Books published by Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies

Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951) was an extraordinary writer and political figure of the Ukrainian generation that was active in the early twentieth century. In his stories, novels, and plays he broke with populist and literary-realist traditions and rebelled against the social mores and political system of the tsarist empire, often raising provocative questions about morality and authenticity. Vynnychenko wrote most of his 23 plays while he lived as an émigré. A number of his plays were staged in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, and other countries. But in the English-speaking world, Vynnychenko is still largely unknown. This volume of six of his best-known plays, translated by George Mihaychuk, corrects this lacuna and introduces readers to a masterful dramatist.

In Eternal Memory: Monuments and Memorials of the Holodomor, Wiktoria Kudela-Swiatek provides an in-depth examination of "places of memory" associated with the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, supplemented by photographs from across the globe that highlight both the uniqueness of individual monuments and their commonalities. The author investigates the history, aesthetics, and symbolism of a wide array of commemorative spaces, including museums, commemorative plaques, and sites directly linked with the victims of the Holodomor (previously unmarked mass graves, for example). The book not only illuminates the range of meanings that communities of memory have invested in these sites but sheds light on the processes by which commemorative practices have evolved and been shared between Ukraine and the diaspora.

No period in Bohdan Khmelnytsky''s hetmancy was as rich in international and dynastic plans as the years 1650 to 1653. After the Zboriv Agreement of 1649, when the hetman resolved to find a way to break forever with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he set out to create the military and political conditions to achieve his goal. From Venice to Moscow the wily hetman spun his diplomatic and military plans. In his search for allies and in pursuit of his goal of establishing a political system that secured the Ukrainian Hetmanate, he looked above all to the Ottomans and their Danubian vassal states. Fusing the interests of his new state to those of his own family, the hetman aspired to found a new dynasty by marrying his son into the ruling house of Moldavia. And as Khmelnytsky was pursing these goals and aspirations, the Cossacks'' military victories and defeats were shaping the fate of a new Ukraine. The book also covers the dramatic development of Ukrainian-Moldavian relations in the years 1650-53, beginning with the Cossacks'' victorious campaign against Moldavia. The period witnessed the marriage of Tymish Khmelnytsky to Roksanda Lupu, the daughter of the Moldavian hospodar, and it ended with Tymish''s tragic death during the siege of Suceava by allied Polish, Wallachian, and Moldavian forces--a major blow not only to Khmelnytsky''s policy in the Danube region, but also to his dynastic aspirations. In covering these events, Hrushevsky again proved himself an outstanding researcher with scrupulous attention to detail. His portrait of Tymish, whom Bohdan Khmelnytsky was grooming to become his successor, remains the most complete in the literature. The book concludes on the eve of the Battle of Zhvanets (1653) and the Pereiaslav Council of 1654, events crucial to the future of Ukraine. This volume was translated by Bohdan Struminski and edited by Serhii Plokhy (consulting editor) and Frank E. Sysyn (editor in chief) with the assistance of Uliana M. Pasicznyk. The volume includes an extensive historical introduction, a full bibliography of the sources used by Hrushevsky, 3 maps, and an index. The preparation of this volume for publication was generously sponsored by Mrs. Sofiia Wojtyna of Hamilton, Ontario, in memory of Vasyl Bilash, Mykhailo Charkivsky, and Mykhailo Wojtyna.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky''s History of Ukraine-Rus,'' Volume 8: The Cossack Age, 1626-1650 deals with the period when the Cossacks'' emergence as a political power and the Khmelnytsky Uprising made Ukraine a focal point in European and Near Eastern affairs. Based on an exhaustive examination of the sources and scholarly literature, Hrushevsky''s volume 8 stands as the most comprehensive account of this dramatic period in Ukrainian history. Ukraine''s central role in the international politics of the time makes the volume important to specialists and students of East European, Central European, Ottoman, Russian, and Jewish history, as well as to those studying revolution and state building in early modern Europe. For her work in translating volume 8 Marta Daria Olynyk was awarded the 2004 AAUS Translation Prize. This volume was translated by Marta Daria Olynyk and edited by Frank E. Sysyn (editor in chief) with the assistance of Myroslav Yurkevich.

