Plokhy S. Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. — 614 p. — ISBN 0-8020-3937From the eighteenth century until its collapse in 1917, Imperial Russia – as distinct from Muscovite Russia before it and Soviet Russia after it – officially held that the Russian nation consisted of three branches: Great Russian, Little Russian (Ukrainian), and White Russian (Belarusian). After the 1917 revolution, this view was discredited by many leading scholars, politicians, and cultural figures, but none were more intimately involved in the dismantling of the old imperial identity and its historical narrative than the eminent Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934).
Hrushevsky took an active part in the work of Ukrainian scholarly, cultural, and political organizations and became the first head of the independent Ukrainian state in 1918. Serhii Plokhy's Unmaking Imperial Russia examines Hrushevsky's construction of a new historical paradigm that brought about the nationalization of the Ukrainian past and established Ukrainian history as a separate field of study. By showing how the ‘all-Russian’ historical paradigm was challenged by the Ukrainian national project, Plokhy provides the indispensable background for understanding the current state of relations between Ukraine and Russia.Nation and empireThe Historian as Nation-BuilderThe Shaping of a Populist
In the Habsburg Monarchy
The 'Liberation of Russia'
Between Two Revolutions
The Birth of UkraineThe Delimitation of the PastChallenging the Imperial Narrative
The Search for Origins
The Contest for Kyivan Rus'The Construction of a National ParadigmToward a New Narrative
Structuring the Past
The Story of a Nation
The Cossack MythologyNation and classNegotiating with the BolsheviksThe Return to Ukraine
The Soviet Academician
The Historian
The'Counterrevolutionary'Revisiting the RevolutionThe Revolution
The Nation
The Hero
Masses and Eliies
The StateClass versus NationMarxist History and the National Narrative
Peaceful Coexistence
The Great Break
The Suppression of the National Paradigm
ConclusionsWho is Hiding the Last Volume of Hrushevsky's History?