Ukrainian Culture on the Path to National Revival (1850s – 1921)

1. The main epoch tendencies of the European culture.

2. Education and sciences in Ukrainian lands in the context of Gromada movement.

3. Variety of trends in Ukrainian arts.

4. Cultural life at the turmoil of revolutionary events.

1. During the second half of the XIX century Europe passed through historical events that dramatically changed its cultural space. The idea of freedom manifested in the period of French revolution (1789–1794) assumed a new political content: struggle for national freedom and state independence. Period of 1848–1849 is usually called the Spring of Nations; it was the time when peoples of many European countries, among which there was Austria-Hungary, maintained their right to social freedoms and independence. Revolutions and civil revolts took place over all the Europe. Revolutionary inspirations in European culture were connected with spreading of ideologies (logical and scientifically relevant sets of ideas that constituted goals, expectations, and actions of social groups/ classes). Since the mid-XIX century the most popular were the following ideologies: nationalism (initiated by romantically oriented German intellectual J. Herder in late 1770s) that declared the right of a nation to statehood; liberalism (initiated since the Age of Enlightenment) that declared the importance of liberty and equal rights, constitutionalism, capitalism, freedom of religion and socialism (has initiated by French utopian philosopher K. Saint-Simon at the beginning of the XIX century) that advocated common ownership and cooperative management; Marxism (a modification of socialism, founded by K. Marx and F. Engels in the mid-XIX century) that centered around political tools to revolutionize society for communism. Often ideological preferences of cultural agents defined directions and content of their creative activity.

Liberal reforms in Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires were mixed with recurrent ideological pressure and permanent oppression of any manifestation of Ukrainian idea, which was actively elaborated in arts and Humanities of that period. Partly liberal reforms in Russia, especially abolition of serfdom in 1861, and implementation of local territories governing (zemstvo), marked the very beginning of civil society. Educational policies, medicine service, public welfare, elaboration of social infrastructure were managed by zemstvo.

Ideological and social innovations of the epoch were accompanied by impetuous industrial and technological development. Close link of science and technology intensified their mutual dependence and development and provoked educational reforms. New era of technologies started: machine tools were used by engineers to manufacture other machines. Invention and improvement of steam engine provoked a new wave of Industrial Revolution. Since that time all technological inventions and innovations has been based on scientific achievements.

2. Since the XIX century the general tendency of Ukrainian culture has been outlined: Ukrainian culture was researched by Ukrainian scholars in the framework of Humanities and was developed by them; Ukrainian scholars, scientists, artists who were besides Ukrainian cultural studies in Ukrainian lands under Russian rule were identified with Russian culture, and those in Ukrainian lands under Habsburg rule were identified with Austrian culture.

Development of Ukrainian culture of that period was closely connected with gromadas, clandestine societies of Ukrainian intellectuals, which appeared in Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX century. At the beginning gromada members avoided any revolutionary declarations and regarded their own activities as strictly cultural and educational. Only at the end of the XIX century gromadas began to promote political issues and were involved in political actions. Then a generational difference emerged among gromadas: associations consisting of young people became known as “young gromadas” and those with older members became known as “old gromadas”.

The hromada movement, which originated in the Russian Empire in the late 1850s, played a decisive role in the Ukrainian national revival and the development of Ukrainian national consciousness. Because of police persecution and the mobility of their members, most hromadas existed for only a few years. Members differed in political conviction; what united them was a love for the Ukrainian language and traditions and the desire to serve the people. The general aims of the hromadas were to instill through self-education a sense of national identity in their members and to improve through popular education the living standard of the peasant masses. Members were encouraged to use Ukrainian and to study Ukrainian history, folklore, and language. Each hromada maintained a small library of illegal books and journals from abroad for the use of its members. The larger hromadas organized drama groups and choirs, and staged Ukrainian plays and concerts for the public. The hromadas were active in the Sunday-school movement: they financed and staffed schools and prepared textbooks. Avoiding contacts with revolutionary circles, the hromadas regarded their own activities as strictly cultural and educational. However, in the 1880s, under pressure from younger members, these societies gradually became involved in some political activity as well

Hromadas. Clandestine societies of Ukrainian intelligentsia that in the second half of the 19th century were the principal agents for the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness within the Russian Empire. They began to appear after the Crimean War, in the late 1850s, as part of the broad reform movement. Being illegal associations they lacked a definite organizational form, a well-defined structure and program, and a clearly delimited membership. Because of police persecution and the mobility of their members, most hromadas existed for only a few years. Even in the longer-lived ones the level of activity fluctuated considerably. Members differed in political conviction; what united them was a love for the Ukrainian language and traditions and the desire to serve the people. The general aims of the hromadas were to instill through self-education a sense of national identity in their members and to improve through popular education the living standard of the peasant masses. Members were encouraged to use Ukrainian and to study Ukrainian history, folklore, and language. They read Taras Shevchenko's works and observed the anniversary of his death. Each hromada maintained a small library of illegal books and journals from abroad for the use of its members. The larger hromadas organized drama groups and choirs, and staged Ukrainian plays and concerts for the public. The hromadas were active in the Sunday-school movement: they financed and staffed schools and prepared textbooks. They also printed educational booklets for the peasants and distributed them in the villages. Avoiding contacts with revolutionary circles, the hromadas regarded their own activities as strictly cultural and educational. It was only at the turn of the century that they began to raise political issues and to become involved in political action. With time a generational difference emerged among the hromadas: societies consisting of young people (secondary-school and university students) became known as young (molodi) hromadas, and those with older members became known as old (stari) hromadas.

Since most of the information about the hromadas is derived from personal recollections and police records, it is spotty and often contradictory. Some hromadas have left no trace behind. The first hromada, established in Saint Petersburg, was already active by the fall of 1858. It consisted of some former members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, Mykola Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish, Taras Shevchenko, and Vasyl Bilozersky, Vsevolod Kokhovsky, Oleksander Kistiakovsky, Danylo Kamenetsky, Mykola I. Storozhenko, Mykhailo Lazarevsky, F. Lazarevsky and Oleksander Lazarevsky, Hryhorii Chestakhivsky, Volodymyr Menchyts, and Yakiv Kukharenko. With financial support from the landowners Vasyl Tarnovsky and Hryhorii Galagan, works of Ukrainian writers began to be published and the journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg) appeared. Saint Petersburg became the center of the Ukrainian national movement at the time. Another hromada outside Ukraine sprang up at the University of Moscow in 1858–9. It maintained close ties with former members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. By the mid-1860s its membership, which included P. Kapnist and M. Rohovych, reached 60. It was uncovered by the police in 1866.

In Ukraine the most important hromada, the Hromada of Kyiv, was organized in 1859 by students who were active in the Sunday-school movement. It maintained close contact with the Saint Petersburg hromada. In Kharkiv a student circle that collected ethnographic material formed around Oleksander Potebnia at the end of the 1850s, but the first hromada arose probably in 1861–2. In Poltava a hromada arose in 1858. Among its members were Dmytro Pylchykov, Oleksander Konysky, Mykhailo Zhuchenko, Yelysaveta Myloradovych, and Vasyl Kulyk. Another hromada sprang up in Chernihiv probably at the end of 1858. Its most active members were Oleksander Tyshchynsky, Oleksander Markovych, Leonid Hlibov, and Stepan Nis, and its most important contribution to the development of national consciousness was the publication of Chernigovskii listok. The Polish Insurrection of 1863–4 led to a strong anti-Ukrainian campaign in the Russian press and to repressive measures by the government. Petr Valuev's secret circular prohibited the publication of Ukrainian books for the peasants. Ukrainian Sunday schools were closed down, and leading hromada activists such as Pavlo Chubynsky, O. Konysky, and S. Nis were subjected to administrative banishment. These measures disrupted the activities of the hromadas for a number of years.

At the beginning of the 1870s the Hromada of Kyiv with about 70 members resumed its leading role in the Ukrainian cultural revival. Its activities were disrupted again by the authorities in 1875–6. By this time a strong hromada had emerged in Odesa. Among its founding members were L. Smolensky, M. Klymovych, Mykola V. Kovalevsky, Volodymyr Malovany, and Oleksii Andriievsky. Most of its members shared Mykhailo Drahomanov's ideas, and some of them (Ye. Borysov, Yakiv Shulhyn, Dmitrii Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky) even contributed articles to his journal Hromada (Geneva). The society aided Drahomanov and other Ukrainian activists financially, supported Ukrainian publications in Galicia, financially helped talented individuals to gain an education, and distributed illegal literature. By the time it was crippled with a wave of arrests in 1879, the hromada in Odesa had over 100 members. Besides the Hromada of Kyiv this was the only hromada that lasted for several generations.

In the 1880s those members of the Odesa hromada who had avoided exile turned to purely cultural activities. They supported the development of Ukrainian theater in southern Ukraine, published collections of the best current works by Ukrainian writers, helped Mykhailo Komarov compile Russko-ukrainskii slovar' (The Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary, 4 vols, 1893–8), and made an unsuccessful attempt to publish a journal. Thanks to a more tolerant governor in the Kherson gubernia, the Odesa hromada was more active at the time than the Hromada of Kyiv. In the 1890s a student hromada emerged in Odesa but it did not survive long. The old hromada, under pressure from younger members, gradually became involved in some political activity. In Kyiv several student hromadas sprang up in the 1880s: a study circle inspired by Mykhailo Drahomanov's ideas was organized by O. Dobrohraieva at the Higher Courses for Women; a political group guided by Mykola V. Kovalevsky advocated a constitutional federation and spread propaganda among students; and several smaller circles were formed at particular schools. In the 1890s L. Skochkovsky organized a hromada of theology students, which consisted of about 30 members including Oleksander Lototsky and Polikarp Sikorsky. In 1895 a student hromada, which included H. Lazarevsky, Dmytro Antonovych, Vasyl Domanytsky, and Petro Kholodny, arose at Kyiv University. A number of other higher schools in Kyiv had their own secret hromadas. There was little contact between the old hromada, which shied away from political involvement, and the young hromadas. In the autumn of 1901, the Women's Hromada in Kyiv was founded. This clandestine women's group organized by prominent members of Kyiv's nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia existed until the Revolution of 1905.

In Kharkiv there was a loosely organized, informal old hromada consisting of such scholars and writers as Oleksander Potebnia, Dmytro Pylchykov, Volodymyr Aleksandrov, Petro S. Yefymenko, and his wife Aleksandra Yefymenko. A student hromada headed by Ovksentii Korchak-Chepurkivsky and including members such as Mykola V. Levytsky and Yevhen Chykalenko took shape in 1882. Two years later a political hromada that embraced the principles of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and of Mykhailo Drahomanov was organized by Volodymyr Malovany, M. Levytsky, I. Telychenko, and N. Sokolov. Another politically oriented student hromada was founded in 1897 by Dmytro Antonovych, Yurii Kollard, Mykhailo Rusov, Borys Martos, Oleksander Kovalenko, Bonifatii Kaminsky, Lev Matsiievych, and others. By 1899 it had over 100 members, and in 1904 it merged with the illegal Revolutionary Ukrainian party (RUP), which previously had been founded by the hromada. In Chernihiv a hromada with members such as Illia Shrah, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, I. Konoval, and Borys Hrinchenko was active at the end of the 1890s, and in Poltava a hromada was headed by M. Dmytriiev.

Outside of Ukraine a large and active student hromada existed in the 1880s in Saint Petersburg, whose higher schools attracted many students from Ukraine. Hromada members smuggled illegal literature into Russia, studied Mykhailo Drahomanov's works, organized a choir, and celebrated Taras Shevchenko's anniversary each year. In 1886 some of its members composed a political program and formed the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries. Towards the end of the 1890s an old hromada was formed in Saint Petersburg by Yevhen Chykalenko, Volodymyr M. Leontovych, O. Borodai, Petro Stebnytsky, and others.

At the beginning of the 20th century as students became more nationally conscious and politically engaged, hromadas proliferated in gymnasiums, higher schools, and universities. The Revolution of 1905 drew attention to political issues and loosened restrictions on political activity. The student hromada in Kyiv had evolved into a branch of the Revolutionary Ukrainian party by 1904 and in 1905 was decimated by arrests. It reorganized itself in the following year and fell under the influence of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. In 1906 new hromadas arose at Kyiv University, the Higher Courses for Women, and the Kyiv Polytechnical Institute. In order to gain official recognition these societies avoided political action. The student hromada of Kharkiv (est 1907), with a membership of about 150, was a legal, chartered society. In Odesa there was a short-lived (1903–6), illegal student hromada. Outside of Ukraine the Saint Petersburg student hromada in 1903 united over 300 Ukrainian students belonging to various school hromadas into one organization. Almost all members (about 60) of this hromada, which was headed by V. Pavlenko, H. Bokii, and then Dmytro Doroshenko, were members of RUP. In Moscow the Ukrainian student hromada (est 1898) staged concerts and plays and avoided political activities. A small student hromada was organized in Warsaw by V. Lashchenko in 1901.

