Yaroslav Hrytsak
History of Names: A Case of Constructing
a National Historical Memory in Galicia, 1830-1930s*
Recent theories of nationalism reveal an evident shift from social to more cultural
oriented approaches. The new trend has changed a whole idea what is a nation and
how it is been made. It was believed earlier that so called national characteristicslanguage, territory, historical memory, popular folk traditions - existed long ago per
se, and only later, with coming of nationalism, they have been used for coining
modern nations. Now it is considered that all those characteristics were, as a matter
of fact, constructed by national leaders. Following this kind of arguments, the main
focus is made on myth- and symbol - making, on "uses of imaginery", on historical
invention on the part of particular categories or classes of modern societies. 1
Although such approaches are expected to be very productive there is not that much
done in terms of case studies. This is especially true in the Ukrainian case.2 One of
explanations for such a predicament is that those postmodernist accounts are of a
highly theoretical and abstract nature. What happens quite often is that historians
limit themselves to declaration of the new theoretical aspects while their studies are
*
Published in: JAHRBÜCHER FÜR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS 49 (2001), PP. 163-177.
The ealrier versions of this article were presented at the conference "Making of Identities in
Borderlands: Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania in the XIX century" (Central European University,
Budapest, March 5, 1999) and at the Third International Congress of Ukrainian studies (Odessa,
August 2000). I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Yaroslav Isayevych, late Prof. Yaroslava
Zakrevs'ka, prof. Yaroslav Pelens'kyj, Dr. Roman Ostash, Dr. Peter Haladza, Prof. Frank Sysyn for
their comments on the earlier drafts, and Oksana Dmyterko and Alison Fleig for their assistance.
1 For a general overview see: Becoming National. A Reader, ed. Geoff Eley and Ronald G. Suny (
New York, Oxford, 1996).
2 For few succesfull exceptions see:John-Paul Himka, The Construction of Nationality in Galician
Rus': Icarian Flights in Almost All Directions In: Intellectuals and Articulation of the Nation , ed.
Ronald G.Suny and Michael D.Kennedy (Ann Arbor, 1999) 109-164; Serhiy Yekelchyk, Creating a
Sacred Place: The Ukrainophiles and Shevchenko' Tomb in Kyiv (1861-ca. 1900) In: Journal of
Ukrainian Studies 20, 1-2 (Summer-Winter 1995) 15-32; Roman Szporluk, Ukraine: From an
Imperial Periphery to a Sovereign State In: Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts
and Science 126, 3 (Summer 1997) 85-119.
following traditional lines.3 On the other hand, those quite fashionable approaches
has become a target of a new criticism. It is not to say that their critics deny
constructed character of national identities. Rather they point to fact that such
constructions are limited by different factors; the national identities cannot be
conjured from a thin air, they are rather constructed on a base of some real building
blocks; not all of the constructed identities had equal chances to get a lasting success
and popular acceptance; their popular resonance will be greater the more continuos
they are with the living memories and beliefs of the people who are to compose the
nation. Therefore it would be interesting not just to study how collective identities
have been manipulated but also to research the limits beyond which those
manipulations were ineffective or experienced a total failure. 4
The following paper is going to confront those conflicting interpretations with
a
very specific case of emergence of new practices of naming in Greek-Catholic
Ruthenian families in the Austrian (1772-1919) and Polish (1919-1939) Galicia. The
main argument is that those practices reflected conscious efforts made by local
national leaders to impose on the Galician Ruthenians a broader Ukrainian identity.A
crucial part of the process was identification with a territory that laid beyond their
own historical region ( i.e., Galicia), and with historical processes that by the
modern times exercised only marginal effect on their political and cultural
developments.
A PRELUDE: THE MEMORY LOST AND FOUND
3
See, for example: Louis Jackson, "Identity, Language, and Transformation in Eastern Ukraine: A
Case Study in Zaporizhzha", Taras Kuzio, ed. Contemporary Ukraine. Dynamics of Post-Soviet
Transformation (Armonk, New York, London), 1998, pp. 99-113.
4 Anthony D. Smith, "The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed?", Majorie Ringrose and
Adam J.Lerner, eds. Reimaging the Nation (Buckingham, Philadelphia, 1993), pp. 9-28; Andrzej
Walicki, Op. cit.
As central historical symbols of the new identification were chosen, among others,
names of the three early medieval Kyivan ruler - Ol'ha, Volodymyr (Vladimir)* and
Yaroslav. All three of them epitomized the most significant and glorious moments in
the history of the Rus' state: Ol'ha and Volodymyr have introduced Christianity
(972? and 988) and during the rule of Volodymyr (978-1015) and Yaroslav (10151054) their empire was at the heights of its political and military might (it was
exactly by that time when Galicia was incorporated into the Kyivan Rus' realms).
