The paper investigates the
interest of Mykhailo Hrushevsky in Halychyna and his first contacts with local
populists (narodovtsi) in 1885–1894, before moving to Lviv, where he later
would become famous as a scientist and cultural-public figure.
Emphasis is placed on M.
Hrushevskyi's early interest in Ukrainian activities in his youth. He
considered sub-Austrian Halychyna a potential center of the national movement
under the «Ems Ukaz» (Ems decree) of 1876 and repressions against Ukrainians in
Russia. As stressed, in the diary, which the young Mykhailo kept since 1883, he
regularly wrote down his impressions of events in Halychyna. Under the
ideological influence of V. Antonovych, O. Konyskyi, and I. Nechui-Levytskyi,
through the mediation of members of Kyiv society «Stara hromada», he, in the
mid-1880s, he worked out the relationships with the Halychyna populists (O.
Barvinskyi, I . Belei and others), and was published in the local press. With
the I. Nechui-Levytskyi's support, in June 1885, was published the first
article of M. Hrushevskyi in the newspaper «Dilo».
Later he repeatedly published
his works in the updated magazine «Pravda» (since 1888), which became an
all-Ukrainian periodical (published in Lviv since 1867, intermittently).
It was discovered that at the
suggestion of O. Konyskyi M. Hrushevskyi prepared an article under the
pseudonym M. Serhienko, which opened the first volume of «Notes of Shevchenko
Scientific Society» in 1892 and marked the beginning of his many-years
collaboration with scientific journals in Halychyna.
Furthermore, highlighted that M.
Hrushevskyi, as well as ukrainophiles of Naddniprianshchyna (the territory of
Ukraine, which was part of the Russian Empire), to create the best conditions
for the development of Ukrainian national movement in Halychyna, supported the
policy of the Polish-Ukraine mutual support, known in history as the «New Era»
(1890–1894).
In the context of the «New Era»
policy, from 1891, M. Hrushevskyi's moving to Halychyna to head the Department
of History of Ukraine at the Lviv University, was discussed. People of
Halychyna insisted on the candidacy of Professor V. Antonovych, who was a
scientific supervisor of M. Hrushevskyi; I. Belei and O. Barvinskyi even
visited Kyiv in 1893 to persuade him to agree to move to Halychyna, but to no
avail. In the autumn of 1894, M. Hrushevskyi on the recommendation of V.
Antonovych, for patriotic reasons, headed the newly created department, which
started a new Halychyna period in his life and work (until 1913). The
scientist's multifaceted activity is revealed, which was an essential tool for
constructing the historical memory of Ukrainians: he contributed to the
organization of extensive publishing activities in the Ukrainian language, the
development of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, founded his historical
school, a prominent representative of which was I. Krypiakevych.