At the end of the 19th century efforts were made to co-ordinate the activities of the widely dispersed old and young hromadas. At the initiative of Volodymyr Antonovych and Oleksander Konysky, a conference of members of various hromadas was held in Kyiv in 1897, and the General Ukrainian Non-Party Democratic Organization was established. In August 1898 the first Ukrainian student conference was held in Kyiv and was attended by representatives of young hromadas. A year later the second conference was held. The purpose of the third conference, held in Poltava in June 1901, was to draw the student hromadas into revolutionary activity under the leadership of the Revolutionary Ukrainian party. A fourth student conference was called in Saint Petersburg in 1904.

As reaction set in and restrictions on political activity were tightened, hromada members continued to be active in various cultural societies, Prosvita societies, and other organizations until the Revolution of 1917. The traditional name hromada was later used by Ukrainian émigrés, particularly students, for their organizations.

Hromada of Kyiv. The most active and enduring hromada in Russian-ruled Ukraine. It was not only the chief cultural, and to some extent political, society of Ukrainian intelligentsia in Kyiv but also, through its contacts with similar societies in other cities, the most important catalyst of the Ukrainian national revival of the second half of the 19th century. Although accounts vary, it was founded probably in 1859 mostly by students who felt morally obligated to improve the condition of the people through education. The first period of the hromada's history (1859–63) was devoted primarily to teaching at Sunday schools. The students who taught at the Novoe Stroenie School—O. Stoianov, Pavlo Chubynsky, V. Torsky, and the Syniehub brothers—were among the hromada's founders. At the end of 1860 or the beginning of 1861 a khlopoman group consisting of Volodymyr Antonovych, Tadei Rylsky, Kostiantyn Mykhalchuk, Borys Poznansky, F. Panchenko, and others joined the hromada. The society did not have a clearly defined program or structure. As stated in its public declaration, ‘Otzyv iz Kieva’ (A Reply from Kyiv, published in Russkii vestnik [1862]) signed by 21 members, the hromada rejected revolutionary activity and supported education of the peasants, the development of the Ukrainian language and literature, and separatism. In 1862, at the height of its activity, the hromada's membership reached 200, and included representatives from various social strata—the peasantry, Cossacks, clergy, civil servants, burghers, and landowners—and from different nationalities—Jews and Poles as well as Ukrainians. After closing down the Sunday schools in August 1862, the authorities officially banned the hromada at the beginning of 1863. Nevertheless for a whole year it continued some of its activities, such as studying ethnography, customary law, and geography and preparing books for the masses. At the end of 1863 and the beginning of 1864 its members published a handwritten satirical magazine Pomyinytsia that contained information about the hromada's membership and activities. When the use of Ukrainian in print became severely restricted by Petr Valuev's circular, the hromada's level of activity declined.

The hromada renewed its activity in 1869. Its ranks were strengthened by the influx of new members, and included such cultural activists as Volodymyr Antonovych, Pavlo Zhytetsky, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykola Lysenko, Viliam Berenshtam, Mykhailo Starytsky, Fedir Vovk, Mykola Ziber, Pavlo Chubynsky, P. Kosach, V. Rubinstein, Ivan Rudchenko, Yu. Tsvitkovsky, and Oleksander Rusov. The hromada met on Saturdays at the apartments of its members. It helped young peasants to get a secondary education, and then encouraged them to work as educators in the villages. Its greatest achievement was to establish the Southwestern Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, which between 1873 and 1876 completed an astonishing amount of research in the geography, ethnography, economy, and statistics of Ukraine. Most of the hromada's members worked in the branch, among whose nearly 200 associates the most active were V. Antonovych, P. Chubynsky, and M. Drahomanov. Besides scholarly work, the hromada turned its attention to public affairs. It took over the newspaper Kievskii telegraf, which under the editorship of its members Yu. Tsvitkovsky and M. Drahomanov (1875–6) became the hromada's unofficial organ. In 1876 the secret Ems Ukase led to new repressions against the Kyiv hromada: the Southwestern Branch and the Kievskii telegraf were closed down, some hromada members (M. Drahomanov and M. Ziber) were dismissed from their leading posts at Kyiv University, and others were forced to emigrate. Under the close surveillance of the authorities, the hromada reduced its activities and limited itself to strictly cultural, apolitical goals. As a result it failed to attract members from the younger generation, which began to form its own hromadas in the second half of the 1870s. To distinguish it from the new societies, the Hromada of Kyiv began to be called the Old Hromada.

In the 1880s the hromada, led by Volodymyr Antonovych, again became more active in the cultural sphere. Its energies were focused on publishing a journal, Kievskaia starina (1882–1906), devoted to Ukrainian studies. This unofficial organ of the Old Hromada was financed by Vasyl Symyrenko, Vasyl V. Tarnovsky, and Yevhen Chykalenko. At the same time the Old Hromada built a new monument on Taras Shevchenko's grave in Kaniv and republished his Kobzar. To dissociate itself from M. Drahomanov's political ideas and activities in Geneva, the hromada, which 10 years before had entrusted him with the task of informing Western Europe about Ukraine and had provided the financial support for his publications, broke off relations with him in 1886.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries the Old Hromada admitted some younger members, such as Yevhen Chykalenko, Oleksander Cherniakhivsky, Ivan M. Steshenko, Serhii Yefremov, Leonid Zhebunev, Yevhen Tymchenko, and Mykola V. Levytsky, and intensified its activities. It completed the compilation of a Ukrainian dictionary that had been carried on for many years under Volodymyr Naumenko's direction, and published it under the editorship of Borys Hrinchenko in 1907–9 (photo: title page of Hrinchenko's dictionary). Thanks to the hromada's initiative the General Ukrainian Non-Party Democratic Organization was founded in 1897.

The rise of national cultural movement in Ukrainian lands of Russian Empire provoked the appearance of Valuev Circular (1863) which initiated anti-Ukrainian campaign the Russian press and limited the use of Ukrainian language. The Ems Edict (1876) prohibited the publication of Ukrainian books, Ukrainian Sunday schools; repressions against gromada movement started. Some cultural activists were dismissed from their posts at Kiev University, some were forced to emigrate. Leading gromada activists (P. Chubinsky, O. Konysky, and S. Nis) were subjected to administrative punishment.

M. Dragomanov (1841-1895), the outstanding political thinker of liberal-democratic, socialist, and Ukrainian patriotic leader became a spokesman of Ukrainian idea in exile, promoting Ukrainian ethnic, cultural, and educational policy in the Western Europe. Scholar, civic leader, publicist, political thinker. Born into a gentry family of Cossack origin, Drahomanov studied at Kyiv University, where in 1864 he became privat docent, and in 1873, docent, lecturing on ancient history. While pursuing an academic career, Drahomanov rose to a position of leadership in the Ukrainian secret society the Hromada of Kyiv (later known as the Old Hromada) and took part in its various activities, such as the transformation of the Southwestern Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society into a center of Ukrainian studies and the editing of the daily Kievskii telegraf. During his trips abroad Drahomanov established contacts with Galician Ukrainians; under his influence the Russophile Academic Circle in Lviv associated with the journal Druh adopted a Ukrainian democratic platform in 1875–6. Among the Russian educated public Drahomanov attracted attention with his articles (in Vestnik Evropy and elsewhere), in which he critically discussed Russia's internal and foreign policies.

Drahomanov became an early victim of anti-Ukrainian repressive measures by the Russian government and was dismissed in 1875 from the Kyiv University. Entrusted by the Hromada with the mission to become its spokesman in Western Europe, he settled in Geneva in 1876. Aided by Antin Liakhotsky (Kuzma), he published the journal Hromada (Geneva) (5 vols, 1878–82), the first modern Ukrainian political journal, and a number of pamphlets, mostly in Russian. With Serhii Podolynsky and Mykhailo Pavlyk, who for some time joined him in Switzerland, Drahomanov formed the Geneva Circle, an embryo of Ukrainian socialism. He strove to alert European opinion to the plight of the Ukrainian people under tsarism by pamphlets and articles in the French, Italian, and Swiss press. Drahomanov also played a prominent role in the Russian émigré community; he edited Vol’noe slovo, the organ of the zemstvo liberals. His contacts extended to Polish, Jewish, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Rumanian radicals and groups.

In 1886 a rift occurred between Drahomanov and the Hromada of Kyiv; the latter felt that political activity abroad might provoke increased anti-Ukrainian repression. The socialist stance adopted by Drahomanov in exile was often at variance with the moderate views of the Hromada members. Drahomanov also antagonized Russian émigré factions by his constitutionalism and sharp criticism of the Russian revolutionaries’ dictatorial proclivities and covert chauvinism. In Galicia, too, Drahomanov’s followers (Ivan Franko, Pavlyk, Ostap Terletsky) suffered persecution from the Austro-Polish administration and ostracism from the local clerical-conservative Ukrainian society. By the mid-1880s Drahomanov found himself in isolation and deprived of Hromada’s financial support.

In 1889 Drahomanov accepted a professorship at Sofia University. During his last years he saw the rise of the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical party, founded in 1890 by his Galician followers. Drahomanov was their mentor through his intensive correspondence and programmatic articles in the party's organ, Narod. He also contributed to the London monthly Free Russia, edited by Sergei Kravchinsky (Sergius Stepniak). Soon after his move to Bulgaria, Drahomanov developed a heart ailment. He died and was buried in Sofia.

Drahomanov began his scholarly work as an ancient historian and wrote “The Problem of the Historical Significance of the Roman Empire and Tacitus” (1869). Later he worked in Slavic, especially Ukrainian, ethnography and folklore, using the historical-comparative method. Drahomanov applied folk oral literature to his study of the history of social ideas in Ukraine. His principal works are Istoricheskie pesni malorusskogo naroda (Historical Songs of the Little Russian People, with Volodymyr Antonovych, 2 vols, 1874–5); “Little Russian Folk Legends and Tales” (1876); “Recent Ukrainian Songs on Social Topics” (1881); and “Political Songs of the Ukrainian People in the 18th and 19th Centuries”, 2 vols, (1883–5).

Drahomanov was an outstanding Ukrainian political thinker. He dealt extensively with constitutional, ethnic, international, cultural, and educational issues; he also engaged in literary criticism. Drahomanov’s ideas represent a blend of liberal-democratic, socialist, and Ukrainian patriotic elements, with a positivist philosophical background. Influenced by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Drahomanov envisaged the final goal of humanity’s progress as a future condition of anarchy: a voluntary association of free and equal individuals, with the elimination of authoritarian features in social life. He assumed that this ideal could be achieved through federalism and the self-government of communities and regions. Drahomanov insisted on the priority of civil rights and free political institutions over economic class interests and of universal human values over exclusive national concerns. However, he believed that nationality was a necessary building stone of all mankind, and he coined the slogan ‘Cosmopolitanism in the ideas and the ends, nationality in the ground and the forms.’

Drahomanov declared himself a socialist, without subscribing to any school of contemporary socialist thought. The motivation for his socialism was ethical: concern for social justice and the underprivileged and exploited. He advanced a program of concrete socioeconomic reforms (eg, protective labor legislation, progressive income tax). Drahomanov was convinced that in agrarian Ukraine socialism must be oriented towards the peasantry. Therefore, he may be classified as a populist in the broad sense of the term, although he objected to some features of Russian populism (eg, the glorification of peasant revolts and disregard for Western-type liberal institutions). Drahomanov rejected Marxism, especially the materialist interpretation of history.

Drahomanov continued the democratic-federalist tradition as represented by the Ukrainian Decembrist movement of the 1820s the Society of United Slavs, of which his uncle, Yakiv Drahomanov, had been a member, and the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. He wished to link the Ukrainian movement with progressive trends in the contemporary Western world. Drahomanov regretted that the Ukrainian people had not preserved an independent state in the past. However, he thought that a policy of separatism was unrealistic, and his philosophical anarchism did not allow him to envisage national statehood as an objective. He admonished his compatriots to concentrate on the democratization and federalization of the existing states of Russia and Austria-Hungary, which he thought would provide sufficient scope for the free development of the Ukrainian nation. He postulated collaboration with all peoples of Eastern Europe, including Russians. Yet, Drahomanov insisted on the organizational independence of the Ukrainian movement. He combated both the concept of ‘non-political cultural work’ and the Ukrainians’ participation in Russian revolutionary organizations, which alienated them from their own people.