The historical significance of those rulers was underlined by the facts that Ol'ha and
Volodymyr were later canonized as Orthodox saints, and that Volodymyr and
Yaroslav were popularly referred as Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise.
The rule of Ol'ha, Volodymyr, and Yaroslav was a period of coexistence and mixture
of
indigenous East Slavic ("rus'koji", Ruthenian) and imported Scandinavian
(Variangian), Byzantine ("Greek"), and Eastern (Hebraic, Armenian, and Muslim)
cultural traditions. This multiculturity was reflected, among others, in a sequence of
names in the ruling house: its legendary founder Rurik and his son Ihor (Igor) has
Scandinavian names, Ihor's wife Hel'ga became known under a Slavianized form of
her name (as Ol'ha), and her grandson and his son had original Slavic names,
Volodymyr and Yaroslav. The latter names belong to a group of so called Slavic
indigenous personal composite names (in Ukrainian, slovians'ki avtokhtonni osobovi
imena-kompozyty). As well as other names of this group (Bohdan, Liubomyr,
Sviatoslav et al.) names of Volodymyr and Yaroslav were connected with preChristian Pagan practices: they were a shortened formula of a wish for a new-born
child ("volodity myrom", i.e. to govern the world; "bohom danym", i.e. to be given
by the God). While choosing such a name, parents allegedly secured a long-life
protection for their child by Pagan Gods.
*
While I am dealing with the case of the Ukrainian national revival, I use the name in its
Ukrainized form (Volodymyr), i.e., as it was used by the Ukrainian national leaders.
With the Christianization of the Rus', the Church sought to introduce new, Christian
names instead of Slavic and Scandinavian ones. The tendency toward a replacement
of "Ruthenian" names with "Greek" ones (i.e., names which were mentioned in the
Bible and imported to Rus' from Byzantium after the Christianization of the former)
remained dominant in all East Slavic lands after a disintegration of the Kyivan Rus'
in the middle of the XIII centrury. Old Slavic names did not totally disappear,
however. Well into the modern times there was a tradition to endow a child with two
names, a Christian and Pagan (Slavic) one. Such a double-naming was believed to be
an expression of so called "dvoeverije", i.e., a superimposing and a symbiosis of the
Orthodox tradition with some Pagan believes and practices. By this token, a new
born child got a double protection, both from the Christian and Pagan Gods. This
tradition is well documented in numerous sources, and is still preserved among those
ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union, which were rather late in adoption the
Christianity (such as Yakuts). The second, Slavic name often evolved in a family
name. For sure, this process was neither linear nor irreversible. Sometimes, Slavic
names continued to preserve a dominant position. Thus, Ukrainian Cossack hetman
Xmel'nyckyj had a Church-Christian name Zynovij, but he was commonly known
under his Slavic name Bohdan. Still, onomastic studies that covered different Eastern
Slavic regions revealed a common tendency: Ruthenian" names seized to be used
as first names in the XVIII century.5
Two further observations deserved to be mentioned here. First of all, the Slavic
composite name were less popular and dissappered faster than others. Secondly, a
hypothesis that a choice of such names was a prerogative of higher strata can not
5
M.O. Demchuk, Slovians'ki avtokhtonni osobovi vlasni imena v pobuti ukrayintsiv XIV-XVII st.
(Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1978), 13-33; V. K. Chichagov, Iz russkix imen i otechestv i familij
(Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1959) 11-28; D.H. Kaiser Naming Cultures in Early Modern Russia, Nancy
Shields Kollman, Donald Ostrowski, Andrei Pliguzov, Daniel Rowland, eds.
Essays presented to Edward Keenan on his sixtieth birthday by his colleagues and students, ed.
