Remembering the Empire

The topic of Ukraine’s 1654 union with Muscovy dominated debates in Early Modern Ukrainian history The terminological discussions focusing on Ukraine’s incorporation into Russia serve as the best example of the complex interaction between historians and ideologues, as well as of the importance of language in the Stalinist narratives of the past It is interesting that, when Ukrainian dissidents famously raised the question of ‘incorporation’ versus ‘reunification’ during the 1960s, they did not mention (or did not know) that the previous generation of historians had already opposed the term ‘reunification’ in the early 1950s ³⁵

Until approximately 1950 both Soviet official pronouncements and scholarly works usually defined the events of 1654 as Ukraine’s ‘incorporation into Russia In Russian, the term was prisoedmenie and, in Ukrainian, prytednannia ³⁶ Schol­arly surveys of Russian and Ukrainian history up to and including the 1951 draft of the History of the Ukrainian SSR strictly observed the ‘incorporation’ idiom, whereas popular works like K Osipov’s biography of Khmelnytsky, which ap­peared in its second edition in 1948, used a confusing array of terms vossoedtnenie (reunification), soedinenie (unification), andpoddanstvo (subjection) ³⁷

The term ‘reunification’ did not appear by accident in Osipovs book The author freely borrowed facts and descriptions for his popular biography from nineteenth-century Russian historiography, especially from Kostomarov and his conservative contemporary Gennadii Karpov On many occasions, Osipovs lan­guage betrays him A Soviet historian of the 1930s would hardly say that Ukraine had 'surrendered herself into [Russian] subjection (pttdalas vpoddawtvo),^ a fairly standard expression in nineteenth-century Russian history writing The notion of ‘reunification comes from the same source Russian imperial historians under­stood the Pereiaslav Treaty as the return of Russia’s age-old possessions and consid­ered Ukrainians simply a 'Little Russian tribe’ of the Russian people Hence, in many of the pre-revolutionary works Osipov consulted, Ukraine’s incorporation into the Muscovite tsardom appeared as 'reunification ’³⁹ The new Soviet notion of‘reunifi­cation’ thus represented a refurbished imperial concept

In early 1950 the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia solicited a long entry on Khmelnytsky from Petrovsky Given the ideological importance of the hetman’s deeds, they requested that the KP(b)U Central Committee sanction the text, which Ukrainian ideologues sent to the Institute of Ukrainian History and to the chair of history at the republic’s Party Academy, Ivan Boiko In his article, Petrovsky, who was very much in tune with the new ideological currents, twice used the word ‘reunification ’ The Institute wrote back that 'instead of “Ukraine’s reunification with Russia,” one should use the term “Ukraine’s incorporation into Russia ’” Boiko also spotted the innovation ‘Both at the beginning and at the end of his article, the author introduces the term “Ukraine’s reunification with Rus­sia ” I think using the term “union” (pbedinenie) or “incorporation” {prisoedinenie) here would be more correct Only two branches of one and the same nation can reunite ’⁴⁰

In early 1951 the Institute of Ukrainian History reported that it was still studying the history of ‘incorporation ’⁴¹ But the use of this term in the 1951 limited printing of the History unexpectedly prompted critical comments from the Institute of USSR History in Moscow It is interesting that the Moscow historians took their cue from the Pravda article ‘On the Opera Bohdan Khmelnytsky,’ which criticized this recent production of the Kiev opera company for minor faults in the libretto and musical form Although Pravdds comments did not touch upon the portrayal of Russian-Ukrainian relations in the opera, the second sentence in the article read ‘This opera, as is known, is devoted to the events connected with the Ukrainian people’s struggle for liberation from the yoke of the Polish gentry and for Ukraine’s reunification with the Russian people ’ The Moscow historians’ critical comments apparently suggested adopting this term for ‘incorporation ’ In any case, their Ukrainian colleagues directly linked the criticisms to the Pravda article ⁴²

In July 1952 rhe Ukrainian side sent Ivan Boiko, the author of the chapter on the War of Liberation, to Moscow During a special meeting at the Institute of USSR History, he outlined the arguments against ‘reunification ’ The Kievans maintained that only two parts of one and the same nation can reunite, whereas by the mid-seventeenth century Ukrainians and Russians were definitely two separate peoples Boiko went as far as digging up a Pravda interview with Stalin from 1918 in which he characterized the Ukrainians as having been the people most op­pressed by Russian tsarism An animated discussion followed Some Moscow historians, such as E Kusheva and N Pavlenko, insisted that one could speak of ‘reunification’ because the territories of seventeenth-century Muscovy and Cos­sack Ukraine once were included in Kievan Rus' In addition, both peoples had descended from a single Old Rus nationality A leading specialist on the nine­teenth century, academician N Druzhinin, shared this position The majority, however, seemed to be in favour of‘incorporation ’ L Ivanov inquired sarcastically whether one should speak of France’s ‘reunification with Germany simply because both countries had once been part of Charlemagne’s empire N Ustiugov sup ported Ivanov, while the authority on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, academician Lev Cherepmn, went as far as announcing that Pravda’s formula was ‘illiterate’ (negramotno) ⁴³