Drahomanov’s vision embraced all ethnic Ukrainian lands. He was the first national leader to visit Transcarpathia, and he developed a lasting commitment to ‘the wounded brother’. Drahomanov envisaged a systematic co-operation among various Ukrainian lands, cutting across state boundaries. He proposed that until the overthrow of Russian autocracy the center of the national movement should be located in Galicia, where the constitutional regime offered some opportunities. It was imperative for Galician Ukrainians, however, to rid themselves of their provincial and clerical outlook. Drahomanov pleaded for secularization of Ukrainian civic and cultural life, and church-state separation. Considering Protestantism more amenable to progress than either Orthodoxy or Catholicism, Drahomanov showed interest in the emergence of evangelical sects in Ukraine. He wrote a series of tracts to encourage religious non-conformity and anticlericalism. Drahomanov consistently opposed expressions of a xenophobic Ukrainian nationalism and defended the usefulness of progressive Russian literature for Ukrainians. He maintained that national liberation was inseparable from social emancipation. He called on the intelligentsia to work for the uplifting of the masses through education, economic improvement, political participation, and the building of popular associations.

Viewing the Ukrainian problem in a broad context, Drahomanov devoted attention to Ukraine’s neighbors. Concerning Russia, he advocated a common front of moderate liberals and revolutionary socialists against autocracy, but condemned terrorist methods. Drahomanov drafted a proposal for a constitutional reorganization of Russia, 1884, with rule of law, guarantees of civil rights, regional and local self-government, and equality of nationalities. Drahomanov endorsed the right of minorities in Ukraine, particularly the Jews, to a corporate national-cultural autonomy. He welcomed the liberation of the southern Slavs from the Turks but cautioned against tsarist imperialism in the Balkans. He criticized equally the Russian oppression of Poland and Polish claims to lands where the majority of the population was ethnically non-Polish. He saw threats to Eastern Europe in Prusso-German militarism, in the inflated territorial aspirations of the Polish ‘historical’ patriots, and in the ‘Jacobinism’ of Russian revolutionary groups.

Natural sciences were less ideologically sensitive. University in Odessa (founded in 1865) had impact on scientific activity of I. Mechnikov (the Nobel Prize winner in immunology). A. Bogomolets (medicine), N. Lange (psychology), I. Sechenov (physiology), N. Beketov (physio-chemistry).

3. The second half of the XIX century was a time of realism dominance in arts. Realism referres to reality in art that depicts the visible material world as close as possible without embellishment or interpretation. It appeared in France in the 1850s as an artistic movement as an opposition to Romanticism. Critical realism was a style in arts since 1830s that exposed disillusionment with results of the bourgeois revolution and negative attitude toward the capitalism. Stendhal, O. de Balzac (France), Ch. Dickens (Great Britain) created panoramic canvases of their society. N. Gogol depicted the system of landownership and serfdom in Russian Empire. Literature of critical realism was represented by creative activity of Ukrainian writers Marko Vovchok, L. Glebov, P. Mirny, I. Nechuy-Levitsky.

Vovchok, Marko ( 1834 - 1907 ). Writer. In 1851 she married Opanas Markovych, who had been a member of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, and moved from Orel to Ukraine. From 1851 to 1858 she lived in Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Nemyriv and studied the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian traditions and folklore and wrote “Folk Stories”, which was published in 1857. It met with immediate acclaim in Ukrainian literary circles, particularly from Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish, and in Russia (it was translated into Russian and edited by Ivan Turgenev as “Ukrainian Folk Tales” (1859). In 1859, after a short stay in Saint Petersburg, Vovchok moved to Germany. She spent some time in Switzerland, England, and Italy but stayed the longest in Paris. In 1862 a two-volume edition of Narodni opovidannia was published, and individual works were published in the journals Osnova (Saint Petersburg), the monthly Meta, and the weekly Vechernytsi. . From 1867 to 1878 Vovchok lived in Saint Petersburg, where owing to the prohibition against the Ukrainian language she wrote and translated for Russian journals. She wrote in Russian “The Living Soul” (1868), “The Notes of a Participant” (1870), V glushi (In the Backwoods, 1875), and several other novels. From 1878 Vovchok lived in northern Caucasia, and in 1885–93 in Kyiv gubernia, where she continued her work on Ukrainian folklore and a dictionary. At the beginning of the 1900s she renewed her contact with Ukrainian publishers.

Elements of realism appear mainly in her short stories about Ukrainian peasants living under serfdom and about the difficult plight of women. Other works continue the tradition of ethnographic romanticism and are typified by strong characters and willful heroes. Also in that tradition are the children's stories ‘”Nine Brothers and the Tenth Sister Halia” (1863), ‘Karmeliuk’ (1865), and ‘Marusia’ (1871). Vovchok's prose markedly influenced the development of the Ukrainian short story in the second half of the 19th century.

Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan ( 1838 - 1918 ). Writer. Upon graduating from the Kyiv Theological Academy (1865) he taught Russian language, history, and geography in the Poltava Theological Seminary (1865–6) and, later, in the gymnasiums in Kalisz, Siedlce (1867–72), and Kishinev (1873–4). He began writing in 1865, but because of Russian imperial censorship his works appeared only in Galician periodicals, such as the journal Pravda, Dilo, and Zoria (Lviv). The first to be published were two stories, ‘Dvi moskovky’ (Two Muscovite Women) and ‘Horyslavs’ka nich, abo Rybalka Panas Krut’ (A Night in Horyslav, or Panas Krut the Fisherman), both of which appeared in Pravda in 1868. He mainly wrote stories, in which he combined the styles of the novel and the folkloric narrative. His works about the lives of peasants and laborers established him as a master of Ukrainian classical prose and as the creator of the Ukrainian realist narrative. They include Mykola Dzheria (1878), “Kaidash's Family” (1879), Burlachka (The Wandering Girl, 1880), and the cycle of short stories “Granny Paraska and Granny Palazhka” (1874–1908). The Ukrainian clergy was described and satirized in “Old-World Priests and Their Wives” (1888), “In the Midst of Enemies” (1893), and Afons’kyi proidysvit (The Vagabond from Athos, 1890). The Polish aristocracy and the Polonized Ukrainian middle class are portrayed in Prychepa (The Hanger-on, 1869) and Zhyvtsem pokhovani (Buried Alive, 1898). Nechui-Levytsky was the first to provide fictional characterizations of various classes of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, ranging from students and teachers to high-ranking members of the Russian civil service. Against a background of colonial repression and thoroughgoing Russification Nechui-Levytsky sought to depict the stirrings of national consciousness in the Ukrainian intelligentsia and their attempts to ‘place first on the agenda the inevitability of national liberation’ (Oleksander Biletsky). Those attempts on the part of his protagonists usually bring about their downfall. Such is the theme of Khmary (Clouds, 1874), the first Ukrainian work of fiction to address the problem, of Nad Chornym Morem (On the Black Sea Coast, 1890), of Navizhena (The Madwoman, 1891), and of many other works. Nechui-Levytsky also wrote historical fiction (mainly under the influence of Mykola Kostomarov. His plays included the historical dramas Marusia Bohuslavka (1875) and V dymu ta polum'ï (In the Smoke and the Flames, 1911), the comedies Na Kozhum'iakakh (In Kozhumiaky; adapted by Mykhailo Starytsky in 1875 and published as Za dvoma zaitsiamy [Chasing After Two Hares]) and Holodnomu i open’ky m'iaso (For a Starving Man Even Mushrooms Are Meat, 1887), and children's interludes.

Nechui-Levytsky also wrote popular works on Ukrainian mythology, history, and ethnography, and numerous articles about Ukrainian theater and the various people active in it. In his articles on Ukrainian literature, such as ‘S'ohochasne literaturne priamuvannia’ (The Contemporary Literary Trend, 1878, 1884) and ‘Ukraïnstvo na literaturnykh pozvakh z Moskovshchynoiu’ (The Ukrainian Community in Literary Litigation with Russia, 1891), he championed the idea of a national literature formed independently of outside influences, and asserted that ‘Russian literature is useless [as a model] for Ukraine.’

Kulish, Panteleimon( 1819 - 1897 ). Prominent writer, historian, ethnographer, and translator. He was born into an impoverished Cossack-gentry family. After completing only five years at the Novhorod-Siverskyi gymnasium he enrolled at Kyiv University in 1837 but was not allowed to finish his studies because he was not a noble. He obtained a teaching position in Lutsk in 1840. There he wrote his first historical novel in Russian, Mikhail Charnyshenko, ili Malorossiia vosem’desiat let nazad (Mykhailo Charnyshenko, or Little Russia Eighty Years Ago, 2 vols, 1843). Mykhailo Maksymovych promoted Kulish's literary efforts and published several of his early stories. His first longer work written in Ukrainian was the epic poem ‘Ukraïna’ (Ukraine, 1843). In 1843–5 Kulish taught in Kyiv and studied Ukrainian history and ethnography. There he befriended Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Kostomarov, and Vasyl Bilozersky; their circle later became the nucleus of the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. Another new friend, the Polish writer Michał Grabowski, also had a great influence on him.

In 1845 P. Pletnev, the rector of Saint Petersburg University, invited Kulish to teach at the university. In Saint Petersburg Kulish finished in Ukrainian his major historical novel, “The Black Council, a Chronicle of the Year 1663”, of which excerpts were published in Russian translation in Muscovite journals in 1845–6. To prepare him for a professorial career, the Imperial Academy of Sciences granted him a scholarship to do research abroad. In 1847 he married O. Bilozerska (the future writer Hanna Barvinok) and set out with her for Prague. En route he was arrested by the tsarist police in Warsaw for belonging to the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, which had been uncovered at the time. After two months in prison he was exiled for three years to Tula. Because his main offence had been writing a ‘Tale of the Ukrainian People,’ Kulish was forbidden to write. He maintained his innocence, but his interrogation and closed trial and subsequent loss of freedom were for him a deep trauma.

In 1850 he was allowed to return to Saint Petersburg. While working as an editor there, he tried, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a Russian littérateur, publishing in the journal Sovremennik the autobiographical novella “The History of Uliana Terentevna” (1852), the historical novel ‘Aleksei Odnorog’ (1852–3), and the novella ‘Iakov Iakovlevich.’ He worked on a long biography of Nikolai Gogol, finishing it in 1856 while visiting S. Aksakov.

Soon his Ukrainian interests took the upper hand. After living for a while on a khutir in Ukraine and in Kyiv, Kulish returned to Saint Petersburg. There he established a Ukrainian printing press and, after being allowed to publish under his own name, issued two splendid volumes of “Notes on Southern Rus” (1856–7), a rich collection of Ukrainian folklore, ethnography, and literature in which he introduced a new orthography (Kulishivka). In 1857 he finally published Chorna rada in its entirety, in both Ukrainian and Russian. In the epilogue to the Russian edition he pleaded for the first time for the political unity of Ukraine and Russia while stressing their cultural separateness. He also published a primer (Hramatka, 1857) for use in Sunday schools, a volume of Marko Vovchok's folk tales (1858), and the Ukrainian almanac Khata (Saint Petersburg) (Home, 1860). ‘Maior’ (Major), his Russian novella about his life in Ukraine, appeared in Russkii vestnik in 1859. In 1860–2 he was actively involved in the Ukrainian journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg). In 1862 he published a separate collection of his own poems, Dosvitky (Glimmers of Dawn).

In 1864 Kulish accepted a high Russian official post in Warsaw. From there he developed further the contacts he had made earlier with Galician intellectuals and contributed to several Lviv periodicals. When he was asked to end these contacts he refused and resigned in 1867. After traveling abroad he returned to Saint Petersburg. For a while he edited a Russian government publication. Most of his time he devoted to the study of Ukrainian history, particularly of the Cossack period. His earlier romantic view of the Cossacks gave way to a new and very critical appraisal of them, which had already been evident in Chorna rada. He published several long articles on the Cossacks entitled ‘Mal'ovana haidamachchyna’ (The Painted Haidamaka Era, 1876) and a major study in three volumes, Istoriia vossoedineniia Rusi (The History of the Reunification of Rus’, 1874–7). In the latter he expressed admiration for Peter I and Catherine II and made some uncomplimentary remarks about Taras Shevchenko, thereby alienating most of the Ukrainian reading public. At about the same time, Kulish began translating the Bible, a work that, with the help of Ivan Puliui and Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, was finally completed only after his death. His translation of the Psalter was published in Galicia in 1871.

After the 1876 Ems Ukase forbade Ukrainian publications in the Russian Empire, Kulish strengthened his ties with Galicia. In 1881 he went to Lviv, and in 1882 his collection of poems and essays, Khutorna poeziia (Khutir Poetry), his Ukrainian translations of William Shakespeare's Othello, Troilus and Cressida, and Comedy of Errors, and an appeal for Ukrainian-Polish understanding, Krashanka rusynam i poliakam na Velykden’ 1882 roku (A Painted Egg for the Ruthenians and the Poles at Easter 1882), were published there. In 1883 he published his long poem ‘Mahomet i Khadyza’ (Muhammad and Khadijah), showing his deep interest in Islam. Kulish returned to Russian-ruled Ukraine, settled on his khutir Motronivka, and remained there with his wife until his death. Cut off from most Ukrainian activists, he conducted a wide correspondence and worked on translations of the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Byron.

