Latest volume in Hrushevsky's monumental "History of Ukraine-Rus'" is released (11/20/05)

Latest volume in Hrushevsky's monumental "History of Ukraine-Rus'" is released

by Serhii Plokhy

EDMONTON - The Jacyk Center's new volume of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's "History of Ukraine-Rus' " has been published by CIUS Press. The new publication is Volume 9, Book 1, of the 10-volume series. Titled "The Cossack Age, 1650-1653," it is the fourth volume produced by the Hrushevsky Translation Project of the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research at CIUS, following Volume 1 (From "Prehistory to the Eleventh Century"), Volume 7 ("The Cossack Age to 1625"), and Volume 8 ("The Cossack Age, 1625-1650").

Volume 9, Book 1, is simultaneously the third volume in the history's subseries devoted to the Kozak era, titled the "History of the Ukrainian Cossacks." It is also the first portion of the longest and most extensively documented volume of Hrushevsky's history.

The new volume traces the history of the Khmelnytsky uprising from the Treaty of Zboriv (1649) to the eve of the Pereiaslav Agreement of 1654. Here Hrushevsky addresses fundamental questions about the great Ukrainian political upheaval of the mid-17th century: How did the Kozak leader, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, plan to secure the future of the Ukrainian state after the Kozaks' victories over the Poles in 1648-1649? What tactics did the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth employ to enlist the Kozaks' military cooperation while keeping them politically subordinate, and how did Khmelnytsky respond? What relations did the hetman seek to establish with the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate and Muscovy? When did Moldavia become a linchpin in his political plans? In what circumstances did the marriage of the hetman's son Tymish to the Moldavian hospodar's daughter Roksanda take place, and what was the outcome of that political and dynastic union?

In dealing with these questions, the master historian presents a wealth of documentary material, including correspondence of the major actors in this pivotal epoch. His treatment of this material is infused with extraordinary knowledge and insight, and the resulting analysis contributes to his overall conception of the history of the Ukrainian people.

Volume 9, Book 1, was translated by the late Dr. Bohdan Struminski. A highly regarded philologist and researcher, Dr. Struminski was affiliated for many years with the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, where he taught Ukrainian language. He was also a research associate of the Peter Jacyk Center.

The author of a large number of scholarly works, Dr. Struminski was also a talented translator and journalist. In addition to work on Volume 9, Book 1, his services of the Hrushevsky Translation Project included a scholarly and linguistic reading of Volume 1, translation of Volume 3 and Volume 7 (published in 1999), and scholarly consultation on terminology. Dr. Struminski's wife, Kathleen Lestition, supported his work and provided preliminary editing of his translations.

As editor-in-chief of the Hrushevsky Translation Project and director of the Jacyk Center, Dr. Frank E. Sysyn oversaw the preparation and publication of the volume.

Dr. Serhii Plokhy, associate director of the Jacyk Center, served as consulting editor. His introduction, titled "Writing the History in the USSR," chronicles the circumstances in which Hrushevsky wrote the first book of Volume 9 (originally published in 1929) and examines the work's scholarly underpinnings, context and reception.

Uliana M. Pasicznyk served as managing editor of the volume. The editorial staff also included Marta Horban-Carynnyk, Myroslav Yurkevich, Marko R. Stech, Dushan Bednarsky, Andrij Hornjatkevyc, Tania Plawuszczak-Stech and Olena Plokhii.

Editorial work was aided by a number of scholarly consultants, including Maryna Kravets, Profs. Victor Ostapchuk and Maria E. Subtelny, who helped resolve many questions related to Ottoman matters, and Prof. David A. Frick, who edited the appended documents.

The preparation of Volume 9, Book 1, was sponsored by a generous gift from Sofia Wojtyna of Hamilton, Ontario, in memory of Vasyl Bilash, Mykhailo Charkivsky and Mykhailo Wojtyna. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Washington) funded the translation.

The Hrushevsky Translation Project was initiated by the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research at the behest of the late Peter Jacyk of Toronto. Mr. Jacyk strongly believed that the international community of scholars should have access to Hrushevsky's great history in the form of a competent and complete English translation.

Scholarly reviews of the three translated volumes of the history published to date testify to the soundness of Mr. Jacyk's vision and the importance of Hrushevsky's work to the international scholarly community.

Reviewers have commented as follows.

"Hrushevsky's History is simply indispensable to all students of early East Slavic history. ... One can only applaud its dissemination and look forward eagerly to the continuation of this project." - Charles J. Halperin, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1, No. 1, 2000.

"[Volume 1] is a magnificent annotated translation ... of Hrushevsky's magnum opus ... Frank Sysyn's 20-page general introduction to the translation project is almost enough on its own to justify purchase of this book." - David Saunders, European History Quarterly 28, 1998.

"The realization of this handsome volume [7] is a major achievement. The scholarly apparatus accompanying Hrushevsky's text is exemplary and highly informative; the references are updated to provide the researcher with a state-of-the-art bibliography; the translation reads as though it had originally been written in English." - Caroline Finkel, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62, pt. 2, 2001).

"This book [Volume 8] is nothing less than a monumental work. ... It is of fundamental value in tracing the history of modern Ukrainian identity." - Brian J. Boeck, Russian Review 63, No. 4, 2004.

"For contemporary scholarship, one of the great contributions of Hrushevsky' s text is that he utilized and quoted extensively from sources now lost. ..." The publication of this volume [8] in English translation - indeed, the whole multi-volume project - is both a historiographic and a cultural landmark." - Paul W. Knoll, The Polish Review 49, No. 2, 2004.

"No one can fully understand Ukraine today without an appreciation of Hrushevsky's work. It remains indispensable reading." - Hugh D. Hudson Jr., Sixteenth Century Journal 32, No. 1, 2001.

A series of book launches was organized to present the new volume to the scholarly community and the wider public. On June 29 Dr. Sysyn presented a copy to then Ukrainian Vice-Premier Mykola Tomenko at the International Congress of Ukrainian Studies in Donetsk.

On July 16 a launch was held by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Melbourne, Australia. On September 8 a launch at the University of Alberta featured an address by one of Ukraine's foremost historians, Dr. Natalia Yakovenko of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. On October 1 a New York launch was held at the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

A Toronto launch on October 14 featured comments by Dr. Olga Andriwsky of Trent University and Dr. Victor Ostapchuk of the University of Toronto. Ms. Lestition spoke of the dedication of her late husband, Dr. Struminski, to the project. Another launch was held at the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago on October 15.

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