This tome, in which Mykhailo Hrushevsky analyzes the last two years of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's rule, consists of the final chapters (10-13) of volume 9. Hrushevsky presents the most comprehensive discussion to date of Khmelnytsky's foreign policy in the aftermath of the Treaty of Pereiaslav (1654), a topic closed to research in Soviet Ukraine from the 1930s to the 1980s. He also discusses Khmelnytsky's renewed efforts to annex the western Ukrainian territories and to control the Belarusian lands conquered by the Cossacks. He concludes with an assessment of the hetman and his age that has long been controversial in Ukrainian historiography.The volume shows how Ukraine's relations with Muscovy were strained by the Muscovites' failure to help fend off devastating Polish and Crimean attacks, which prompted Ukrainian leaders to seek support elsewhere. Tensions were exacerbated by the Ukrainian-Muscovite dispute over Belarusian territory. When Charles X of Sweden attacked the Commonwealth in 1655, while Khmelnytsky sought to recover the western Ukrainian lands, a Swedish-Ukrainian alliance seemed to be in the making. A military convention was concluded, but Charles, under pressure from his allies among the Polish nobility, would not cede western Ukraine to the Cossacks. Once Muscovy declared war on Sweden in 1656, it opened peace negotiations with Poland to which Cossack envoys were not admitted, convincing Khmelnytsky's officers that the Muscovites had betrayed them. Khmelnytsky then began a complicated diplomatic offensive to break up Muscovite-Polish negotiations. After the Vilnius accord between Muscovy and the Commonweath (November 1656), he sought to form a Swedish-Transylvanian-Ukrainian league in cooperation with Brandenburg and supported the abortive effort by György Rákóczi II of Transylvania to gain the Polish throne. Khmelnytsky also negotiated with the Ottoman Porte, giving rise to the vexed question of his possible request for vassal status. Hrushevsky's exhaustive discussion of diplomatic affairs greatly advances understanding of the role of Ukraine and the countries of East Central Europe in the political crisis of the mid-seventeenth century.This volume was translated by Marta Daria Olynyk and edited by Yaroslav Fedoruk (consulting editor) and Frank E. Sysyn (editor in chief) with the assistance of Myroslav Yurkevich.In a comprehensive introduction to the volume, Yaroslav Fedoruk considers issues of foreign policy, as well as the larger problem of national historiographies and their limitations with regard to the highly complex European situation. Frank Sysyn analyzes Hrushevsky's assessment of Khmelnytsky's rule in chapter 13 as a polemic with the conservative historian Viacheslav Lypynsky (1882-1931). The preparation of this volume for publication was funded by a generous donation from Dr. Maria Fischer-Slysh (Toronto, Ontario) in memory of her parents, Dr. Adolf and Olha Slyz.

The ninth volume of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's History of Ukraine-Rus' is by far the longest in the ten-volume series. Written in the late 1920s, after Hrushevsky had returned to Ukraine from exile, the volume is based mainly on a wealth of documents gathered by Hrushevsky and his students in the Moscow archives. Many of these documents were little used or unknown to previous historians. The pivotal event in this part of the volume is the Pereiaslav Agreement of 1654, which brought Cossack Ukraine under a Muscovite protectorate. Needing military assistance to continue the struggle with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, against which the Cossack Host and much of the Ukrainian populace had rebelled in 1648, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was prepared to make an agreement that brought Muscovy into the conflict on terms favorable to the Cossacks. Hrushevsky analyzes the diplomatic and military developments that led up to the agreement, and in chapter 7 he presents the most detailed and thoughtful treatment in modern historiography of the Pereiaslav Council of January 1654 and the subsequent understandings with Moscow. In his discussion Hrushevsky deals not only with previous historiography and the documentary record, which is incomplete, but also with the negotiations, taking account of the conflicting motivations of the two sides. The subsequent chapters trace the difficult course of Cossack Ukraine's relations with Muscovy in 1654-55: the joint military campaign against the Commonwealth, which almost led to disaster because of poor coordination; the Cossack leadership's efforts to take control of the western Ukrainian and southern Belarusian lands; the ferocious battle of Dryzhypil; and the devastation of the Bratslav region by Polish and Tatar forces, against which Muscovy provided no effective protection. On the basis of the travel diary of Paul of Aleppo, a Syrian cleric, Hrushevsky gives an account of daily life in Ukraine at the time, with many details unavailable in other sources. Unparalleled in breadth of research, Hrushevsky's work brings to life a turbulent and politically decisive period in the life of the Ukrainian people. This volume was translated by Marta Daria Olynyk and edited by Serhii Plokhy (consulting editor) and Frank E. Sysyn (editor in chief) with the assistance of Myroslav Yurkevich. The volume includes an extensive historical introduction, a full bibliography of the sources used by Hrushevsky, 3 maps, and an index. The preparation of this volume for publication was funded by a generous donation from Mrs. Daria Mucak-Kowalsky (Etobicoke, Ontario) in memory of her husband, Mykhailo Kowalsky.

Volume 3 concludes the first cycle of the History of Ukraine-Rus', which Mykhailo Hrushevsky characterized as the story of the Ukrainian people's historical existence from its beginnings to the collapse of statehood in the fourteenth century. Here Hrushevsky deals with one of that history's least known but most intriguing periods--the time of the preeminence of the Galician-Volhynian state and the spread of Tatar (Mongol) rule over the Ukrainian lands. The volume also offers a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of political, social, and cultural life in the Old Rus' period. In discussing the Galician-Volhynian state, Hrushevsky describes its first prince, Roman Mstyslavych, as an effective and forward-looking leader. His son Danylo Romanovych protected his state against the Tatars while seeking support from the West. That policy continued under Danylo's successors, but with the extinction of the Riurykid dynasty the Galician-Volhynian lands were absorbed by Poland and Lithuania. During this same time the lands of the Dnipro region were experiencing the decline of the princely and military retinue system and increasing subordination to Tatar rule. In examining life in Old Rus', Hrushevsky discusses the rights and relations of princes, the functions of princely servitors and administrative officials, the legal code and judicial system, military organization, church organization, and the composition and structure of society. He goes on to describe economic relations, family and social relations, religious life, education, and artistic creativity. He also examines Old Rus' writings, particularly the Kyiv and Galician-Volhynian Chronicles. Throughout, the master historian demonstrates the erudition and command of source materials for which he is renowned.