Both during his life and after his death Kulish was a controversial figure. His emphasis on the development of a separate, indigenous Ukrainian high culture while advocating political union with Russia found little sympathy among Ukrainian populists. After 1850, during his intense writing and publishing activity, he remained aloof from organized Ukrainian community life. His attempts at influencing Ukrainian cultural activities in Austrian-ruled Galicia were often misunderstood. Kulish's uncompromising attitude and his egocentrism were often stumbling blocks in his relations with others. Yet even his opponents granted him his achievements. During the modernist period of Ukrainian literature interest in Kulish was revived by M. Sribliansky (see Mykyta Shapoval) and Mykola Yevshan. Dubove lystia (Oak Leaves), an almanac in his memory, appeared in Kyiv in 1903, and editions of his works were published in Kyiv (5 vols) and Lviv (6 vols) in 1908–10.

Franko, Ivan (1856 -1916 ). Writer, scholar, political and civic leader, publicist; like Taras Shevchenko, one of Ukraine's greatest creative geniuses. The son of a village blacksmith, Franko graduated from the Drohobych gymnasium in 1875 and began to study classical philology and Ukrainian language and literature at Lviv University. His first literary works—poetry (1874) and the novel Petriï i Dovbushchuky (1875)—were published in the students' magazine Druh, whose editorial board he joined in 1875. Franko's political and publishing activities and his correspondence with Mykhailo Drahomanov attracted the attention of the police, and in 1877 he was arrested along with Mykhailo Pavlyk, Ostap Terletsky, and others for spreading socialist propaganda. After spending eight months in prison Franko returned to political work with even greater fervor. He helped organize workers' groups in Lviv, contributed articles to the Polish newspaper Praca, and studied the works of K. Marx and F. Engels. In 1878 he founded with Pavlyk, the magazine Hromads’kyi druh, which was confiscated by the authorities but resumed publication under the names Dzvin and Molot. In 1880 Franko was arrested again and charged with inciting peasants against the authorities. After serving a three-month term, he was released but was kept under police surveillance and was forced to discontinue his university studies.

During the first period of his creative work Franko wrote political poems, such as ‘Kameniari’ (The Stonecutters, 1878), ‘Vichnyi revoliutsioner’ (The Eternal Revolutionary, 1880), and ‘Ne pora ...’ (This Is Not the Time ..., 1880), which became patriotic anthems and influenced the outlook of a whole generation; the novels Boa constrictor (1878), Boryslav smiiet’sia (Boryslav Is Laughing, 1881), and Zakhar Berkut (1883); and a series of literary and journalistic articles. In 1881 Franko co-published the monthly S’vit, and after its closing in 1882 he edited the journal Zoria (Lviv) and the newspaper Dilo (1883–5). Leaving the populists, who were apprehensive about his radical socialist and revolutionary ideas, Franko tried to set up an independent journal; to find support, he made two trips to Kyiv, in 1885 and 1886. In May 1886 he married O. Khoruzhynska in Kyiv. When the journal failed, Franko joined the staff of a Polish newspaper, Kurjer Lwowski. In referring to the decade (1887–97) that he spent working for the Polish press (he also worked for Przyjaciel ludu) and the German press (Die Zeit), Franko said that he was ‘doing hired labor for the neighbors.’

For a while in 1888 Franko was a contributor to the journal Pravda. His ties with compatriots from Dnieper Ukraine led to a third arrest in 1889. In the following year, with the support of Mykhailo Drahomanov, Franko co-founded the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical party and drew up its program. With Mykhailo Pavlyk, he published the party's organs Narod (1890–5) and Khliborob (Lviv, Kolomyia) (1891–5). In 1895, 1897, and 1898 he was the Radical party's candidate for a seat in the Austrian Parliament and the Galician Diet but lost the elections because of manipulations of the administration and provocations of the opposition. In 1899 a crisis arose in the Radical party, and Franko joined the populists in founding the National Democratic party, in which he was active until 1904, when he retired from political life. For many years Franko collaborated in the sociopolitical field with M. Drahomanov, whom he regarded highly as a ‘European political leader,’ but eventually their views on socialism and the national question diverged. Franko parted with Drahomanov, accusing him of tying Ukraine's fate to that of Russia.

Besides his political and literary work Franko continued his university studies, first at Chernivtsi University (1891), where he prepared a dissertation on Ivan Vyshensky, and then at Vienna University, where on 1 July 1893 he defended a doctoral dissertation on the spiritual romance Barlaam and Josaphat under the supervision of the eminent Slavist Vatroslav Jagić. In 1894 Franko was appointed lecturer in the history of Ukrainian literature at Lviv University but failed to obtain the chair of Ukrainian literature because of opposition from Vicegerent Kazimierz Badeni and Galician reactionary circles. In 1894–7 he and his wife published the journal Zhytie i slovo, in which many of his articles appeared, among them ‘Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm (Socialism and Social Democracy, 1898), a severe criticism of Ukrainian Social Democracy and the socialism of Marx and Engels. In the introduction to the poetry collection Mii izmarahd (My Emerald, 1898) Franko continued his attack on Marxism as ‘a religion founded on dogmas of hatred and class struggle.’

With Mykhailo Hrushevsky's coming to Lviv in 1894, Franko became closely associated with the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In 1899 he became a full member of the society and in 1904 an honorary member. Most of his scholarly works, historical and literary notes, and reviews appeared in Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka Franko worked in the Ethnographic Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and headed the Philological Section (1898–1908). Through the efforts of Franko and Hrushevsky the Shevchenko Scientific Society became akin to an academy of sciences on the eve of the First World War. In 1897 Franko's article in Die Zeit in which he called Adam Mickiewicz the poet of treason (‘Der Dichter des Verrates’) led to the end of his career as a journalist. Henceforth, Franko devoted himself completely to editing Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk (Lviv 1898–1906) with Hrushevsky and Volodymyr Hnatiuk. Actually, Franko did all the editing. In 1898 the Ukrainian community celebrated the 25th anniversary of Franko's work as a writer.

In 1908 Franko's health began to decline rapidly. Yet, he continued to work to the end of his life. In this last period he wrote Narys istoriï ukraïns’ko-rus’koï literatury do 1890 r. (Outline of the History of Ukrainian-Ruthenian Literature to 1890, 1910) and Studiï nad ukraïns’kymy narodnymy pisniamy (Studies of Ukrainian Folk Songs, 1913) and did numerous translations of ancient poetry. In 1913 all Ukraine celebrated the 40th anniversary of his literary work.

With his many gifts, encyclopedic knowledge, and uncommon capacity for work, Franko made outstanding contributions to many areas of Ukrainian culture. He was a poet, prose writer, playwright, critic, literary historian, translator, and publisher. The themes of his literary works were drawn from the life and struggle of his own people and from sources of world culture: Eastern cultures and the classical and Renaissance traditions. He was a ‘golden bridge’ between Ukrainian and world literatures.

Franko was one of the first realists in Ukrainian literature and the most outstanding poet of the post-Shevchenko period. His second collection, Z vershyn i nyzyn (From the Heights and the Depths, 1887, expanded 1893), which included the masterpieces of his social lyrical poetry, such as ‘Tovarysham z tiurmy’ (To Comrades from Prison), ‘Vichnyi revoliutsioner,’ ‘Kameniari,’ ‘Zemle moia’ (My Land), and ‘Tiuremni sonety’ (Prison Sonnets), broke new ground. It radicalized the younger generation and for this reason was banned in Ukraine under Russia. Franko's Ziv’iale lystia (Withered Leaves, 1896) marks the culmination of his love poetry. Philosophical themes predominated in the collection Mii izmarahd (1898)—reflections on good and evil, beauty, fidelity, duty, and the meaning of life. But the collection also contained some social poetry that depicted the suffering of the Ukrainian people—’Po selakh’ (Through the Villages), ‘Do Brazyliï’ (To Brazil), etc. In the collection Iz dniv zhurby (From the Days of Sorrow, 1900) the poet reflected on his personal fate. The collection Semper tiro (1906) is a poetic statement of the revolutionary poet's own faith. Franko displayed his poetic skills in large epic poems such as Pans’ki zharty (A Landlord's Jests, 1887), Surka (1890), Smert’ Kaïna (The Death of Cain, 1889), and Ivan Vyshens’kyi (1900). His greatest poem, “Moses”, 1905, which in a biblical setting deals with the conflict between a leader and his people and proclaims the ideal of service to one's people, was based to a large extent on autobiographical material.

Franko's prose works include over 100 short stories and dozens of novels. His earliest prose works (beginning in 1877) form the Boryslav cycle, which painted a vivid picture and gave a profound analysis of the social evils that plagued Galicia at the time. The impoverishment and proletarianization of the Galician peasants are the basic themes of the collections V poti chola (In the Sweat of the Brow, 1890) and Halyts’ki obrazky (Galician Pictures, 1885), which include some autobiographical stories such as ‘Malyi Myron’ (Little Myron), ‘Hrytseva shkil’na nauka’ (Hryts's School Lesson), ‘Olivets’‘ (The Pencil), and ‘Schönschreiben’. His greatest masterpieces of prose are the novel Boa constrictor (1878) and the social novel Boryslav smiiet’sia (1881), which for the first time depict the incipient forms of revolutionary struggle among the workers and the spontaneous awakening of workingclass consciousness. Zakhar Berkut (1883), a historical novel based on ancient Ukrainian chronicles, presents the heroic resistance of Ukrainian highlanders to the Mongols in 1241. Franko's other historical novels are “Unwilling Hero” (1904), dealing with the 1848 revolution in Lviv, and “The Great Noise” (1907), dealing with the abolition of serfdom. Franko dealt with the moral decay of the leading circles in contemporary Galician society in the novels “For the Home Hearth” (1897), Osnovy suspil’nosty (The Foundations of Society, 1895), and “Crossed Paths” (1900). The novel Lel’ i Polel’ (1887) is didactic in character. Franko's prose is noted for its variety of themes, as well as its realistic presentation of the life of the different social strata.

In drama Franko proved himself a master of the sociopsychological and historical play and of comedy. His first attempts in this area date back to his gymnasium days—Iuhurta (1873), Try kniazi na odyn prestol (Three Princes for One Throne, 1874), and others. He wrote the largest number of his plays in the 1890s. His best plays are the sociopsychological drama Ukradene shchastia (Stolen Happiness, 1894) and the historical drama in verse Son kniazia Sviatoslava (The Dream of Prince Sviatoslav, 1895). Of his longer plays the comedies Riabyna (The Rowan Tree, 1886) and Uchytel’ (The Teacher, 1896) are also well known. His best-known one-act plays are Ostannii kreitsar (The Last Kreutzer, 1879), Budka ch. 27 (Hut No. 27, 1893), Kam’iana dusha (The Stone Soul, 1895), Maister Chyrniak (Master Chyrniak, 1896), and Sud sv. Mykolaia (The Trial of Saint Nicholas, 1920). Franko contributed several masterpieces to children's literature, including Lys Mykyta (Fox Mykyta, 1890), Pryhody Don-Kikhota (The Adventures of Don Quixote, 1891), Abu-Kazemovi kaptsi (Abu-Kasim's Slippers, 1895), Koly shche zviri hovoryly (When Animals Still Talked, 1899), and Koval’ Bassim (Bassim the Blacksmith, 1900). Special mention must be made of Franko's work as a translator, which he carried on throughout his life. He translated masterpieces from 14 languages by such famous authors as Homer, Dante, William Shakespeare, J. Goethe, E. Zola, B. Bjørnson, Aleksandr Pushkin, M. Lermontov, N. Chernyshevsky, A. Herzen, N. Nekrasov, A. Mickiewicz, W. Gomulicki, K. Havlíček-Borovský, J. Neruda, J. Machar, H. Ibsen, H. Heine, and others.

Starting with his doctoral dissertation (1893) and qualifying thesis “Analysis of Shevchenko's ‘The Servant Girl,”’ (1895), Franko's works on the theory and history of literature and criticism were an important contribution to Ukrainian literary studies. His largest scholarly work was the five-volume “Apocrypha and Legends from Ukrainian Manuscripts” (1896–1910), a monumental collection of texts and scholarly analysis. Among his works on old and medieval literature were “Carpatho-Ruthenian Literature of the 17th–18th Centuries” (1900), “Saint Clement in Korsun” ( 1906), and materials on the history of Old Ukrainian drama, particularly of the vertep “On the History of the Ukrainian Puppet Theater of the 18th Century” (1906). Franko's theoretical views on the purpose of literature were expressed in “On the Secrets of Poetic Creativity” (1898) and “The Theory and Development of the History of Literature” (1899). He emphasized the social basis of literary work but accepted esthetic qualities as essential to its evaluation. In his studies of literary monuments Franko used the comparative and historical-cultural approach.

