Hrushevsky volume launched in New York (03/16/03)

Hrushevsky volume launched in New York

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK - The English translation of Volume 8 of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's 10-volume "History of Ukraine-Rus'" was presented at the Shevchenko Scientific Society (known by its Ukrainian acromym as NTSh) headquarters on February 1. Hrushevsky's monumental opus, published between the years 1898 and 1937, is considered to be the most authoritative and comprehensive account of Ukraine's history. It is being translated into English by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS).

The presentation was incorporated in a lecture by Dr. Frank Sysyn, a historian from the University of Alberta, who is the editor-in-chief of the CIUS translation project.

The program was opened by Dr. Roman Andrushkiw, a vice-president of NTSh, who recognized two distinguished guests in the audience, namely Dr. Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, rector of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and Dr. Mark von Hagen, a professor at Columbia University and president of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies (IAUS). Dr. Andrushkiw then transferred the proceedings to Prof. Vasyl Makhno, an NTSh librarian, who acquainted the audience with the academic biography of the featured speaker.

Dr. Sysyn taught history at Harvard University (1976-1985) and served as an associate director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (1985-1988). In 1989 he was appointed the first director of the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research at the CIUS at the University of Alberta. The center's major project has been the translation of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's "History of Ukraine-Rus' " into English. Dr. Sysyn served as acting director of the CIUS in 1991-1993 and has been the head of its Toronto office since 1999; in 2002 he was elected the Canadian representative to the executive of the IAUS.

Hrushevsky's Volume 8, titled "The Cossack Age 1626-1650," covers the period of Kozak uprisings against Poland, which culminated in the successful Khmelnytsky revolution of 1648 - a key event in Ukraine's history. It is the third volume to be translated into English in the CIUS project, the first two being Volumes 1 and 7.

Dr. Sysyn explained some of the reasons behind the pace of the translation work, which may appear slow to laymen. This is a multi-year project that requires a large collective of historians comprising not only scholars capable of properly translating Hrushevsky's own Ukrainian text, but also polyglots who can check the original foreign-language texts cited by Hrushevsky in Ukrainian. Also, Hrushevsky's literature references, which are often incomplete or incorrect, must be researched and corrected. Furthermore, it is necessary to add explanatory materials, including new bibliographical data, in order to update the information.

Dr. Sysyn has traced the history of the publication of Hrushevsky's "History" in general and its Volume 8 in particular. The latter was started in Lviv before World War I, where its first part was published in 1913. Hrushevsky's work was interrupted by the war, during which he was arrested by the Russians and exiled to Siberia. After the war, the volume was completed and published in Vienna, Austria. As a result, Volume 8 has been little known in Ukraine and has not been followed up by younger historians.

Initiatives to translate the "History of Ukraine-Rus' into world languages date back to before World War I, but they became reality only in the 1980s, as a result of a happy confluence of two factors, according to Dr. Sysyn. One was the creation in 1976 of the CIUS at the University of Alberta, thanks to the considerable presence as well as political clout of Ukrainians in that province. The second was the initiative by the late Peter Jacyk, the benefactor who dedicated a fund specifically for the translation of the Hrushevsky work into English by the CIUS. The translations of Volume 7 ("The Cossack Age to 1625") and Volume 8 were also funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. This amounted to an acknowledgment of Ukrainian scholarship before the world, said Dr. Sysyn.

The publication of Hrushevsky's Volume 8 in English is a significant event for the development of Ukrainian historiography both in Ukraine and in the Western world. Next in line for publication in this series are translations of Volumes 9, 2 and 6. To date about 180 libraries in North America and 30 in Europe have subscribed to the Hrushevsky series in English translation. Once available to college faculty and students, Hrushevsky's historiography is bound to exert a desirable influence on U.S. scholarship in the area of interpretation of Ukrainian history, concluded Dr. Sysyn.

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