With volume 4, Mykhailo Hrushevsky begins the second, 'Lithuanian-Polish, ' cycle of his History of Ukraine-Rus', which extends from the fourteenth-century collapse of Ukrainian statehood to the recovery of the late sixteenth century. Volume 4 covers political life, while volumes 5 and 6 deal with society and culture.The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were the dominant powers in the Ukrainian lands during this period. Having attained statehood in the thirteenth century, Lithuania faced strong opposition from the Teutonic Knights in the northwest and Muscovy in the east. Accordingly, it expanded southward into the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. Its rule was accepted with little opposition because the Lithuanian ruling stratum was rapidly assimilated by the demographically dominant Ruthenians, and the cultural legacy of Old Rus' reigned supreme. Ruthenian was the main language of the Lithuanian court, common and criminal law was adopted from that of Rus', and Ruthenian craftsmen shaped artistic tastes. Many Lithuanian rulers converted to Orthodoxy. Thus, as Hrushevsky points out, Lithuanian annexation of Ukrainian lands passed relatively unnoticed and left no deep traces in local tradition.Poland contrasts sharply with Lithuania in Hrushevsky's account: a strong state bent on eastward expansion, it was determined to assert its political and cultural dominance. The key to that expansion was the incorporation of Lithuania into a full union with Poland--a process that began with the Union of Kreva (1385) and culminated in the Union of Lublin (1569), which established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and brought the Ukrainian lands under Polish rule. Hrushevsky explains the intricate politics of the period in detail. A separate chapter chronicles the rise of the Crimean Tatars and their devastating raids, which gave the Ruthenians a compelling incentive to accept union with Poland.

"This book contains the proceedings of a two-day conference organized by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies titled 'Ukrainian Studies in Canada: Texts and Contexts.' Bringing together scholars and community members from across Canada, the United States, and Europe, this major event formed the basis of the present publication; the topics of the papers deal with the past accomplishments, current state, and future prospects of Ukrainian studies in Canada and abroad."--

A brilliantly imaginative and boldly surrealistic tale of struggle between good and evil.

The essays in this collection of symposium papers about the eminent Ukrainian philosopher and poet Hryhorij Skovoroda (1722-94) examine this unique figure from a number of perspectives: historical, social, literary, pedagogical, linguistic, theological, and philosophical. Hryhorij Skovoroda is a major figure in the history of Ukrainian and Russian literature and philosophy. Educated at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, he served variously as music director of the Russian imperial mission in Hungary, private tutor, and instructor of ethics and poetics at the Kharkiv Collegium. The last decades of his life, which he spent wandering about eastern Ukraine, were devoted to writing and contemplation. Skovoroda''s writings--verse, fables, philosophical dialogues--are profoundly steeped in biblical tradition and characterized by the striking use of symbol and metaphor, as well as sophisticated linguistic experimentation. His influence on Ukrainian and Russian writers began in his own lifetime and has continued and grown ever since. It is strongly evident in the works of such figures as Taras Shevchenko, Nikolai Gogol, Andrei Belyj, and Vasyl'' Barka, among others. Skovoroda is an indelible presence in the realms of philosophy, literature, religion, and linguistics. Yet he is inadequately appreciated, particularly in the West. Contributors include Dmytro Cyzevs''kyj, Karen L. Black, Stephen Scherer, George Y. Shevelov, Bohdan Rubchak, Bohdan Struminski, George Kline, Taras Zakydalsky, Mikhail Weiskopf, Aleksandr Lavrov, and others. This volume also includes an exhaustive bibliography of Skovorodiana compiled by Richard Hantula. See Dmytro Cyzevs''kyj, Nikolai Gogol, Ballad, and Lyceum in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.

The making of modern Ukrainian identity is often reduced to a choice between "Little Russia" and "Ukraine." In this collection of essays, Zenon Kohut shows that the process was much more complex, involving Western influences and native traditions that shaped a distinct Ukrainian political culture and historiography. He stresses the importance of the early modern period and analyzes the development of Ukrainian historiography. Among the topics singled out for attention are the struggle for Cossack rights and liberties, the ambiguous role of the concept of Little Russia, the development of a stereotypical image of Jews, and post-independence relations between Ukraine and Russia. The book offers a rewarding and richly nuanced treatment of a contentious subject.

Revolutionary upheavals engulfed Ukraine, Poland, and Russia after the First World War.