considered national history suspicious and sought a new orthodoxy in class analysis Bazhan underlined in red pencil statements like ‘We, the free children of the great Ukrainian people, are proud of [our ancestors’] great deeds’ and faulted Petrovsky’s discussion of the Pereiaslav Treaty for forsaking ‘Stalin’s notion of the “lesser evil ”’³¹ Thus, the project could have been discontin­ued because of its patriotic, national spirit, but also simply because the Ukrain­ian ideologues had decided that the political situation was not favourable for Ukrainian history’s introduction into the curriculum, or because Moscow had torpedoed the project with a phone call, about which no records survived

A new brief survey of Ukrainian history, Mykola Petrovsky’s The Reunification of the Ukrainian People within a Single Ukrainian State, appeared in early 1944, when the Red Army had crossed the old Polish border and entered Western Ukraine The official party journal, Bolshevik (circulation 100,000), published a shortened version in Russian, while the complete text appeared in Ukrainian in the republic’s major newspaper, Radianska Ukratna As well, the work was published in Ukrai­nian as a separate pamphlet printed in a run of 42,000 copies, and in Moscow a Russian edition followed, with a print run of 25,000 ³² Petrovsky offered a slightly revised definition of Ukrainian history ‘The history of the Ukrainian people is a history of the masses’ age-old struggle against social and national oppression, for reunification within a Ukrainian state, and for union with the fraternal and blood- i elated Russian people ’ The new definition seemingly restored social struggle to ns prominent position, yet in the text itself, the author highlighted three main I he mes Ukrainian statehood, Western Ukraine as age-old Ukrainian patrimony, ind Ukraine’s historical ties with Russia As the unabridged pamphlet version c x pl lined, union with Muscovy did not contradict the interests of Ukrainian state- bmlding Although Khmelnytsky’s Ukraine was an ‘independent state’ in the form of a Cossack republic, ‘by joining Russia, Ukraine preserved its statehood ’ How­ever, neither union with Russia nor the Revolution represented a teleological outcome of Ukrainian history Petrovsky reserved this role for the Ukrainians’ historic reunification within their own nation-state, which the USSR accom­plished in 1939 ^B All references to class struggle notwithstanding, the author cast Ukrainian history as the grand narrative of the nation, albeit a nation that found its Hegelian-Stalinist self-realization within a multinational empire.

Petrovsky strengthened his reputation as the premier Ukrainian historian with one more influential publication.

Despite all efforts to subordinate it to the new Russian imperial mythology, this most recent version of Ukrainian national memory often competed with the Russian interpretation of the same events. In Istoricheskii zhurnal in 1943 the Russian historian Vladimir Pashuto presented Danylo of Halych as a ‘Russian [russkii\ prince’ reigning over ‘Russian’ people in ‘South Russian’ lands. The writer Aleksei lugov similarly designated Danylo and his people as ‘Russian’ in his 1944 pamphlet on the prince, claiming, moreover, that ‘the people of Galicia, Bukovyna, and Volhynia preserved and passed on as sacred their Russian language, fathers’ faith, and unquenchable ardent love for Great Rus' through the crucible of all their historical ordeals.’ Boris Grekov wrote on the Polish period of Galician history without ever referring to the formation of Ukrainian, or at least proto-Ukrainian, nationality.³⁵

The Ukrainian historians and writers simultaneously advanced their interpreta­tions, often on the pages of the same journals.

Thus, Korniichuk in 1944 dismissed the manuscript of Picheta’s pamphlet on Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In his review, the Ukrainian playwright demanded the revision of‘South-Western Rus” and ‘Russian in the text to ‘Ukraine’ and. ‘Ukrainian’ throughout, a more inspiring portrayal of Khmelnytsky as a great military leader and statesman, and the exaltation of the Pereiaslav Treaty. In his conclusion, Korniichuk added sarcastically, ‘Comrade Picheta not long ago pub­licly argued that Khmelnytsky was a feudal lord and an ardent enemy of the people. Now he has changed his point of view.’ Instead of Picheta, the influential writer recommended Mykola Petrovsky, the ‘best Ukrainian specialist on this period,’ as an author.³⁶

During the Ukrainian historians’ conference with the local party ideologues in early 1945 Professor Kost Huslysty raised the issue of the ‘Russification’ in the central press of Danylo of Halych. He particularly castigated Pashuto’s article in Istoricheskii zhurnal and lugov’s pamphlet for seeing the Galician-Volhynian Prin­cipality ‘through the lens of the “indivisible Russian people” and not connecting it directly with the history of Ukraine.’ Both Ukrainian party bureaucrats and fellow historians listened without objection to Huslysty’s statement that ‘Danylo of Halych was one of the great ancestors of the Ukrainian people in the same way as Aleksandr Nevsky was one of the great ancestors of the Russian people.’³⁷

In literature and the arts, the evolving understanding of the national memory also gave rise to new interpretations of the past. In literature, by far the most important development occurred in drama.