In the area of linguistics Franko produced several studies of the Ukrainian literary language, including “Etymology and Phonetics in Southern Ruthenian Literature” (1894), “The Literary Language and Dialects” (1907). He defended the view that there is only one Ukrainian literary language, based primarily on the Dnieper dialects and enriched with dialects from Western Ukraine. For his philological contributions Franko was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kharkiv University in 1906. He was also elected to a number of Slavic scholarly associations. In the field of ethnography and folklore Franko collected a wealth of source material and wrote a series of studies and articles about the clothing, food, art, and folk beliefs of the Galician people. In 1898–1913 Franko served as chairman of the Ethnographic Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and co-edited Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk with Volodymyr Hnatiuk. His main studies of folklore are “Something about Boryslav” (1882), “Women's Servitude in Ruthenian Folk Songs” (1883), “How Folk Songs Originate” (1887), ‘The Soldier's Song’ (1888).

Franko formulated his philosophical, sociological, and political ideas in the following studies: “Scholarship and Its Attitude to the Working Classes” (1878), “Reflections on Evolution in the History of Mankind” (1881–2), and “The Newest Trends in Ethnology” (1895). His article ‘Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm’ (1897) is a critique of ‘scientific socialism’ and the materialist conception of history. ‘”What Is Progress” (1903) is a survey of sociocultural development and a critique of the communist concept of the state, while “Social Action, the Social Question, and Socialism” (1904) is an analysis of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky's pastoral letter on the social question and an essay on the causes of social injustice.

Franko's works in economics deal with the condition of the workers and peasants from a historical viewpoint: About a hundred published works, most of them dealing with the peasant movement and the 1848 revolution in Galicia and with Ukrainian-Polish relations, were the subjects of Franko's sociological, sociopolitical, and historical-economic studies.

Franko's journalistic work evolved with his outlook and was governed by his scientific approach. Hence, it is often difficult to distinguish his scholarly articles from his journalistic writings. Franko regarded Ukraine as a sovereign entity belonging to ‘the circle of free nations.’ At the same time he devoted much attention to the defense of universal human rights. Franko first became politically active in a circle of Russophile secondary school students. Soon after he left it and joined the populist camp. As a student he was a fervent advocate of socialism and studied Marx and Engels, but later he attacked it vehemently. In general, Franko evolved in his thinking from radical to a progressive national democrat. The evolution of his views is reflected in his numerous journalistic articles.

In fine arts realism became popular because of the activity of the Peredvizhniki, a group of artists established in St. Petersburg that promoted enlightenment through travelling exhibitions of pictures portrayed the conditions of contemporary life, particularly of the peasants, and depicting landscapes. Several Ukrainian born artists were the members or exhibited with the Peredvizhniki (N. Ge, I. Repin, S. Vasilkovsky).

In the late 19th century, with the rise of the Peredvizhniki society of painters who opposed the dogmatic imitation of classical art forms, genre painting came to enjoy great popularity in the Russian Empire, including Ukraine. Depicting primarily scenes from village life, the Ukrainian representatives of the Peredvizhniki, such as Kyriak Kostandi, Ilia Repin, or Mykola Pymonenko, worked in realist and naturalist styles and were more concerned with realistic portrayals than with stylistic innovation. Consequently, in the wake of formalist experimentation in the early 20th century, originally radical in nature, the Peredvizhniki society became a bastion of conservatism and opposed modernist trends in Ukrainian art.

Genre painting. A style of painting characterized by the depiction of scenes from everyday life. Ukrainian genre painting usually depicts village life. Early examples of genre painting in Ukraine include works by Vasilii Shternberg (Easter in Ukraine), Ivan Soshenko (Boys Fishing), and Taras Shevchenko (In the Apiary and A Peasant Family). With the rise of the Peredvizhniki group of painters in the late 19th century, genre painting came to enjoy great popularity in the Russian Empire, including Ukraine. At that time Kostiantyn Trutovsky (Ukrainian Market and Girls at the Well), Ilia Repin (Evening Party and Village Musicians), Mykola Bodarevsky (Wedding in Ukraine), and Mykola Pymonenko (At the Market) were among the more prominent genre painters. Later works depicting everyday life were painted by, among others, Porfyrii Martynovych, Ivan Izhakevych, Fotii Krasytsky, Amvrosii Zhdakha, Fedir Krychevsky, Ivan Severyn, Oleksander Murashko, and Anatol Petrytsky, many of whom were associated with the Peredvizhniki, and by the Western Ukrainians Olena Kulchytska, Ivan Trush, Mykola Ivasiuk, Yosyp Bokshai, Osyp Kurylas, and V. Yarotsky.

Peredvizhniki (Itinerants). A name applied to members of the Russian Society of Itinerant Art Exhibitions. It was founded in 1870 by Ivan Kramskoi, Nikolai Ge, and 13 other artists who had left the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts in protest against its rigid neoclassical dicta. In order to reach the widest audience possible, the society organized regular traveling exhibitions throughout the Russian Empire, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa in their tours. Over the years the society attracted artists from various parts of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Among the Ukrainians who joined it were Kyriak Kostandi, Arkhyp Kuindzhi, Mykola Kuznetsov, Oleksander Murashko, Leonid Pozen, Mykola Pymonenko, Petro Nilus, Ilia Repin, Serhii Svitoslavsky, and Mykola Yaroshenko. Ukrainians who took part in the society's exhibitions but were not members were Petro Levchenko, Solomon Kyshynivsky, and Yevhen Bukovetsky. The Peredvizhniki worked in realist and naturalist styles and concentrated on landscape art, portraiture, and genre painting. Typical of the society's Ukrainian offshoot are works such as Kostandi's Among the People (1885) and Early Spring (1892), and Pymonenko's Wedding (The Kiev Gubernia) (1891) and Young People (At the Well) (1909). The Peredvizhniki were more concerned with realistic portrayals than with stylistic innovation. Consequently, in the wake of formalist experimentation the society, originally radical in nature, became a bastion of conservatism. In 1923 the society amalgamated with the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia.

Pymonenko, Mykola ( 1862 – 1912). Prominent Ukrainian realist painter; son-in-law of Volodymyr Orlovsky; full member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1904. After studying at the Kyiv Drawing School (1878–82) and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts (1882–4) he taught at the Kyiv Drawing School (1884–1900) and Kyiv Art School (1900–6). He took part in the exhibitions of the Society of South Russian Artists (1891–6) and Peredvizhniki society (from 1893) and became a member of the latter society in 1899. In 1909 he was elected a member of the Paris International Association of Arts and Literatures. Pymonenko produced over 700 genre scenes, landscapes, and portraits, many of which were reproduced as postcards. Pymonenko also created illustrations for several of Taras Shevchenko's narrative poems, and in the 1890s he took part in painting the murals in Saint Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv.

Vasylkivsky, Serhii (1854 - 1917). Painter and art scholar. He studied at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts (1876–85) and in France (1886–8). He also painted in Italy, Spain, northern Africa, and Britain. After settling in Kharkiv in 1888, he was active in Ukrainian artistic circles and headed the architectural and art society there. He produced over 3,000 realist and impressionist works. They include a few portraits; historical paintings, such as Zaporozhian Skirmish with Tatars (1892), Cossacks in the Steppe (1915), and Cossack Campaign (1917); genre paintings; and many landscapes. In 1901–8 Vasylkivsky painted murals and ornamental wall panels for the Poltava Zemstvo Building; they included The Chumak Romodan Route, The Cossack Holota, and The Election of Colonel Martyn Pushkar. He copublished, with Mykola Samokysh, an album of Ukrainian folk ornamental motifs (1912), for which he painted over 100 designs, and an album on Ukrainian antiquity, for which he did 27 historical portraits.

Neo-Romanticism (or Late Romanticism) was an artistic movement in the late XIX – early XX centuries. It was a response to the conservative values of realism and a rebel against the world of machines and new cities. Neo-Romantics tended to draw their inspiration from artists of the age of Romanticism, and stressed feelings and internal observations in their activity. In Ukrainian literature Neo-Romanticism of L. Ukrainka, O. Kobylyanska, O. Oles’, N. Voronoy was inspired by the old Ukrainian culture of Cossackhood and shadowed with subjective personal lyricism.

L. Ukrainka (1871 -1913). Poet and playwright; daughter of Olha Kosach-Drahomanova (Olena Pchilka). Lesia Ukrainka spent her childhood in Volhynia in the towns of Zviahel, Lutsk, and Kolodiazhne and then moved to Kyiv. Her views were particularly influenced by her mother's brother, Mykhailo Drahomanov. Lesia Ukrainka achieved a broad education by self-tuition. She knew all of the major Western European languages as well as Greek and Latin and the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and others). She was equally familiar with world history and at 19 wrote a textbook for her sisters, published in 1918 as Starodavnia istoriia skhidnykh narodiv (Ancient History of the Eastern Peoples). Lesia Ukrainka translated a great deal (eg, Nikolai Gogol, Adam Mickiewicz, Heinrich Heine, Victor Hugo, Homer). Suffering from tuberculosis, she traveled to Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Egypt, and, several times, the Caucasia in search of a cure. Travel exposed her to new enriching experiences and broadened her horizons. Lesia Ukrainka began writing poetry at a very early age. At the age of nine she wrote the poem ‘Nadiia’ (Hope), and her first published poems, ‘Konvaliia’ (Lily of the Valley) and ‘Safo’ (Sappho), appeared in the journal Zoria (Lviv) in 1884. 1885 saw the appearance of her collection of translations of Gogol, which she prepared together with her brother, Mykhailo Kosach.

Lesia Ukrainka began to write more prolifically from the mid-1880s. In Kyiv she joined the literary group Pleiada and together with Maksym Slavinsky translated Knyha pisen’ (Book of Songs, 1892) by H. Heine. Her first collection of original poetry, Na krylakh pisen’ (On Wings of Songs), appeared in Lviv (1893; 2nd edn, Kyiv 1904). It was followed by the collections “Thoughts and Dreams” (1899) and “Echoes” (1902). Her early poems deal mainly with the beauty of nature, her love of her native land, personal experiences, the poet's vocation and the role of poetry, and social and community concerns. Epic features can be found in much of her lyric poetry, and reappear in her later ballads, legends, and the like—‘Samson,’ ‘Robert Brus, korol’ shotlands’kyi’ (Robert Bruce, King of Scotland), ‘Vila-posestra’ (Vila Sister), ‘Odno slovo’ (A Single Word).

Lesia Ukrainka reached her literary heights in her poetic dramas. Ukrainka's first drama was Blakytna troianda (The Azure Rose, 1896), which describes the life of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In further dramatic works she developed a new genre, that of the ‘dramatic poem.’ The first such work was Oderzhyma (A Woman Possessed, 1901). Particularly important among her works are the dramatic poems on the subject of prisoners in Babylon, which were meant to serve as symbols of the imprisonment of Ukrainians within the Russian Empire; among them are Na ruïnakh (Upon the Ruins, 1903), Vavylons’kyi polon (The Babylonian Captivity, 1903), and V domu roboty—v kraïni nevoli (In the House of Labor, In the Land of Slavery, 1906). In the dramatic poem Kassandra (1907) she portrayed the fate of Ukraine through the tragic history of long-lost Troy, and using Cassandra as her spokesperson, she challenged the Ukrainian people to shake off their apathy and inertia. In the dramatic poem U katakombakh (In the Catacombs, 1905) she also castigated the Ukrainian community for its compromises and passivity. In the drama Rufin i Pristsilla (Rufinus and Priscilla, 1908) the shining image of the Christian woman is contrasted with the brutal strength of Imperial Rome. The dramatic poem Boiarynia (The Boyar Woman, 1910) illustrates most clearly Ukrainka's hostility to Russian imperialism; it maintains that only armed struggle can free the Ukrainian people from their Muscovite prison. The theme of the poem Orhiia (The Orgy, 1912–13) concerns the poet's role in that ceaseless battle. In the dramatic poem Kaminnyi hospodar (The Stone Host, 1912) Lesia Ukrainka employs the Don Juan theme in an original presentation of the conflict between social conformity and personal freedom and responsibility. Her neoromantic work, the drama Lisova pisnia (The Forest Song, 1911), treats the conflict between lofty idealism and the prosaic details of everyday life. Lesia Ukrainka also wrote prose works. Her literary legacy is enormous, despite the fact that for most of her life she was ill and often was bedridden for months.

Romantic motives in Ukrainian music were represented in the works of composers N. Lysenko, S. Gulak-Artemovsky, S. Vorobkevich.

