Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Publications – serie

The Tale of Bygone Years (Pověst’ vremennykh lět) is the most important source for the history of early Rus’. Full of stories of grand princes and saints, monks, and knightly retinues, this chronicle compilation has been the bedrock of modern interpretations of the history, ethos, and religious traditions of Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians alike. It also has been a source of controversy, with competing redactions and interpretations of the Old East Slavic language in which it was written. This massive undertaking provides scholars and general readers with the first fully legible text that includes all of the known redactions of the Pověst’. The text consists of an intercollation of the five oldest redactions, three more modern redactions, three later interpolations, and Donald Ostrowski’s own final interpretation. The intercollated texts are nested line-by-line. This three-part set will be of fundamental importance to Slavic philologists and historians of early Rus’.

The collapse of Polish rule in the Ukraine in the mid-seventeenth century changed the course of East European history. The great Cossack revolt of 1648 exposed the weaknesses of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the emergence of a Ukrainian polity, a struggle for dominance ensued, paving the way for the Russian annexation of the Ukraine.Frank Sysyn examines the failure of Polish policy through the career of Adam Kysil. A leader of the Ukrainian nobility and an official of the Polish government, Kysil was ideally suited to serve as the mediator between the rebels and the government. His failure signaled the already irreconcilable differences that divided them. Based on extensive archival research in Poland and the USSR, Sysyn’s study is a contribution not only to scholarship on Eastern Europe, but also to discussions on the preconditions and nature of early modern revolts and on the change of political and social elites.

In the first in-depth exploration of the relationship between Jews and magnates in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, M. J. Rosman shows the influence of the Jews on economic, social, and political life in the Polish, Ukrainian, and Belorussian territories, and offers new perspectives on their relations with magnates. Rosman focuses on two major questions: What were the principal spheres of interaction between the Jews and the nobility? What was the significance of this interaction for both parties?By analyzing the Sieniawski-Czartoryski estates the author demonstrates the measure of cooperation that existed between magnates and Jews. Jews guaranteed the viability of important economic institutions and provided commercial services, while magnates furnished an environment for Jews to conduct their religious and commercial activities. Drawing on Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish sources and literature from archives and libraries in Poland, Israel, and the United States, Rosman provides a richly detailed account of the socioeconomic development of early modern Europe’s largest Jewish community.

Lev Krevza’s A Defense of Church Unity (1617), on the Uniate side, and Zaxarija Kopystens’kyj’s Palinodia (1621), a monumental defense of the Eastern Church, are arguably the most erudite, comprehensive, and persuasive works on the ecclesiastical debate between these two groups. This two-volume work illuminates the intense struggle ignited when, at the time of the Union of Brest (1596), a large part of the Ruthenian ecclesiastical hierarchy declared itself in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Bohdan Struminski provides English translations from the original Ruthenian and Middle Polish texts.

The present volume contains papers presented at the Fourth Quinquennial Conference on Ukrainian Economics at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University in September 1990. Contributions by Tetiana Pakhomova and Serhii Mischenko and four discussants have been added in order to round out the collection.The volume from the previous quinquennial conference dealt with Ukrainian economic history prior to World War I. The present collection deals with the Ukrainian economy during the late twentieth century—a period of epochal change. The papers are divided into five sections: Framework; Resources; Performance; Welfare; and External Relations. A recurrent theme centers on the nature of Ukrainian–Soviet economic relations in the past, whether this relationship was exploitative, and, if so, to what degree. Each author reviews economic trends in Ukraine to the end of 1990, and analyzes the potential for future Ukrainian economic policy and development. The analyses are supported by a large amount of statistical information, presented in eighty tables. Four maps help orient the reader with Ukrainian geography.The contributors are from the U.S., Canada, England, and the Ukraine; they represent various schools of economic thought and employ different methodologies. The discussion papers at the end of each section facilitate the synthesis of the material in the papers and introduce an element of scholarly discussion on issues that presently are of vital importance to Ukraine. Because of the wide range of topics and extensive source material, this collection will be useful not only to specialists, but also to students and others interested in Ukraine today.

From its inception just before World War I to its demise during the Stalinist repression of Ukrainian culture in the 1930s, Ukrainian Futurism was much maligned and poorly understood. It has remained so into the late twentieth century. Professor Oleh Ilnytzkyj seeks to rectify the misinterpretations surrounding the Futurists and their leader Mykhail Semenko, providing the first major English-language monograph on this vibrant literary movement and its charismatic leader.This study places Ukrainian Futurism within the context of other major Ukrainian literary movements of the time and examines its relationship to Russian and West European Futurism; it also includes critical analyses of the major works of the leading figures within the Ukrainian movement.

