In the communication environment of Ukrainian intellectuals in the mid-19th century: Opanas Markovych’s letters to Hryhoriy Galagan

Abstract

The article for the  first time publishes in  full four letters of  the Ukrainian philologist, folklorist, writer Opanas Vasyliovych Markovych (1822–1867) to Hryhoriy Pavlovych Galagan (1819–1888), one of the most influential landowners of the Left-bank Ukraine and a prominent public figure. Opanas Markovych is  one of  those representatives of  the Ukrainian intellectual community of  the middle of the 19th century, whose contribution to the development of National culture has not been yet appreciated. The publication of Opanas Markovych`s correspondence with Hryhoriy Galagan is intended to deepen the understanding of the outlook and ideological priorities and life practices of this person and contribute to an understanding of how the system of networking of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the middle of the 19th century. The letters, dating from 1856–1858, are evident behind a number of issues relevant both personally for the author and the addressee, as well as for the circle of liberally minded Ukrainian nobility, to which these people belonged. Ethnographic search, the recording and publication of Ukrainian song folklore, the appearance of the works of Marko Vovchok, and the discussion of Panteleimon Kulish’s novel “The Black Rada” are the  leading themes of  the epistolary. References to the  family life of  the correspondence participants create a domestic-historical context of their communication attention should be paid to the fact that the letters are written in Ukrainian, so in this regard, their publication is important for a wide range of  scholars of  humanities. Therefore, their publication is  important for a wide range of  scholars of  humanities  – not only historians, but also philologists, specialists in  sociolinguistics and others. The language of the letters, with a large number of folk idioms, using archaic grammatical forms, represents the way of the Ukrainian literary language in the 19th century.