Lysenko, Mykola(1842 -1912 ). Composer, ethnomusicologist, conductor, pianist, teacher, and community figure. The descendant of an aristocratic Cossack starshyna family, he acquired the rudiments of piano playing from his mother and gained a strong appreciation of Ukrainian music and Cossack lore from his grandparents. From 1860 he studied at Kharkiv University and Kyiv University, graduating in 1865 with a degree in natural sciences. His stay in Kyiv, his activities in the Hromada of Kyiv, and his close relationships with his cousin Mykhailo Starytsky, and with Volodymyr Antonovych, Tadei Rylsky, and others led Lysenko to make a strong personal commitment to the study and development of Ukrainian music. He worked for two years as an arbitrator in Tarashcha county, then furthered his music studies in Leipzig (1867–9) under K. Reinecke and E. Richter. After returning to Kyiv in 1869 to work as a music teacher and conductor, he moved to Saint Petersburg (1874–6) to study orchestration under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; then he returned to Kyiv in 1904 to open his own school of music and drama.

At the time, Lysenko was at the center of Ukrainian cultural and musical life in Kyiv. He gave piano recitals and organized choirs for performances in Kyiv and tours through Ukraine in 1893, 1897, 1899, and 1902. He cultivated an informal network of patriotic Ukrainians, and headed the Ukrainian Club from 1908. He also maintained close ties with community leaders in Western Ukraine from as early as 1867, most notably with Ivan Franko.

Lysenko's musical compositions were numerous and varied. His operatic works include the singspiel Chornomortsi (Black Sea Cossacks, 1872); the operetta Natalka from Poltava (1889); the operas (based on works by Nikolai Gogol) Christmas Night (1873–82), Utoplena (The Drowned Maiden, 1883), and Taras Bulba (1890); the operetta Aeneid (1911); the miniature opera Nocturne; and three operas for children: Koza Dereza (Billy Goat's Bluff, 1888), Pan Kots’kyi (Sir Catsky, 1891), and Winter and Spring (1892). Other theatrical musical works include Sappho (1886–94), which is composed of scenes from life in ancient Greece, and music for William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

An eminent concert pianist, Lysenko wrote many compositions for the piano. These works include a sonata, two rhapsodies, a suite, a scherzo, and a rondo, as well as a long list of smaller forms such as ‘Songs without Words,’ nocturnes, waltzes, and polonaises. In these works he often uses the melodies and rhythms of Ukrainian folk songs. In some, Fryderyk Chopin's influence is noticeable. In the field of chamber music, Lysenko wrote many works for violin and piano as well as a trio for two violins and viola and a string quartet. He also wrote a symphony (unfinished) and a symphonic fantasia.

Settings of words by Taras Shevchenko occupy a special place in Lysenko's works. The settings include solo art songs, choral works, and cantatas for choir and orchestra, such as Raduisia nyvo nepolytaia (Rejoice, Unwatered Field), Biut’ porohy (The Rapids Roar), Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyi (The Mighty Dnieper Roars and Bellows), Sadok vyshnevyi kolo khaty (The Cherry Orchard by the House), and Na vichnu pamiat’ Kotliarevs’komu (To the Eternal Memory of Kotliarevsky). Shevchenko's collection Kobzar particularly fascinated Lysenko, who composed music for 82 of its texts.

In total Lysenko wrote over 120 art songs, including many vocal solos with piano accompaniment to the poems of Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, Oleksander Oles, Heinrich Heine, Adam Mickiewicz, and others.

From an early age Lysenko displayed an interest in musical folklore. While still in school he began transcribing Ukrainian folk songs, and when working in Tarashcha county he recorded the wedding songs of the Pereiaslav region and the dumas and historical songs performed by the renowned kobzar Ostap Veresai. Lysenko's ethnomusicological works include Kharakterystyka muzychnykh pytomennostei ukraïns’kykh dum i pisen’, vykonuvanykh kobzarem O. Veresaiem (Characterization of the Musical Traits of Ukrainian Dumas and Songs. Performed by the Kobzar O. Veresai, 1874) and Narodni muzychni instrumenty na Ukraïni (Folk Musical Instruments in Ukraine). He also published several collections of folk songs.

Over his lifetime Lysenko arranged approx 500 folk songs, including both solos and choruses with piano accompaniment, and a cappella choruses. He concentrated on tonal and harmonic particularities of Ukrainian folk songs, selecting appropriate means for the arrangement of various types of songs and preserving the folk style of melodizing.

Lysenko was the founder of the national movement in Ukrainian music, based on a specific Ukrainian cultural tradition and the originality of its folk music. His prolific and versatile life's work became the foundation for the further development and expansion of Ukrainian musical culture. Lysenko influenced a large group of Ukrainian composers, including Kyrylo Stetsenko, Yakiv Stepovy, Mykola Leontovych, Oleksander Koshyts, Stanyslav Liudkevych, Lev Revutsky, and Mykhailo Verykivsky.

Lysenko Music and Drama School (Muzychno-dramatychna shkola im. M. Lysenka). A school established in Kyiv 1904 by Mykola Lysenko to foster the development of Ukrainian music. Lysenko financed the project with funds originally gathered by his supporters to buy him a country house for his 35th jubilee celebration. The school's curriculum was on the level of a conservatory, and there was a separate drama department and a museum of Ukrainian folk instruments. The school was directed initially by Lysenko and then by his daughter Mariana Lysenko (1912–18). Teachers included Lysenko, Hryhorii Liubomyrsky, Oleksander Myshuha, and Mariia Starytska. The school was the only Ukrainian higher music school of its day, and its influence in the development of Ukrainian music is reflected in the list of its graduates, which includes Kyrylo Stetsenko, Oleksander Koshyts, Lev Revutsky, and Mykhailo Mykysha.

Hulak-Artemovsky, Semen (1813 - 1873 ). Composer, opera singer, actor, and dramatist. He was the nephew of Petro Hulak-Artemovsky and a close friend of Taras Shevchenko. A graduate of the Kyiv Theological Seminary, he studied voice in Saint Petersburg and Florence (1839–42). He was noted for his dramatic talent and his powerful, rich baritone voice. From 1842 Hulak-Artemovsky was the leading soloist at the Mariinskii Theater and the Italian Opera in Saint Petersburg. His repertoire included over 50 operatic roles, including Ruslan in M. Glinka's Ruslan and Liudmila, Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Antonio and Lord Ashton in G. Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Lucia di Lammermoor. He wrote the comic opera Zaporozhets’ za Dunaiem (Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube, 1863), in which he sang the part of Karas; the divertissement Ukraïns’ke vesillia (The Ukrainian Wedding, 1851), in which he sang the father-in-law; the vaudeville Nich na Ivan Kupala (Saint John's Eve, 1852); and several art songs. As an actor he appeared in roles such as Vybornyi and Chupryna in Ivan Kotliarevsky's Natalka Poltavka and Moskal’-charivnyk (The Muscovite-Sorcerer).

In the mid-XIX century many amateur theatre groups and touring theaters appeared in Russian ruled Ukraine. Elements of theatricality can be traced in Ukrainian folk customs and rites, games, folk oral literature, and folk dances back to pre-Christian pagan traditions and rituals. They are especially evident, even today, in the spring vesnianky-hahilky, the summer Kupalo festival, and the winter carols and above all in the ceremony of the Ukrainian wedding. Theatrical entertainment and participation in many rituals was provided by skomorokhy. With the Christianization of Ukraine, the Divine Liturgy took on elements of theatricality, and the church adopted or converted many pagan rituals for its own purposes. The recorded history of nonritual Ukrainian theater begins in 1619 with two intermedes staged between the acts of a Polish religious drama. The further development of Ukrainian theater was influenced by European medieval theater, the Renaissance, and classicism in the court and in school drama, particularly at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy. The prohibition of school performances at the academy by Metropolitan Samuil Myslavsky in 1765 resulted in many of its students' contributing to the development and popularization of vertep puppet theater, which was portable so that those involved were less likely to be prosecuted. Vertep performances consisted of two parts, religious and secular, and were the prevailing form of theatrical entertainment in rural areas. Also common was a folk drama consisting of a one-act play based on a local event—for example, Koza (The Goat), Mlyn (The Mill), Did i baba (Old Man and Old Woman), and Pip i smert’ (The Priest and Death). Eventually more historical portrayals evolved—Tsar Maksymillian, Tsar Herod, and Lodka (The Boat); these were the archetype of 19th-century ethnographic theater.

Ukrainian secular theater became popular during the 19th century, beginning with the staging of the first Ukrainian-language plays of Ivan Kotliarevsky and Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko by the Poltava Free Theater in 1819. From the end of the 18th century, Ukrainian landlords organized serf theaters at their estates, where Ukrainian plays were sporadically performed. Ukrainian performances were also staged by Russian-Polish troupes. The pioneering Ukrainian actors were Karpo Solenyk, Mikhail Shchepkin, and Liubov Mlotkovska.

In Russian-ruled Ukraine many amateur theatre groups and touring theaters were active by the end of the 1850s. In Kyiv the leader in setting up amateur troupes was Mykhailo Starytsky, and in rural areas, Ivan Karpenko-Kary. Although the 1863 tsarist government circular prohibited the use of the Ukrainian language on stage, the development of Ukrainian amateur theater continued. It reached its apex in the performance in 1873 of Mykola Lysenko's opera Rizdviana nich (Christmas Eve Night, based on Nikolai Gogol's story), directed by Starytsky in a populist-ethnographic style.

The many amateur theatre groups and touring theaters, active in Russian-ruled Ukraine by the end of the 1850s, played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival. In Kyiv the leader in setting up amateur troupes was Mykhailo Starytsky, and in rural areas of southern Ukraine, Ivan Karpenko-Kary. Although the 1863 tsarist government circular issued by Petr Valuev limited the use of the Ukrainian language on stage, the development of Ukrainian amateur theater continued until 1876, when the Ems Ukase completely prohibited Ukrainian performances in Russian-ruled Ukraine. In 1881, in spite of heavy censorship, the first touring theater in eastern Ukraine was founded, under Marko Kropyvnytsky. Touring theaters led by Starytsky (1885), Mykola Sadovsky (1888), and Panas Saksahansky (1890) followed. Their repertoire consisted mostly of populist-romantic and realistic plays by Kropyvnytsky, Starytsky, and Karpenko-Kary. Censorship did not permit performances of plays with historical and social themes and completely prohibited the staging of plays translated from other languages. Each performance had to include at least one Russian play and the troupe was required to secure a local governor's permission for each staging of a Ukrainian-language play. After the failed Revolution of 1905 censorship eased, and Mykola Sadovsky was able to organize the first resident Ukrainian theater in Kyiv in 1907. He successfully produced Ukrainian operas as well as melodramas and comedies of manners in translation. In the 1910s, the populist-ethnographic theater gave way to the realistic-psychological style of acting

Kropyvnytsky, Marko, (1840 - 1910 ). Renowned actor, stage director, playwright, and composer; a founder and director of the first professional Ukrainian theater in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Working as a petty official of the county court or the municipal government in Bobrynets and Yelysavethrad, for ten years he was active as an actor and play director in amateur theater groups with Ivan Tobilevych (Ivan Karpenko-Kary). In 1871 he moved to Odesa and joined the professional theater of Russian popular drama owned by the brothers I. and D. Morkov and M. Chernyshov, where he played mostly the roles of Ukrainian characters. For the next decade he worked in Ukrainian and Russian provincial troupes, appearing mostly in Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson, Yelysavethrad, and Katerynoslav, and occasionally in Galicia (1875), the Crimea, and Saint Petersburg (1874). In 1882 Kropyvnytsky organized his own touring theater troupe in Yelysavethrad. As the first Ukrainian professional troupe, it marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the Ukrainian theater. Drawing on the talent of such actors as Mariia Zankovetska, Mykola Sadovsky, Leonid Manko, O. Viryna, and Andrii Maksymovych, the troupe toured Ukraine and some Russian cities (Rostov-na-Donu) with a populist-realist repertoire, and was acclaimed highly by both Ukrainian and Russian critics. In 1883 Mykhailo Starytsky assumed control over the troupe, but Kropyvnytsky stayed on as a stage director. For over 20 years he continued to work as an actor and play director in various Ukrainian troupes, some of which he himself had organized and managed (1885–8 and 1894–1900). Retiring in early 1903 to his estate Zatyshok in the Kharkiv region, he continued writing plays, worked on his memoirs, and occasionally acted with touring companies.

Kropyvnytsky performed diverse character roles, ranging from the dramatic to the comedic genre, in which he excelled. His repertoire included such roles as Stetsko in Svatannia na Honcharivtsi (Matchmaking at Honcharivka), Makohonenko in Natalka Poltavka (Natalka from Poltava), Karas in Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube, Bychok in Hlytai, abo zh pavuk (The Profiteer or the Spider), the title roles in Taras Bul’ba and Othello, and Talbot in Maria Stuart. Creating his own school of acting, Kropyvnytsky perpetuated the traditions of Karpo Solenyk and Mikhail Shchepkin and promoted the trend to realism on the stage. Several generations of populist-realist actors of the prerevolutionary period, including the stars of the Ukrainian stage, were trained by him.