Ivan Kocherha wrote laroslav the Wise, the play that would soon replace Bohdan Khmelnytsky as the most popular Ukrainian historical drama Writing only in Ukrainian and mainly in verse, Kocherha was well known in the republic but lacked Komuchuk’s all-Umon fame However, the antiquarian genre of the verse play apparently resonated well with High Stalinism’s aesthetic monumentahsm The play’s topic, the life of the great statesman of Kievan Rus', Grand Prince laroslav the Wise (who reigned from 1019 to 1054), also meshed well with the emerging Stalinist cult of medieval princes as ‘great ancestors ’ Yet a drama in Ukrainian about Kievan Rus' was ideologically risky, because the Russian elder brother also claimed this state as the foundation of his historical tradition

No wonder that the Ukrainian ideologues paid extraordinary attention to Kocherha’s work The only copy of the play’s final draft, dated 27 September 1944, survived not in the writer’s archives, but in the archives of the KP(b)U Central Committee Dmytro Manuilsky, the foreign minister and ideological eminence grise, took time to read the play, making numerous notes on the characters’ historical and psychological credibility and demanding additional reviews by historians Having found nothing suggestive of Ukrainian nationalism, Manuilsky’s notes reveal his concern with the ‘proper’ exalted portrayal of laroslav the Wise as a great statesman ⁴⁰

Yet another copy of the manuscript from the party repositories shows what was edited out of the writer’s text Beginning with the author’s preface, Kocherha repeatedly emphasizes Jaroslav’s Varangian (Norman) background, his hero struggles with the contradiction between his foreign origin and princely status and the interests of Rus', of the common people To be sure, the play’s main character finally chooses the latter over the former, but the party censors found it undesir­able to highlight the dilemma and downgraded Jaroslav’s struggle with his ‘Varangianness’ from the drama’s principal focus to a mere passing reference Other deletions concern the incorrect glorification of ‘our stately and sacred Kiev’ as the centre of Rus', for in Stalinist historical memory this site now belonged to Moscow, despite the fact that Moscow did not exist in Jaroslav’s time The play also included an untimely reminder about the ruler’s duties to the people, whom laroslav ‘served faithfully / And only lived by their wisdom I Nobody is wise by his own insight, / Only the people always take the true path ’ The anonymous ideologue’s red pencil eliminated these lines as unnecessary⁴¹

In late 1944 laroslav the Wise appeared in a literary journal, and the republic’s newspapers carried excerpts from the work Radtanska Ukraina selected a longer scene containing the topical appeal for a united Rus' ’ The play’s somewhat belated premiere in Kharkiv in September 1946 occurred in a much colder ideological climate, yet it proved to be a success, earning Stalin Prizes for both Kocherha and the company ⁴²

As had occurred previously, the figures of Khmelnytsky and Shevchenko often appeared on posters, inspiring their ‘descendants’ to free the native land, but several more serious artistic representations of the past also materialized Working in 1943 in Moscow, Ivan Shulha painted the canvas Muscovite Ambassadors Present Charters to Bohdan Khmelnytsky for the Central Historical Museum In 1944 the artist returned to his native Kharkiv to complete two other epic paintings, The Pereiaslav Council and The Zaporozhians’ Song Shulha professed monumentahsm in historical paintings, a style that would flourish in the post-war Soviet Union Less epic and more romantic is Mykhailo Derehus’s vision of the War of Liberation in his series of small oil paintings, The Khmelnytsky Uprising As well, Derehus completed an unusual ‘psychological’ portrait of the hetman ⁴³

During the Eighth Exhibition of Ukrainian Art in November 1945 critics and the press paid special attention to historical paintings Shulha’s The Zaporozhians Song, the painting by Lviv artist H Rozmus, Khmelnytsky at Lviv, and Derehus’s series The Khmelnytsky Uprising and his portrait of the hetman were among the most discussed works Of these, the critics found the ‘psychological’ portrait of Khmelnytsky clearly out of line As one of them wrote, Derehus ‘quite unnecessar­ily stressed the nervousness, exhaustion, and even the physical sickliness [of the hetman] This is not the image that lives m the masses’ imagination of the popular leader, strong-willed Bohdan Khmelnytsky’ Although the official press claimed authority over what the popular historical memory was or should be, it was concerned with developing the historical genre in Ukrainian art in a way that would have a desirable educational impact on the popular imagination An editorial in Radtanske mystetstvo claimed that the works presented at the exhibition ‘did not reflect even a small part of the Ukrainian people’s history, which is so rich in glorious events ’⁴⁴