The historians’ conference in Moscow closed with an apparent victory for those wanting ‘incorporation,’ yet Nazarenko and the KP(b)U Central Committees special commission overruled this conclusion in favour of ‘reunification ’ A group of Ukrainian historians then challenged the party decision The material available in the archives preserves only circumstantial evidence about the ensuing conflict On 28 October 1952 Nazarenko announced to a conference of the History authors and commission members ‘Boiko and Holobutsky notified the VKP(b) Central Committee that they do not agree with the formula we have adopted “The reunification of the Ukrainian people with the Russian people under the Pereislav Treaty’” According to Nazarenko, the Kremlin ideologues did not support the Ukrainian protestors Still, Boiko took the floor once more to summarize the arguments against ‘reunification,’ again stressing that the whole affair had started with a largely irrelevant Pravda article about an opera Boiko announced that leading Ukrainian historians such as Fedir Shevchenko and Fedir Los also advo­cated the notion of ‘incorporation,’ while Oleksandr Kasymenko, the Institute’s director, supported ‘reunification ’ Then Kasymenko and the commission mem­bers argued for ‘reunification’ on the grounds of the ‘historical kinship’ between Russians and Ukrainians ⁴⁴

The debate flared up again during the commission’s meeting with the authors on 22 November This time, lenevych suggested that the word reunification had a second meaning, that of the union between two fraternal peoples An unidentified voice from the audience shouted ‘Ushakov’s Dictionary [of the Russian Language] says that one can only reunite what has been previously separated [from the whole] ’ Nazarenko immediately intervened ‘There can be a reunification of two nations as well Let us leave it at that ’ Commission member O Koshyk seconded him ‘This is how the article in Pravda put it ’⁴⁵ In late November and December of 1952 the commission continued meetings with the authors At these gatherings, historians read the manuscript aloud paragraph by paragraph, changing ‘incorpo­ration to ‘reunification’ throughout ⁴⁶

Another conceptual change emanating from Moscow removed from historical narratives a residue of class history in the form of the ‘lesser evil’ theory The restoration of Russian imperial concepts during and after the war made the notion of the ‘lesser evil’ frustratingly outdated In 1951 Nechkina published a letter to the editor in Voprosy istom, suggesting that this formula should be either dropped or reinterpreted as referring to the tsarist colonial policies rather than to incorpora­tion into Russia in general Although other historians for most part supported Nechkina, the official Bolshevik initially reprimanded Voprosy istom for publishing discussions on the problems that ‘have long been resolved in Marxist-Leninist scholarship ’ Subsequently, however, the first secretary of the Communist party of Azerbaijan and the party authority on the nationality question, M D Bagirov, overturned this criticism in a speech to the Nineteenth Party Congress in October 1952 Bagirov also found fault with Voprosy istom, but he expected the journal to make a clear statement on the ‘progressive and fruitful nature of the incorporation of non-Russian peoples into Russia ^>47 After the Nineteenth Congress, the ‘lesser evil’ theory disappeared from both scholarly and journalistic works

In the 1951 draft of the History ofthe Ukrainian SSR the 1937 party communique was dutifully cited and why Ukraine’s incorporation into Russia represented a ‘lesser evil’ was explained But even before the outcome of the discussions in Moscow became clear, some Ukrainian reviewers had suggested abandoning this term Historians from Dnipropetrovsk University, in particular, insisted on revis­ing the notion of the ‘lesser evil ’ Instead, they wanted the authors to stress the ‘great historically positive role of this event’ and proposed the term ‘reunification’ instead of‘incorporation ^>48 In the final version, indeed, there was no mention of the ‘lesser evil’ theory, instead, the union’s beneficial consequences for Ukraine were elaborated on As a result, the then innovative usage of the ‘reunification’ concept was justified ‘Both peoples’ common origin in the Old Rus' nationality and the unbreakable unity of their subsequent historical development determined the constant and truly popular desire to reunite all the lands that from ancient times bore the name Rus' ’⁴⁹

No post-1654 topic caused serious disagreements between the authors and their ideological supervisors All variants of the survey routinely denounced as ‘traitors’ the Cossack hetmans who attempted to break Muscovy’s hold over Ukraine A standard formula explained that this or that hetman had betrayed the interests of the Ukrainian people by allying himself with Poland, Turkey, Sweden, or some other foreign power, but none was accused of trying to create an independent Ukrainian state as such (A polity of this kind could have been an even ‘lesser evil’ for the Ukrainian people than the Russian Empire ) However, Hetman Demian Mnohohnshny (who ruled between 1669 and 1672) created a problem The 1951 History held that he had intended to break the faith by establishing contacts not with a foreign power, but with the concurrent independent Ukrainian ruler of the territories west of the Dnieper, Hetman Petro Doroshenko Because the Central Committee commission found such an explanation unacceptable, the charge against Mnohohnshny was dropped altogether from the 1953 History ⁵⁰