Kropyvnytsky's work as a dramatist, which began in 1863, was determined to a large extent by the immediate demands of the stage. Accepting the principles of the romantic-populist theater, Kropyvnytsky subordinated his depiction of reality to the standards of romantic theater. His best plays are Dvi sim'ï (Two Families, 1888) and Zaidyholova (The Dreamer, 1889). The comedic opera Poshylys’ u durni (They Made Fools of Themselves, 1882) is a witty composition in the style of Molière. Kropyvnytsky successfully adapted for the stage Oleksa Storozhenko's story ‘Vusy’ (Whiskers, 1885), depicting the life of Ukrainian landowners in the 1840s. The comedy Chmyr (The Dirty Fellow, 1890) presents a gallery of village characters. Kropyvnytsky wrote over 40 original plays and stage adaptations, that are recognized as classics of the 19th century Ukrainian drama.

Karpenko-Kary, Ivan (pen name of Ivan Tobilevych), ( 1845 - 1907 ). Famous Ukrainian actor and playwright; the brother of the theater figures Panas Saksahansky, Mykola Sadovsky, and Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti. From the age of 14 he worked as a clerk (from 1869 as a police secretary in Yelysavethrad). In 1863 he met Marko Kropyvnytsky and with him became involved in producing amateur theater in Yelysavethrad. In 1883 he lost his job for his involvement with Ukrainian revolutionaries and for procuring passports for them and joined Mykhailo Starytsky's troupe. In 1884 he was exiled to Novocherkassk; returning to Ukraine in 1886, he lived under police surveillance until 1889. From 1887 until his illness in 1904 he lived on his farmstead, wrote, and worked as a stage actor and director, mostly in the traveling troupe of his brother P. Saksahansky. He was acclaimed for his principal dramatic and comic roles in many Ukrainian plays, some of them his own. He was buried on his farmstead near Yelysavethrad (now Kirovohrad); the literary memorial museum-preserve Khutir Nadiia was opened there in 1956.

Karpenko-Kary was renowned as a playwright. He began writing quite late in life: his first story, Novobranets (The New Conscript), and first play appeared in 1883. Altogether he wrote 18 frequently produced plays.

While realistically and perceptively portraying life and social relations in the village, Karpenko-Kary also reflected in his plays the impact of colonialism in Russian-ruled Ukraine: land poverty and rural overpopulation, and the ignorance and evil deeds of the peasant in a position of authority (in Burlaka), the rich peasant (Kalytka in Sto tysiach), and the large landowner (Terentii Puzyr in Khaziaïn).

Some of Karpenko-Kary's plays were an important step forward in Ukrainian theater. In them he abandoned the sentimental populist-ethnographic approach and melodramatic, operatic forms; instead he highlighted social relations and conflicts and concentrated on psychological portrayal and character development, thereby creating the finest examples of turn-of-the-century Ukrainian didactic plays about peasant life and laying the foundations of modern Ukrainian theater. His plays are still often produced in Ukraine.

Sadovsky, Mykola (real surname: Tobilevych), ( 1856 -1933 ). Theater director, actor, and singer; brother of Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti, and Panas Saksahansky. In 1881 he began his theatrical career in Hryhorii Ashkarenko's, Marko Kropyvnytsky's, and Mykhailo Starytsky's troupes. From 1888 he led his own troupe, which in 1898 joined Saksahansky's Troupe. Sadovsky was the artistic director of the Ukrainska Besida Theater (1905–6) and then organized the first resident Ukrainian theater in Kyiv, which was active until 1919.

Acclaimed by Mykhailo Starytsky as the most talented of the Tobilevych family, Sadovsky was an actor of the realistic-psychological school, whose best roles were profound interpretations of the heroes in historical and social dramas, such as Starytsky's Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, Ivan Karpenko-Kary's Sava Chalyi, and Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska's Het’man Doroshenko. He also played with success as the Komandor in Lesia Ukrainka's Kaminnyi hospodar (The Stone Host) and was a key force behind the flowering of Ukrainian operatic theater, in which genre he staged operas by composers such as Mykola Lysenko, Denys Sichynsky. He wrote Moï teatral’ni zhadky (My Theatrical Reminiscences, 1930; 2nd edn 1956).

Zankovetska, Mariia ( 1854 -1934 ). Actress, singer, and theater activist. Zankovetska was educated in a Chernihiv private school and at the Helsinki Conservatory. She debuted in 1882 in Ivan Kotliarevsky's Natalka from Poltava as a member of Marko Kropyvnytsky's troupe, which production heralded the rebirth of Ukrainian professional theater, heavily repressed since the Ems Ukase of 1876. Zankovetska performed as leading actress in the troupes of Kropyvnytsky (1882–3, 1885–8, 1899–1900), Mykhailo Starytsky (1883–5), and Mykola Sadovsky (1888–98), in Saksahansky's Troupe (1900–3), in Onysym Suslov's troupe (1903–4), in the Society of Ukrainian Actors (1915–17), and in the State People's Theater (1918–22). She appeared at the All-Russian Congress of Stage Workers in 1897, where she demanded the termination of censorship in Ukrainian theater. In 1909–15 she directed amateur groups in Nizhyn and Krolevets. Her last performance on stage was in Kyiv in 1922, and that same year a theater in her name was founded see.

Zankovetska's stage career spanned over 30 dramatic-heroic roles from the populist-ethnographical repertoire, which she played with innate subtlety and intelligence. Her best performances were opposite Mykola Sadovsky (Tobilevych), and her talent was praised by Konstantin Stanislavsky.

4. First two decades of the XX century were extremely intensive for Ukrainian culture. The World War I (1914–1918) and Ukrainian National Democratic Revolution (1917–1921) influenced cultural climate of Ukrainian lands. Artistic revolution that coincided with social and political transformations involved Ukrainian artists. In the first decade of the XX century A. Archipenko, A. Exter, M. Boychuk, D. Burluk, V. Tatlin spent time in Paris and were embraced in process of the Modernism, a leading artistic movement on the boundary of the XIX and XX centuries. It was a revolt against realism in arts, a break with previous traditions in all spheres of culture. It was abstract, unconventional art in technologically arranged world largely uncertaity in times of rapid changes. Modernism experimented with new literary and artistic forms. Ukrainian Modernism was closely connected with experiments with color and was developed in folk creativity or ancient traditions. In Ukrainian architecture modernism was manifested in the revival of Ukrainian national style in the projects of V. Krichevsky, K. Zhukov, O. Timoshenko, V. Gorodetsky, P. Yurchenko. L. Kurbas was an organizer and director of the Ukrainian avant-garde theatre. His “Young Theatre” (1917–1919) with experimental production replaced the traditional Ukrainian ethnographic repertoire and traditional realist psychological theatre.

An international movement in literature and art that emphasized the sense of a radical break with the past and the possibility of a transformed world. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century as a rejection of realism and populism, it experimented with new literary and artistic forms, often under the influence of photography, film, and new technologies. Non-traditional materials were often used in architecture and sculpture, such as new metal alloys, glass, and synthetic plastics. The focus in literature and art was often on subjective perceptions and on the inner psychological conflicts and complexes of the urban intelligentsia. Depictions of individual personalities often included the eccentric, the taboo, and the deranged. Modernism coincided with and reflected the rapid growth of capitalist production and the rise of strong feminist, political, and national movements.

Central and East European modernism in the years 1880–1913 is often viewed as encompassing the “isms”: impressionism, symbolism, cubism, abstractionism, futurism, and expressionism. A second wave of modernism appeared in the years 1914–30, which was strongly influenced by radical political movements in Europe and sometimes identified itself as the cultural avant-garde of these movements. It was closely associated with the futurists, constructivists, expressionists, and surrealists of the post-First World War years.

Painters and sculptors from Ukraine were very heavily involved in the artistic revolution that swept Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century. Many spent time in Western Europe, particularly in Paris, in the prewar years, among them Vadym Meller, Alexander Archipenko, Alexandra Ekster (Exter), Mykhailo Boichuk, David Burliuk, Sofiia Levytska, Aleksandr Shevchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, N. Altman, and D. Shterenberg. Some, like Oleksa Hryshchenko (Alexis Gritchenko, A. Grischenko), Mykhailo Andriienko-Nechytailo (Michel Andreenko), and K. Redko came to Paris after the war, and several of them settled there permanently. Other prominent exponents of modernism in Ukrainian art were Oleksandr Bohomazov, Anatol Petrytsky, Vasyl Yermilov, Viktor Palmov, Pavlo Kovzhun, Vasyl H. Krychevsky, Mykola Butovych, Halyna Mazepa, and Petro P. Kholodny. Some of the leading figures in the international avant-garde identified themselves as Ukrainians, among them Burliuk, the “father” of futurism in the Russian Empire, Archipenko, the maker of cubist sculptures, Kazimir Malevich, the creator of suprematist art, and Tatlin, known for his constructivism. Some of these artists were interested in provocatively flouting convention; others, in exploring the machine aesthetic and the use of new materials, still others, in utopian and visionary projects.

Ukrainian modernism was distinguished by its use of color (both Ekster and Sonia Delauney, who originally came from Ukraine, did much to introduce bright colours into Western cubism and modern design) and its special feeling for texture. Another particularly strong Ukrainian modernist feature was the interest in primitivism, the direct, powerful, and simple as expressed in folk creativity or ancient traditions. In Ukrainian architecture modernism was manifested in the revival of a Ukrainian national style in the projects of Vasyl H. Krychevsky, Konstantin Zhukov, Oleksander Tymoshenko, and Ivan Levynsky, and in the constructivism of Vladyslav Horodetsky, Petro H.Yurchenko, Yevsevii Lipetsky, S. Kravets, and others.

Modernism was embodied in a number of artistic trends. Futurism was directed on the destruction of old art forms, particularly of realism and classicism and gave free reign to individualism. In painting this freedom led to fantastic forms and colors, and in literature, especially poetry, to abstruse language consisting of sound-words that often had no meaning. Futurism sought to transmit the ideas and spirit of the future technological society, which was opposed to the old conservative sensitivity of the peasants. Hence urban and industrial themes were typical for this trend. Poetry of M. Semenko, M. Bazhan, P. Tychina was for some time influenced by futurism. Symbolism was the trend in arts that predisposed toward esoteric symbols, metaphors. In literature it exposed the sense of the magical power of the world. Poets-symbolists created highly evocative, personal poetry. N. Voronoy, O. Kobylyanska, G. Hotkevich, A. Krymsky were engaged in poetic practice of symbolism. The Lviv group “The Young Muse” (M. Yatskiv, B. Lenky, S. Sharnetsky, S. Tverdokhlib) supported artistic values of symbolism. In 1918–1919 symbolism of the Kiev poets group (P. Tychina, M. Rylsky, D. Zagul) was in opposition to futurists and the older generation of realists. Constructivism, an artistic trend that emphasized arts as practices for social purpose was represented by E. Malanuk, N. Bazhan. In music constructivism was manifested in the works of B. Lyatoshinsky, B. Yavorsky, A. Rudnitsky. Expressionism, both in literature and in painting, emphasized the inner significance of things and not their external forms. It paid more attention to the effects of imagery, language, and sound than to content, in order to evoke a state of mind. M. Khvylovy represented a combination of expressionism and Neo-Romanticism. T. Osmachka and N. Bazhan demonstrated expressionistic impulses in their works.

Modernism was also manifest in the productions of the Molodyi Teatr theater, the Berezil theater led by Les Kurbas, the Mykhailychenko Theater led by Marko Tereshchenko, the Zahrava experimental theater led by Volodymyr Blavatsky, and the émigré Theater-Studio of Y. Hirniak and O. Dobrovolska. It also had its expression in the 1920s in the films produced by the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration (VUFKU) studios in Soviet Ukraine (Oleksander Dovzhenko, Dziga Vertov), in the experimental films of Yevhen Slabchenko (Eugene Deslaw) in France, and in music.

Ukrainian literary modernism made its appearance at the turn of the century with the Lviv-based Moloda Muza group, who championed the idea of ‘pure art,’ and the Kyiv-based journal Ukraæns’ka khata. Mykola Vorony, an early theoretician of the movement, believed that modernism consisted of a change in thematic focus from the social to the psychological, of the enrichment of forms of versification, and of greater sophistication of metaphor. The movement dominated Ukrainian poetry after the publication of Pavlo Tychyna’s Soniashni klarnety (Sunny Clarinets, 1918) and Zamist’ sonetiv i oktav (Instead of Sonnets and Octaves, 1920). In the 1920s it was manifested in the radical poetic experiments of Mykhailo Semenko and Valeriian Polishchuk and in the poetry of Mykola Bazhan and other poets. Examples in prose include the impressionistic works of Vasyl Stefanyk and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, the psychological prose of Volodymyr Vynnychenko and, in the 1920s, Valeriian Pidmohylny, and the experimental prose of Mykola Khvylovy’s (Syni etiudy [Blue Etudes], 1923) and Leonid Skrypnyk’s (Intelihent [The Intellectual], 1929). Ukrainian literary modernism also produced strong women writers who expressed feminist concerns (eg, Lesia Ukrainka and Olha Kobylianska). In Ukrainian émigré literature, modernism was most apparent in the work of the interwar ‘Prague school’ of Ukrainian poets and the postwar New York Group of poets.

