BOOK NOTES: New book explores the history of confraternities in Ukraine (07/02/06)

BOOK NOTES

New book explores the history of confraternities in Ukraine

"Voluntary Brotherhood: Confraternities of Laymen in Early Modern Ukraine," by Iaroslav Isaievych. Toronto-Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2006. 324 pp., $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 1-8948865-02-2; $29.95 (paperback), ISBN 1-8948865-03-0.

by Serhii Plokhii

The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press has just released a new book on a crucial aspect of Ukraine's cultural and religious history. "Voluntary Brotherhood: Confraternities of Laymen in Early Modern Ukraine" is the English edition of a comprehensive study by one of Ukraine's leading historians, Iaroslav Isaievych.

Prof. Isaievych's examination of the development of brotherhoods, or confraternities, in Ukraine, first published in Kyiv in 1966, was one of the best studies of early modern Ukraine to appear in Soviet Ukraine, and it soon became highly regarded as a classic work of Ukrainian cultural history.

The English edition is a thoroughly revised and updated version of the original study. The author has not only deleted terminology and phraseology Soviet censors imposed before his original work could be published, but has considerably broadened the scope of his analysis.

In the revised work he has applied a comparative approach that includes extensive examination of confraternities in Western Europe, and he has also taken into account scholarly literature published in the past four decades.

The study of the confraternity movement in early modern Ukraine is vital for our understanding of the unique place Ukrainian culture and society occupies between Eastern and Western Christianity. Ukraine and Belarus were the only countries where Orthodox lay confraternities developed, and they were active during a crucial period of social and cultural change.

Although structurally similar to their Western European counterparts, the Eastern-rite confraternities developed unique features. They introduced a spirit of competition between the two Ruthenian Churches - Orthodox and Uniate - and contributed to an increased pace of Ruthenian social and cultural growth. In the larger cities, schools attached to the Orthodox confraternities introduced accessible higher education and disseminated European humanist ideas, as confraternity presses promoted the development of scholarship and literature.

Prof. Isaievych is director of the Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Lviv) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is the author and editor of many publications on the history of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. One of his particular fields of interest and scholarly endeavor is the history of printing and book publishing in Ukraine.

"Voluntary Brotherhood" appears as part of the series of English translations of major works on Ukrainian historiography produced by the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. The new book includes a foreword by the Jacyk Center's director, Dr. Frank E. Sysyn.

With the appearance of this monograph, the Jacyk Center continues to fulfill its mandate of publishing important new and translated works in Ukrainian history. Its principal project is producing an annotated English translation of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's 10-volume (in 12 books) magnum opus, the "History of Ukraine-Rus'," four volumes of which have appeared to date.

The Jacyk Center has also published several important studies in an English-language and a Ukrainian-language monograph series, thus making important books in Ukrainian historiography available to readers in the West and in Ukraine.

"Voluntary Brotherhood" was translated by Iaroslav Isaievych and Marta Daria Olynyk, and the book was edited by Myroslav Yurkevich. Marko R. Stech compiled the index and guided the manuscript through the publication process. The book was published with the financial support of the Teodor and Mahdalyna Butrej Fund at the Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation. A generous grant toward publication was also provided by the Skop Family in memory of Konstantyn Hordienko.

The book, which includes numerous illustrations, is available in a paperback edition for $29.95 and in hardcover for $49.95 (plus taxes and shipping; outside Canada prices are in U.S. dollars). Orders can be placed on-line by credit card via a secure Internet connection, www.utoronto.ca/cius; by e-mail [email protected]; by telephone 780-492-2973; fax, 780-492-4967; or by writing to CIUS Press, 450 Athabasca Hall, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E8.

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