Meletij Smotryc´kyj was at the center of the debates that agitated Ruthenia in the period following the Union of Brest (1596). This was a turbulent time for Ukraine, as the Uniate and Orthodox Churches sought to gain control over the confessional lives of Ruthenians. An ongoing debate was waged in writing, with each side publishing impassioned attacks on their opponents’ views and fervent defenses of their own. A prominent religious figure and polemicist, Smotryc´kyj was caught up in the struggle between Orthodox and Uniate beliefs.In the early 1600s, Smotryc´kyj emerged as one of the leading spokesmen for Ruthenian renewal under the Orthodox, or dis-Uniate, banner. His polemics served as the cornerstone of the Orthodox response to the Polish-Lithuanian Reformation and Counter-Reformation. He later converted to Uniatism in 1627 and sought to expose the weaknesses of the Orthodox Church, arguing for a new unity between the eastern and western Churches. The works collected in this volume, written by Smotryc´kyj over a period of twenty years, offer unique insight into the elite of early modern Rus´ and their place in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1903 Bogdan Kistiakovsky railed against Lenin's concept of a vanguard party to lead the revolution, remarking that he did not want to see the Romanov autocracy replaced with the despotism of Lenin in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat. His charge was wholly consistent with a life (1868–1920) devoted to the development of rule of law in the Russian Empire—a new government based on respect for national minorities, human rights, and constitutional federalism. Susan Heuman's study shows the fresh urgency of Kistiakovsky's ideas as Russia, Ukraine, and the other countries of the former Soviet Union seek to establish precisely those values that Kistiakovsky put forth ninety years ago. Heuman's analysis and portrait of Kistiakovsky will provoke scholars of Russian and Ukrainian intellectual history to reassess early twentieth-century politics and society in the Russian Empire.

The three sections in Poland Between East and West represent revised and edited versions of the three August Zaleski Lectures given by world renowned thinker Andrzej Walicki. In them Walicki charts a new understanding of Poland’s entry into the modern age as it sought to reinvent its concept of nationhood after having been partitioned among three of its longtime rivals.Walicki presents new paradigms for understanding the rise and nature of Polish nationalism, the impact of Positivism and Socialism, and the question of integral nationalism. These texts will be stimulating reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century East Central European history.

What is the Ruthenian language? A simple answer is that it was the precursor to modern Ukrainian and Belarusian. But the history and synchronic realization of this language are much more complex. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ruthenian was the language of the Orthodox and Uniate inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It enjoyed a culture and prestige greater than that of its Muscovite (Russian) neighbor to the east, but was often denigrated in comparison with the dominant language—Polish—of the Commonwealth.In Testament to Ruthenian, Stefan Pugh analyzes the Ruthenian language use of one of its most outstanding practitioners, Meletij Smotryc´kyj (ca. 1578–1633): polemicist, cleric, and scholar. This is the first study to survey comprehensively a Ruthenian speaker’s oeuvre, and it will provide the groundwork for the next generation of scholarship on the Ruthenian language.

Above and Beyond is the first book to appear in the West by a major Ukrainian independence figure and is the first by a former Soviet general to discuss the inner workings of the USSR's military. Morozov provides behind-the-scenes insights on Yeltsin, Kuchma, Dudaev, and other important players still active today. His book will firmly alter our perception of the USSR and its demise, the Soviet military machine, and the rise of modern, independent Ukraine.In September 1991 Major General Kostiantyn Morozov informed the Soviet Armed Forces Command that he was no longer a Soviet general, but the new Ukrainian Minister of Defense. He then set out to create the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), mounting a brilliant campaign to remove from Ukraine military personnel who were not Ukrainian citizens and not loyal to the new Ukrainian state, taking over the Ukrainian-based assets, nuclear and otherwise, of the Soviet Army, and firmly grounding the idea of an independent UAF in the public mind. Within a year of assuming his post, he was overseeing the second-largest army in Europe and the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The shock waves of his efforts would eventually lead Vladimir Zhirinovsky to put Morozov at the top of his "hit list" of those responsible for destroying the USSR.Morozov guided his forces through a minefield of intrigues as various figures sought to undermine the UAF and subordinate it to the armed forces of the CIS and, therefore, to Russia. He stood as an important figure in the political landscape for his blunt candor and total devotion to Ukrainian sovereignty. This was especially remarkable because Morozov was ethnically half-Russian (or so he thought), spoke no Ukrainian, and came from the eastern part of Ukraine, long believed to be faithful to Russia and Soviet rule.

Ottoman survey registers are recognized as unparalleled sources on the demographic, economic, and linguistic characteristics of the regions for which they were made. The register for Kamaniçe (the region of Podolia and the city of Kam'janec', which the Ottomans conquered in 1672) is the only surviving survey register of Ukrainian lands. The full text of the defter is given in transcription in the first part, with a facsimile edition given in the second part. All narrative documents are translated in appendices, while narrative segments of the registry portion of the defter are translated in the notes. Commentary includes extensive notes and an introduction. The Ottoman Survey Register of Podolia provides important new information on the Ottomans and their subjects living in Ukrainian territory. Interpretive maps keyed to the register and indices and glossaries are included.

