6_The Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People
Context
- Author(s): Mykola Kostomarov
- Date of Publishing: 1846
- Historical Placement: The Ukrainian national resurgence, associated with Napoleon and Romanticism, was paradoxically reinforced by russification efforts of the Empire. Fearing Polish influence in Ukrainian territories, they created new educational institutions to counteract it with Russian influence. These new institutions, instead created a new meeting ground for people interested in Ukrainian autonomy. The most prominent of such groups was the "Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius". Mykola Kostomarov was part of that group and wrote "The Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People" as a historical argument for Ukrainian autonomy inside a greater federation of Slavic states.
Summary
The text lays out a chronology of how the Ukrainians interacted with the people's around them.
It starts off by presenting a utopian past of a Slavic society of equals, with no hierarchies. It continues by saying that they adopted a model of master and slave from their German brothers. God was unhappy with this and punished the Slavs with a period of rival tribes taking over their territory.
Out of this period, three kingdoms emerged: Poland, Lithuania and Muscovy. Both Muscovy and Poland had their issues, as one was ruled by a despotic tsar and one was dominated by a sadistic class of nobles.
Lithuania, with its Ukrainian population joined with Poland, but the Ukrainians soon established their own Cossack host, free of the cruel nobles. Threatened by this, the nobles infringed upon their rights, which triggered a successful uprising. Thus, the Cossack Hetmanate was established.
The Hetmanate needed allies, and joined with Muscovy to fend off the Polish threat. However, the Muscovites were also treacherous and hierarchal. After a period of fighting, the Poles and Muscovites eventually split the Hetmanate amongst themselves. While the Hetmanate resisted, it crumbled under the pressure of the 2 regimes, with Catherine the Great finalizing the task on the left bank of the Dnipro.
As the text insists, the slave-master model was foreign to the Slavs, so the Poles eventually also shunned it, turning into a republic. History repeated itself, the Muscovites and western powers partitioned them to prevent it from happening.
However, eventually the Slavs will rid themselves of despotic rule under the direction of the Ukrainians, and live in a free, egalitarian federation of individual republics.
Takeaways
- The text is profoundly antisemitic in its description of the masters. I didn't include it into the summary as it doesn't provide any real value beyond a visceral reaction
- It insists that the Slavs intrinsically strive towards a society of equals, while providing no real backing.
- Ukrainian heritage is not quite clear, as they transition from Slavs, to Lithuania, to the Cossack host.
- The end vision of a free, federal society, with Ukrainians as the cornerstone is clear, and speaks to the evolving ambition of the national movement at that time.
"Then all the peoples, pointing to that place on the map where Ukraine will be delineated, will say: behold, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."-Towards an Intellectual history of Ukraine (page 100)
Source
Ralph Lindheim & George Luckyj (eds.), Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pages (94-100) .
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