Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus’ in English: The Process and Impact of a Translation Project

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

The Hrushevsky Translation Project has made the volumes of the magnum opus of the foundational “national” history of Ukraine available in English for the first time. The work constitutes a careful examination and analysis of the sources to Ukrainian history from the earliest times to the mid-seventeenth century. Written at a time of rapid development in the ancillary historical sciences and the social and human sciences, the History ranged far beyond the frameworks of political events characteristic of earlier nineteenth-century national histories. At the same time, the author’s engagement in the Ukrainian national movement and the political events and revolutions of twentieth-century Ukraine were reflected in the work.
The goal of the Hrushevsky Translation Project has been to make the History available to scholars of the international historical community, most of whom could not read the work in its original. We will discuss the challenges in rendering Hrushevsky’s work in English, including such issues as the establishment of historical terminology and the research that this necessitated. We will address the question of placing Hrushevsky and his work in the context of his time and subsequent historical discussion, as well as the academic impact of making Hrushevsky’s vision accessible to a wider group of historians, including ones studying Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. We shall also consider the influence of the English-language History on discussions of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ukraine and on examinations of national and other paradigms in conceptualizing Ukrainian history.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, to 1800

Chair

• Frank Edward Sysyn, U of Alberta (Canada)

Roundtable Members

• Brian L. Davies, U of Texas at San Antonio

• Robert Ian Frost, U of Aberdeen (UK)

• Uliana M. Pasicznyk, U of Toronto (Canada)

• Christian Raffensperger, Wittenberg U

• Carol Belkin Stevens, Colgate U