The ideologues and historians studied the chapter on Ukraine during Hetman Mazepas time with such attention that the commission members Kravchenko and Rumiantsev even brought charges of plagiarism against Professor Vadym Diadychenko Having compared his text with previously denounced works on the topic, the two concluded that Diadychenko’s chapter relied heavily on the pre-war writings of a later ‘Nazi collaborator and nationalist emigre,’ Oleksandr Ohloblyn In addition to borrowing facts and descriptions, Diadychenko allegedly had ‘snuck in Ohloblyn’s concept of Ukrainian statehood ’ After a prolonged investigation, the authorities shelved the accusation of plagiarism, while Diadychenko added more black paint to his already loathsome portrait of the ‘traitor’ Hetman Mazepa ⁵¹

The discussion of the rest of volume 1 revealed no significant interpretive changes or problematic points until the description of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood (1845-7), from which both nationalists and Ukrainian socialists would trace their ideological pedigrees It was claimed m the 1951 version that student youth influenced by Shevchenko organized the society Although Kostomarov, Kuhsh, and some other participants professed ‘liberal’ views, the group’s political direction was ‘determined primarily by the revolutionary views of Shevchenko and members close to him ’ The society demanded the abolition of serfdom and ‘raised the issue of creating an Ukrainian state within a federal republic of Slavic peoples ’ These progressive demands testified to the ‘growth of national-liberation aspirations’ in Ukraine in the mid-nineteenth century ⁵²

The reviewers noted that such an interpretation contradicted the 1946 party resolution on the journal Vitchyzna, which had warned against presenting the society as a revolutionary democratic body with no internal class contradictions between true revolutionaries and bourgeois liberals Following this line, the Cen­tral Committee commission concluded in April 1952 that the text ‘did not reveal the political profile of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and the political struggle within it ’⁵³ Ukrainian functionaries knew well when it was time to protect themselves Just a few months after the decision, in July 1952 Bolshevik attacked Voprosy istoru for a wide array of ideological errors that included publish­ing an article by the Ukrainian historian Leonid Kovalenko ‘One should strongly object to Kovalenko’s article presenting the Cyril and Methodius Society as a revolutionary democratic organization and portraying Shevchenko as its head ’ Instead, attention should have been paid to the struggle between the group’s revolutionary and liberal wings ⁵⁴

In the 1953 History the society was presented as an organization created by liberals, albeit later joined by Shevchenko and some other radical members Now, the official line was that the two groups had clashed over how to implement the agrarian reforms and liberate Ukrainians from tsarist oppression As well, accord­ing to the new account, the liberals were also bourgeois nationalists who treated Ukraine as an egalitarian nation without class antagonisms ‘Reflecting the inter­ests of the emerging Ukrainian bourgeoisie, which was commencing its struggle for the national market,’ the liberals advanced the idea of Ukrainian statehood - which was no longer as progressive a concept as it had been in the previous draft) Shevchenko and his fellow revolutionary democrats condemned these nationalis­tic tendencies, advocating instead a ‘united republic of Slavic peoples ’⁵⁵

The rest of the narrative charted two lines of succession in the national history from the revolutionary democrats to Soviet Ukraine and from bourgeois liberals to present-day nationalists Occasionally, the question as to which camp this or that figure should belong caused a minor debate, as in the case of Mykhailo Drahomanov,⁵⁶ but the historians were usually able to successfully apply the general party guidelines for delineating Soviet and nationalist ideological ancestry The commission requested only that the bourgeois nationalists of the late- nineteenth-century hromady movement be condemned more explicitly in the text or that the ‘revolutionary democrats’ Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, and others be portrayed as their staunch opponents ⁵⁷ The last four chapters covering the period from 1900 to February 1917 elicited no criticism other than a comment about an abundance of ‘verbatim quotations from the Short Course [of the party history] without attribution ’⁵⁸

During 1952 the text of volume 1 underwent a final round of extensive reviewing, which resulted in an array of minor comments, but no major criti­cism ⁵⁹ Nevertheless, the Central Committee commission produced a long list of ‘insufficiently explained’ problems and demanded another round of revisions to be followed by the publication of a limited edition in January 1953 in conjunction with subsequent internal discussion of the text The commission’s principal rec­ommendation was to ensure the presentation of pre-1917 Ukrainian history as an ‘organic, integral, and inseparable part of the history of Russia ’⁶⁰

In the end, the republic’s ideologues postponed the publication of the History of the Ukrainian SSR until the first signs of political liberalization after Stalin’s death Volume 1 was formally approved for publication on 23 December 1953 and appeared in the bookstores in the spring of 1954,⁶¹ just in time for the lavish celebration of the tercentenary of Ukraine’s union with Russia Thus, paradoxi­cally, a ‘Stalinist history of Ukraine’ was not published under Stalin