Stalinism’s ideological mutation into the self-acknowledged successor of the Russian Empire involved the rehabilitation of the legacy of prominent pre- i evolutionary Russian historians such as Sergei Solovev and Vasilu Kliuchevsky During the war, Ukrainian intellectuals likewise proceeded to reinstall Mykhailo I Irushevsky to the stature of patriarch of Ukrainian historiography, although in the 1930s he had been denounced as a bourgeois nationalist and even a ‘fascist ’ Khmelnytsky’s official status provided Petrovsky with an opportunity in 1943 to i Icar his teacher’s name Writing in Radianska Ukraina the day after the Order of Khmelnytsky had been unveiled, Petrovsky announced that Hrushevsky’s works were ‘ofgre u importance’ for the study of the hetman’s time Hrushevsky allegedly concluded in volume 9, part 1, of his History of Ukraine-Rus that the Cossack leader had no intention of ever breaking the union with Muscovy (as the Ukrain­ian nationalist historians claimed), a conclusion that would support Petrovsky’s own idea that Khmelnytsky had always sought a union with the fraternal Russian people In another article, Petrovsky claimed that Hrushevsky made this impor­tant conclusion in volume 9, part 2, and volume 10, which was never published and the manuscript of which was subsequently lost ⁴⁵

Ukrainian intellectuals also pushed for the rehabilitation of the confirmed nineteenth-century ‘reactionary, Panteleimon Kuhsh, whose 125th anniversary was celebrated in August 1944 A Ukrainian nationalist in his youth and a Russian monarchist in his senior years, Kuhsh was beyond redemption as a historian, but he re-emerged as the revered author of the first Ukrainian historical novel, which was also the first novel in Ukrainian, The Black Council (1857) ⁴⁶ In 1945 a Ukrainian literary critic suggested that the ‘time has come to reevaluate the legacy’ of another nineteenth-century Romantic writer who was also a ‘reactionary historian, Mykola (Nikolai) Kostomarov ‘Under [tsarist] colonial oppression, the awakening of national consciousness, which the Romantic writers promoted in their work, was a progressive phenomenon of public life *⁴⁷ Even more unexpect edly, the Ukrainians claimed the famous Russian ‘reactionary’ writer of Ukrainian descent, Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol) On the 135 th anniversary of his birth in April 1944 Radianska Ukrama's headline proclaimed Gogol a ‘great son of Ukraine *⁴⁸

Late in the war, the republics ideologues and intelligentsia established cults around some nineteenth-century Ukrainian cultural figures The centenary of the founder of national music, Mykola Lysenko, was commemorated in April 1942 with a modest meeting and a concert in Ufa The authorities found it desirable to honour Lysenko again after the liberation of Ukraine, but on a larger scale In January 1945 the republic’s government announced the construction of a monu­ment to Lysenko in Kiev, the renaming of the Lviv Conservatory and the Kharkiv Opera Theatre after him, and the plan to publish the thirty-one volumes of his oeuvre before the composer’s 105th anniversary in March 1947 On the eve of Lysenko’s 103rd anniversary in 1945 one article elaborated on the renewed cult of the National Composer ‘All of Ukraine, united under the great banner of Lenin and Stalin, honours Lysenko’s memory’, ‘In their own house, the Ukrainian people cherish their own invaluable treasures ’⁴⁹

At the height of the ‘national heritage’ campaign, in the summer of 1945, the KP(b)U Central Committee gathered the writers, critics, and managers of the republic’s publishing houses to discuss the grandiose project of a ‘Golden Treasury’ of Ukrainian literature This three-year plan envisaged the publication of 148 volumes by twenty-one pre-revolutionary Ukrainian writers, while plans were also made for the immediate release of one volume selected works of major literary figures ⁵⁰ This drive to promote Ukraine’s national history and cultural heritage continued unabated in Ukraine until mid-1946

As the republic’s establishment propagated the Soviet version of Ukrainian national memory among the population, it also struggled to restrict public access to alternate narratives of the past The war destroyed the Soviet centralized book trade, leading to the revival of uncontrolled book bazaars As the writer Petro Panch testified, pre-revolutionary books on Ukrainian history, especially works about separatist hetmans Mazepa and Petro Doroshenko, were in strong demand at the bazaars Panch particularly singled out the works of pre-Soviet Ukrainian historians Mykola Kostomarov, Hrytsko Kovalenko, and Mykola Arkas, as well as historical novels by Adrian Kashchenko ‘[People] pay ten times more for these books than for our Soviet histories Why is it so’’ Panch would not venture anything beyond the explanation that poorly educated peasants read Arkas’s one volume illustrated History of Ukraine.