(=Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19 (1995) 271-291.
stand a critic when confronted with facts - at least one Yaroslav, mentioned in
documents of XV century, was a servant.6
Elimination of "Ruthenian" names coincided with a fading away of historical
memory of old Rus' state. Of all fomer Kyivan appanages in a long run only
Volodymyr-Suzdal' princedom managed to preserve its independence and evolved in
the Moscovite tsardom. Still, Edward Keenan revealed that on a list of
three
thousands of upper-class Moscovite male names of the second half of the XVI
century there were no Igor'(Ihor), no Sviatoslav, no Mstyslav, fewer than 1 per cent
of Vladimirs (Volodymyrs), and
three Glebs (Hlibs). He concluded that "a
Muscovite courtier of Ivan's time was more likely to be called Temir or Bulgak than
Vladimir or Vsevolod".7 This kind of historical amnesia does not seem to be a
peculiar Moscovite phenomenon. It covered also the most Westward part of the
former Kyivan state, Galician Rus', which after being for a while a separate Galician
Volhynian principality, was annexed to the Polish kings by the middle of XIV
century. Already in the XVI century among Ruthenian burghers in L'viv, the former
capital of Galician Volhynian principality, the names of the canonized Kyivan
princes Borys and Hlib were rare, as compared to "Greek" names of Ivan, Hryhorij,
Mykhajlo, Andrij and others. The Orthodox Byzantine legacy worked in a
paradoxical way on historical memory of Eastern Slavs in the late medieval times:
the local historical chronicles of the XI-XIII centuries were subsequently replaced by
the "Lives" of saints and the "Patricon". In a contrast to the Catholic world, where a
secular awareness of national past developed, among the Orthodoxes the interest in
Demchuk, Slovians'ki, p. 34-XV ÒÚ. íÓÏ 2. ä˪‚: ç‡ÛÍÓ‚‡
‰ÛÏ͇, 1978. ë. 585.
7 E.L Keenan, On Certain Mythical Beliefs and Russian Behaviors // The Legacy of History in
Russia and the New States of Eurasia / Ed. by S. Fredericj Starr. Armonk, NY - London, England,
1994. P. 21
6
the politcal past of the territory and its people was by the end of the XVI century
almost completely lost.8
An emergence of that interest has occured with coming of Counterreformation in the
Polish state (Rzecz Pospolyta), as a by-product of a bitter religious conflict between
Catholics and Orthodoxes. The resistance against Catlolicization took a form of the
Orthodox cultural revival. The local Ruthenian (future Ukrainian and Belarussian)
population emulated turned against them Catholic intellectual weapons - as Jesuit
curricula that were introduced in the Orthodox schools in L'viv, Vil'no, Luts'k and in
the Mohyla Academy opened in Kyiv, or printing book that were widely spread in
the Catholic West. In the same way, a "revival" of historical memory went under a
direct impact of the contemporary Polish historiography, i.e., chronicles of Marcin
Kromer, Maciej Miechowita, and Maciej Stryjkowsky. It was reading of those
chronicles that revealed for an Orthodox reader the forgotten image of the Kyivan
Rus'.9
The Rus' Orthodox revival of the end of XVI-beginning of XVII century and the
following Xmel'nycky revolution (1648-1657) have changed profoundly the political
and cultural landscape of the Eastern Europe. They have stopped a gradual erosion
and Polish assymilation of the local Orthdox (Ruthenian) elites of the Rzecz
Pospolyta. On the other hand, they have unermined a possbility for a common
Belarus'-Ukrainian (Ruthenian) nation to emerge: the Belorus lands did not
experienced a strong impact of the Xmel'nycky revolution, and therefore the Cossack
myth never became a constituing element of the Belarus' national identity, as it was
in the Ukrainian case. Born in the wake of the
revolution the Cossack state
(Hetmanate) even after its incorporation into the Moscovite tsardom (1654)
8
9
O.Pritsak Kievan Rus' and the Sixteenth-Seventeenth-Century Ukraine, Ivan L.Rudnytsky, ed.
Rethinking Ukrainian History (Edmonton, 1981) p. 6.
preserved its autonomy and presented a model of an early modern Ukrainian nation.
Still, despite ambitious plans of Cossack leaders,this state never covered Galicia,
which until 1772 remained under the Polish rule. The local Orthodox population in
the XVII-XVIII century was converted to the Uniate (Greek-Catholic) church which
accepted the supermacy of Vatican. It has been suggested, that if the Cossack state
manage to survive until the modern times, than on the contemporary Ukrainian
ethnic lands there would be most-likely two separate- "Eastern Ukrainian" and
"Western Ukrainian"- nations, as paralell to the Holland-Flamand case.
