The Ukrainian Struggle against Russian Dominance

• In Event: 200 Years of Dissent: From the Decembrists to Navalny

Abstract

The political and cultural oppression of Ukraine by the tsarist government stimulated the 1845 formation of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood in Kyiv. The society Hromada (community) advocated the emancipation of serfs and a federated Slavic state based on the principle of national autonomy until Tsar Nicholas I forcibly closed the Brotherhood and arrested the members in 1847. Once the Brotherhood’s members were released, they moved to St. Petersburg and created a new Hromada to promote Ukrainian language and literature. Later other organizations were formed under Tsar Alexander II who issued the 1876 EMS Ukaz which banned Ukrainian language from schools, theaters and publications.

Younger Ukrainian activists broke with Hromada so they could be more politically active under the tutelage of Mykhailo Drahomanov who left Kyiv for Galicia (part of the Austro -Hungarian Empire). There Ukrainian political activities could grow without tsarist interference. Drahomanov feared authoritarian tendencies in a centralized state and advocated constitutionalism, federalism with individual freedoms as the basis of political activities. Young activists continued the fight; Bogdan Kistiakovsky, Sergei Degen and others were arrested several times and served some months in prison in 1893-1894. This paper will explore how the writings of Drahomanov, Kistiakovsky and members of the Intelligentsia furthered the enduring struggle for Ukrainian national cultural freedom and establishing a constitutional and federal government.

Author

• Susan E. Heuman