MYKHAILO HRUSHEVSKYI IN ST. VOLODYMYR UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The article analyzes Marko Antonovych and Volodymyr Miyakovskyi’s scientifi c works, and personal, not intended for publication, unique and highly valuable documents — Diaries of student Mykhailo Hrushevskyi about his period of study in 1886–1894s at St. Volodymyr University, in the scientific community of which he had been formed as a highly talented scientist and researcher of the past. It is emphasized that Mykhailo Hrushevskyi never mentioned that he kept a diary during his study at the gymnasium in Tiflis and during his study at St. Volodymyr University in Kyiv. It is followed that diary entries of Mykhailo Hrushevskyi were found by Leonid Zashkilnyak in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv by the title “Diary of an unknown author 1883–1893” in the fund 401 of a “Literary and Scientific Bulletin”. The diary entries were composed of two significantly diff erent parts. The first part was a diary of sixth grade student of the gymnasium in Tiflis of 17-year-old Mykhailo Hrushevsky in 1883–1884. Leonid Zashkilnyak published it in 1993 in the journal “Kyivska Starovyna” with a foreword and comments. The second part was a university diary of student Hrushevsky that covered his 1886–1894 Kyiv’s years of life and learning at St. Volodymyr University. Leonid Zashkilnyak published it in 1997 with a foreword, a streamlining, comments, and an afterword. It is accentuated that the diary entries of Mykhailo Hrushevsky allowed touching the inner world of the author and feeling his emotional state in specific periods of his life. Student Mykhailo Hrushevskyi wrote in the diary entries his innermost thoughts, which revealed his development as a young man and had his important personal information. The diary entries allow us to see the range of his communication and highlight some pages of St. Volodymyr University history in the late 80s — at beginning of the 90-ies of the 19th century. It is highlighted that the period of study on the historical-philological faculty at St. Volodymyr University in Kyiv for Mykhailo Hrushevskyi was a time of his formation as a person, a future scientist, and a public figure. It is investigated that Marko Antonovych traced the period of the early formation of Mykhailo Hrushevskyi as a public figure during his student’s years under the leadership of Oleksandr Konyskyi who dedicated him a special attention since 1889 and highlighted him as the most talented among dozens of young people who passed his “school” of public activity in 1880–1890s. Marko Antonovych noted that Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Oleksandr Konyskyi worked for one Ukrainian idea and were tied with the All-Ukrainian development of the late 19th century, where they played a pivotal role. It is analyzed that Volodymyr Miyakovskyi, who researched biography and student years of Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, noted that all the university years of study Mykhailo Hrushevskyi used the scientific advices of professor Antonovich, listened to all his general and special courses, brilliantly graduated from St. Volodymyr University, and as the best student of the professor Antonovich passed the exams, defended his dissertation thesis and became a professor of Lviv University to head a Ukrainian historical science. It is indicated that Mykhailo Hrushevskyi did not mention with warmth his Alma-mater and called eight years of study at St. Volodymyr University as sad times. However, it is proved that all his further life and scientific heritage were germinated just from the period of his study at St. Volodymyr University.