In the early 1930s the Soviet authorities repressed and then eradicated modernism and its exponents in both literature and the arts, demanding in its place a state-sanctioned form of populism that stressed the heroic gesture and loyalty to the Communist party. Most forms of modernist experimentation were denounced as ‘formalism,’ ‘psychologism,’ ‘bourgois nationalism,’ or ‘decadence.’ Not until the 1960s did a literary movement—the shistdesiatnyky— re-emerge in Ukraine that built on the gains made by modernists in the century’s first three decades.

Cubism – an artistic movement that regarded painting not as a depiction of nature, but as a free play of forms subject to loosely treated laws of geometry. Cubism reduced all forms to their primary state—sphere, cone, cylinder, and cube—and at the same time introduced new materials into art, often combinations of paint, wood, metal, glass, wire, and so on.

Mykhailo Boichuk and his school were closely related to the cubist movement as early as the mid-1910s. Alexander Archipenko is considered to be the first cubist sculptor in world art. The following Ukrainian artists made use of the innovations introduced by cubism: Vasyl Yermilov, Vadym Meller, Oleksander Bohomazov, Mykhailo Andriienko-Nechytailo, Oleksa Hryshchenko, and Pavlo Kovzhun. They often combined the cubist style with Constructivism.

Boichuk, Mykhailo (1882 - 1937 ). Influential Ukrainian modernist painter, graphic artist, and teacher. Boichuk studied at Yuliian Pankevych’s art studio in Lviv (1898), a private art school in Vienna (1899), and the Cracow Academy of Arts (1899–1905). He continued his studies at the Munich and Vienna academies of art and exhibited his works at the Latour Gallery in Lviv in 1905 and in Munich in 1907. While living in Paris (1907–10), Boichuk visited the Académie Ranson and P. Sérusier's studio, and, in 1909, he founded his own studio-school, at which his future wife Sofiia Nalepinska, Mykola Kasperovych, S. Baudouin de Courtenay, S. Segno, J. Lewakowska, O. Shaginian, and H. Szramm studied. That year Boichuk participated in exhibitions of the Salon d'Automne, and in 1910 he and his students held an exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants on the theme of the revival of Byzantine art. In 1910 he also traveled to Italy with Nalepinska and Kasperovych.

After that Boichuk worked as a monumentalist and restorer for the National Museum in Lviv, where he was able to save numerous 15th- and 16th-century icons. In 1911 he visited Kyiv, Saint Petersburg, Novgorod the Great, and Moscow. He painted the murals in the Church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Lemeshi near Chernihiv and directed the restoration of an iconostasis in Kozelets (1912–14). In 1914 he was interned by the tsarist authorities because he was an Austro-Hungarian subject.

After the Revolution of 1917 Boichuk lived in Kyiv. There he became a founding professor of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts (later the Kyiv Art Institute), taught monumental art at the academy, and was briefly its rector. In 1925 he was one of the founders of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine (ARMU). He visited Germany and France (1926–27). Boichuk formed a school of monumental painting, which continued to develop in Ukraine into the 1930s. He directed a group of artists who contributed monumental paintings and designs to revolutionary celebrations, agit-trains and agit-ships, and the interiors of the Kyiv Theater of Opera and Ballet during the First Congress of Regional Executive Committees (1919), the Kharkiv Opera Theater for the Fifth All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (1921), the Ukrainian SSR's pavillion at the First All-Russian Cottage Industry and Agriculture Exhibition in Moscow, and the Kyiv Co-operative Institute (1923).

In collaboration with his students, Boichuk created ensembles featuring monumental paintings on contemporary subjects at the Lutsk Army Barracks in Kyiv (1919), the Peasant Sanatorium in Odesa (1927– 8), and the Kharkiv Chervonozavodskyi Ukrainian Drama Theater, working at the latter in the then compulsory style of socialist realism. He was arrested by the NKVD in November 1936 on the charge of being an ‘agent of the Vatican,’ interrogated and tortured, and shot on the same day as his two leading students, Ivan Padalka and Vasyl Sedliar. Four months later his wife was also shot.

The works of Boichuk and his school—which included his brother Tymofii Boichuk, Padalka, Sedliar, Nalepinska, Kasperovych, Oksana Pavlenko, Antonina Ivanova, Mykola Rokytsky, Kateryna Borodina, Oleksandr Myzin, Kyrylo Hvozdyk, Pavlo Ivanchenko, Serhii Kolos, Okhrym Kravchenko, Hryhorii Dovzhenko, Onufrii Biziukov, Mariia Kotliarevska, Ivan Lypkivsky, Vira Bura-Matsapura, Yaroslava Muzyka, Oleksandr Ruban, Olena Sakhnovska, Manuil Shekhtman, Mariia Trubetska, Kostiantyn Yeleva, and Mariia Yunak—are an important contribution to Ukrainian and world art.

While in Paris at the end of the 1910s, Boichuk witnessed the birth of modern art and attempted to blend it with aspects of the Ukrainian tradition, developing a style of simplified monumental forms. In his compositions, surfaces are rhythmically integrated with lines. This style became known as Boichukism. Its followers made up a dominant part of the membership of ARMU, which was often attacked by official critics for ‘formalism,’ ‘bourgeois nationalism,’ and focusing on the countryside. After ARMU was disbanded and Boichuk was executed, most of his frescoes and paintings were destroyed, including those found in Lviv museums after the Second World War. Since then, however, a number of Boichuk’s works have reappeared. The principles of Boichukism were followed by a large number of admirers, who sometimes (went on to create their own schools.

Symbolism. A poetic movement of the second half of the 19th century that originated in France, where it attained its greatest flowering between 1885 and 1895, and exerted strong influence throughout Europe. French symbolism represented a reaction against naturalism and realism in favor of subjective and esthetic experience. Seeking analogies in music, armed with a sense of the magical power of the word, predisposed toward esoteric symbols, metaphors, and synesthesia, symbolist poets created a highly evocative, personal, and transcendental poetry.

Symbolism in Ukraine was influenced by both the French and the Russian movements (in Galicia, Polish influence was also pronounced), but it never attained the stature it did in France or Russia. Symbolist trends rather than a self-conscious organized movement existed in Ukraine, although there were periods during which symbolist or quasi-symbolist groupings were active.

The first symbolist tendencies manifested themselves during the late 1890s in a noticeable de-emphasis on civic themes, the abandonment of realist poetics, the rejection of ‘utilitarian’ literature, and the revival of poetry. In 1901 Ivan Franko noted that young writers were placing emphasis on psychology and mood. Pursuit of the beautiful and defense of the autonomy of poetry (‘art for art's sake’) became prominent leitmotivs in the literary community. Writers betraying any of those inclinations were variously referred to as symbolists, decadents, or modernists. Alarmed reactions to the new literary vogue on the part of populist and realist figures (Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, Serhii Yefremov, Franko), a conservative reading public, and the unenviable political status of Ukraine no doubt restrained poets from moving away more decisively from their social obligations into private and personal spheres.

Mykola Vorony was the first major exponent of modernist sentiments in Ukraine. The guidelines he set for contributors to the almanac Z nad khmar i dolyn (From Above the Clouds and Valleys, 1903) testify to a distinct symbolist orientation, and in his correspondence with Ukrainian writers he speaks explicitly of ‘taking from symbolism’ its best virtues. Vorony spoke out in defense of ‘pure art,’ a refined estheticism, and urged writers to embrace a philosophical attitude (whether pantheistic, metaphysical, or mystical) that would depict the ideal, the beautiful, and the mysterious. His own poetry fulfilled those requisites with considerable formal merit, although like a majority of his generation he never completely rejected engagé verse. Vorony's symbolist poetry was not designed to supplant the poet's civic responsibility; it was designed to serve as its complement, which would reinvigorate the poet for the challenges of the ‘real’ world.

Ukrainian literary criticism of the 1900s and 1910s linked (not always appropriately) a number of names to the symbolist or decadent trend. Among them were Olha Kobylianska, Natalia Kobrynska, Oleksii Pliushch, Hnat Khotkevych, and Ahatanhel Krymsky. It is a testament to the uncrystallized nature of early Ukrainian modernism that many writers expressed indignation at those labels and renounced them.

A far more self-conscious modernist attitude, with definite symbolist overtones, was evinced by the group Moloda Muza, founded in Lviv in 1906. Its theoretical positions (as expressed by Ostap Lutsky) were nearly identical to those promoted by Mykola Vorony, but the actual extent of the symbolist or decadent presence in the members' works varied considerably from author to author (Vasyl Pachovsky, Petro Karmansky, Mykhailo Yatskiv, Bohdan Lepky, Stepan Charnetsky, Sydir Tverdokhlib, Volodymyr Birchak). Those Western Ukrainian writers found kindred spirits in the celebrated poets Oleksander Oles and Mykola Filiansky, whose works reached them from Kyiv, where Ukrains’ka khata promoted modernist tendencies (most notably through the critical writings of Mykola Yevshan and the poetry of Hrytsko Chuprynka), although the journal's shift away from ‘estheticism’ and ‘pure art’ in the direction of ideological and political commitment is noticeable.

‘Symbolism’ acquired wide currency in Kyiv during 1918–19, when a loosely organized but coherent group of poets became associated with the name. Their identity was derived less from explicit self-definition than from opposition to the futurists and the older generation of realist writers. In their circle Pavlo Tychyna was the outstanding poet; others included Yakiv Savchenko, Oleksa Slisarenko, Dmytro Zahul, Volodymyr M. Yaroshenko, Volodymyr Kobyliansky, and Klym Polishchuk. In 1918 those writers created an ephemeral association, Bila Studiia, and collaborated on Literaturno-krytychnyi al’manakh. In May 1919 (with the participation of Mykhailo Zhuk, Pavlo Fylypovych, Halyna Zhurba, and others) they published Muzahet, which, however, officially declared itself a nonpartisan publication. As an organized literary coterie the poets remained elusive; their literary credo was poorly articulated, yet their collections and periodic publications gave them a distinctive presence in the literary world. Symbolist influence extended beyond that identifiable group, to touch such diverse writers as Maksym Rylsky and Hnat Mykhailychenko (his Blakytnyi roman [The Blue Novel, 1921]). The consolidation of Soviet power in Ukraine undermined the ideological and material foundations of the movement, and it quickly declined. Some poets, such as Slisarenko and Savchenko, became active later in futurist organizations. For all its limitations and vagaries, symbolism played an important revitalizing role in Ukrainian literature during the first two decades of the 20th century.

Revolutionary events of the 1917–1921 provided favorable cultural policy. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Empire was broken up and the Ukrainians, who developed a renewed sense of national identity, intensified their struggle for an independent Ukrainian state. In the chaos of the Great War and revolutionary changes, a nascent Ukrainian state emerged but, initially, the state's very survival was not ensured. As the Central Rada, the governing body, was trying to assert the control over Ukraine amid the foreign powers and internal struggle, only a limited cultural development could take place. However, for the first time in the modern history, Ukraine had a government of its own and the Ukrainian language gained usage in state affairs.

As the Rada was eventually overthrown in a German-backed coup (April 29, 1918), the rule of a Hetmanate led by Pavlo Skoropadsky was established. While the stability of the government was only relative and Skoropadsky himself, as a former officer of the tsarist army, spoke Russian rather than Ukrainian, the Hetmanate managed to start an impressive Ukrainian cultural and education program, printed millions of Ukrainian-language textbooks, and established many Ukrainian schools, two universities, and a Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The latter established a Committee on Orthography and Terminology, which initiated a scholarly and methodological research program into Ukrainian terminology.

The Hetmanate's rule ended with the German evacuation and was replaced by the Directorate government of Symon Petlura. However, Ukraine submerged into a new wave of chaos facing two invasions at the same time, from the East by the Bolshevik forces and from the West by the Polish troops, as well as being ravaged by armed bands that often were not backed by any political ideology. The nation lacked a cohesive government to conduct language and cultural policies.

Ukrainian State Universities in Kiev and Kamyanets-Podolsky, Pedagogical Academy, Ukrainian State Academy of Arts, the State Ukrainian Archival Depository, National Gallery of Arts, Ukrainian Historical Museum, Ukrainian National Library were founded. Ukrainian Academy of Science was founded in 1918. Its first president was V. Vernadsky, a prominent scientist.

Practical Class 8