The Old Testament Book of Esther in Slavonic translation is known from East Slavic manuscripts of the late 14th to the late 16th centuries. Working from the Masoretic Hebrew texts and Greek translations, Horace Lunt and Moshe Taube examine textological clues to the circumstances of Esther’s translation, sources, and redactions. This study creates a solid basis from which scholars can now discuss the particulars of this important translation, the nature of East Slavic biblical translating activity, and the relationship of old East Slavic bookmen to Hebrew and Greek.

Oleh Lysheha is considered the "poets' poet" of contemporary Ukraine. A dissident and iconoclast, he was forbidden to publish in the Soviet Union from 1972 to 1988. Since then, his reputation has steadily grown to legendary proportions. His work is informed by transcendentalism and Zen-like introspection, with meditations on the essence of the human experience and man's place in nature. James Brasfield studied poetry and translation with Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott, Daniel Halpern, and other luminaries. He served as an editorial assistant for poetry at The Paris Review, and now teaches English at Pennsylvania State University. The Collected Poems here include facing-page English and Ukrainian versions of selected poems and a play, "Friend Li Po. Brother Tu Fu." It represents a rare example of translations that are as beautiful as the original poetry and poems that anyone interested in the written word will appreciate.

Written in honor of one of the foremost observers of nationalism and culture in Central and Eastern Europe, this volume brings together 35 eminent scholars from the United States, Canada, Ukraine, and Poland.Supplemented by a bibliography of the work of Roman Szporluk, these fresh, urgent essays mirror Szporluk's broad and comparativist approach. Topics range from the rise of Ukrainian national consciousness in Galicia, to nationalism in contemporary Serbia; from the rise of private property in the Russia of Catherine II, to contemporary Russian attitudes toward Ukrainian nation building. Other essays explore the impact of theories of nationalism on the discipline of history and critique Ernest Gellner's "constructivist" theory of the nation.

Leonard Friesen presents a study of the transformation of New Russia—the region north of the Black and Azov seas—from its conquest by the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century to the revolutionary tumult of 1905. Friesen is particularly interested in the dynamic and multifaceted relations between the region’s peasants, European colonists, and Russian estate owners. He gives special attention to the settlement process whereby once free peasants were enserfed within a generation, as well as the period of servile emancipation after 1861, when the paths of the region’s agriculturalists converged in unexpected ways. Overall, Friesen sees the region as vital to an understanding of the empire as a whole. He demonstrates how peasants, nobles, and estate owners were key actors in a series of rural revolutions that eventually threatened the empire itself.This book contributes to our understanding of Imperial Russia, as well as contemporary Ukraine, by describing and analyzing rural developmental patterns over time. It explores how, when, and why agriculturalists made adjustments to long-established agrarian and social practices, and provides a fresh perspective on the link between the end of empire and the rural developments that preceded it.

From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the geopolitical placement of Ukraine drew the attention of some of Europe’s most influential cartographers. Many of these maps, including ones of exceptional rarity, were collected by the Ukrainian scholar and journalist Bohdan Krawciw. Krawciw traced the physical and aesthetic depiction of Ukraine across its changing borders as a means of self-recognition and as a cultural and political history of the contested nation and its peoples. Of special interest are his maps of Ukraine from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the crossroads of four empires: Habsburg, Ottoman, Russian, and Soviet. As part of his personal archive, Krawciw’s maps were bequeathed to Harvard University upon his death in 1975. This book serves as both a catalog of his collection and a description of how the maps he collected serve as an invaluable source for Ukraine’s history and a symbol of Ukrainian national identity. The book contains nearly 100 examples from the collection, many in full color, as well as indices listing maps by cartographer and by place name.

The Kievan Caves Monastery was for centuries the most important Ukrainian monastic establishment. It was the outstanding center of literary production, and its monks served throughout the territory of Rus’ as bishops and monastic superiors. The most detailed source for the monastery early history is its Paterik, a thirteenth-century compilation containing stories reaching back to the monastery’s foundation in the mid-eleventh century. Muriel Heppell now makes available the first complete English translation of the Paterik. With an introduction, map, and several appendices, Heppell discusses the work’s Byzantine background and also sets it in its historical context.The Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature is one portion of the Harvard Project in Commemoration of the Millennium of Christianity in Rus’-Ukraine sponsored by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. The Library encompasses literary activity in Rus’-Ukraine from its beginning in the mid-eleventh century through the end of the eighteenth century. Included are ecclesiastical and secular works written in a variety of languages, such as Church Slavonic, Old Rus’, Ruthenian (Middle Ukrainian), Polish, and Latin. This linguistic diversity reflects the cultural pluralism of Ukrainian intellectual life in the medieval and early-modern periods. The Library consists of three parts: Texts, which publishes original works, in facsimile whenever appropriate; English Translations; and Ukrainian Translations. Each volume begins with an introductory essay by a specialist. The two translation series also include maps, appendices, and indices. A cumulative index to the entire Library is planned.