10
From a
social perspective, the Ukrainain Cossack nation evolved along a typical estates'
model, while it was restricted to Cossack elites. But as those elites and there
decendants in the XVIII-XIX centuries were integrating on a mass scale into the
Russian impiral nobility, the mere notion of "Cossack Ukraine" faded away. 11
The uncompleted and ambigous character of the ealry modern Ukrainian national
project made its impact on revived historical memory of the Kyivna Rus'. New
generations of the Ruthenian Orthodox leaders emphasized a direct historical link
between the Cossack Ukraine and "nation of Volodymyr". Intellectual milieu of the
Mohyla Academy compareded the activity of its founder,
Petro Mohyla, as
metropolitan of all Rus', with the activity of Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the
Wise. Still, Petro Mohyla himself, while bidding Moscow for a financial help,
persuaded the Moscovite tsar that it was him, the Moscvite rule, who is a decendnet
of Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise. Similarly, Feofan Prokopovych,
professor of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, praised in 1705 the Ukrainian Cossack
hetman Ivan Mazepa as "a great successor" and a mirror image od Volodimer. But on
10
ÔÓ‚¥‰ÓÏÎÂÌÌ
-75;
Sysyn F. The Cultural, Social and Political Context of Ukrainian History-Writing: 1620-1690 //
Europe Orientalis. Vol. 5. 1986.
11 Sysyn F. The Khmelnysky Uprising and Ukrainian Nation-Building // Journal of Ukrainian
Studies. Vol.17. No 1-2 (Summer-Winter 1992). P. 141-170.
the next year, he praised the Russian tsar Peter the Great on his visit to Kyiv as a
descendant and successor of Volodimer, Yaroslav, and other Kyivan prines.12 Those
two different schemes could be traced in Ukrainian historical writings in the second
half of XVII and XVIII centuries: secular (Cossack) chronicles stated a continuancy
between the Kyivan Rus' and the Hetmanate, while "Synopsis" that emerged in a
mileu of the Kyivan Orthodox clergy made a direct connection between Vladimir the
Great and the Moscovite Tsardom.13
The revived historical memory did not take deep roots. In any case, it did not
influenced the contemporary cultural of naming in the Ukrainian ethnic lands. In the
Cossack register of 1649 among 39,500 listed males only 5 (0,00013%) had names
that
derived from Volodymyr (Volo(t)ko, Volod(k)o, Volots'ko)14. This part is
thousand (!) times less than the frequency of Vladimir (Vlodimer) name (0,13% in
1612-1622) among the population of the Russian Don Cossackdom - a territory that,
unlike the Ruthenian lands of the Rzecz Pospolyta never experienced a cultural
revival. And in both cases there was no Yaroslav.15
Ukrainian Cossack chronicles testified how little there was remembered by the
beginning of the XVIII century about the Xmel'nyckyj revolution, i.e. the events that
were only fifty years old.16 It is safe to assume that the Kyivan Rus' occupied much
less significant place in the contemporary historical memory. In general, by the time
of liquidation of both the Hetmanate (1764) and the Rzecz Pospolyta (1772) and the
12
O. Pritsak, Kiev and All of Rus': The Fate of a Sacral Idea // Harvard Ukrainian Studies.
Concepts of Nationahood in Early Modern Eastern Europe / Ed. I. Banac and F.E. Sysyn. 1986. Vol.
10. No 3/4. P. 291-292; I. _evčenko, Ukraine between East and West. Edmonton,1996. P. 182-183.
13 Sysyn The Cultural, passim; Keenan E. L. On Certain, passim.
14 N.L. Ostash, R. I. Ostash, Indeks vlasnykh imen,.Reyestr Vijs'ka Zaporiz'koho 1649 roku:
Transliteracija tekstu ( Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1995), p. 513-516.
15
-Â,
210-242.
16 Frank Sysyn, The Cossack Chronicles and the Development of Modern Ukrainian Culture and
National Identity // Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Adelphotes: A Tribute to Omeljan Pritsak by his
Students. 1990. Vol. XIV. No 3/4 . P 602
integration of Western and Eastern Ukrainian lands into (respectively) the Austrian
and Russian empires the issue of national identity of local population remained
unresolved as it was before the Orthodox revival by the end of the XVI - beginning
of the XVII centuries. According to cultural and linguistic conjuncture, 17 the nationbuilding of the local East Slavs could evolve along several scenarios: they could 1)
make a unified East Slavic (Belorusian-Ukrianian-Russian) nation, 2) to be
assimilated into the new emerged Polish or the Russian nation, 3) to assert separate
national identities for each of the larger groups (Belarussian, Ukrianian, Russian) or
smaller (e.g., Galician Ruthenians)or 4) to coin some mixed (like BelarussianUkrianian ) identities.
All those scenarios have revealed itself in intellectual discourses of Galician
Ruthenians under the Austrian rule. The local elites for a longer period could not
resolve the issue of their national identities. Vasyl' Podolyn'skyj in his "Word of
Warning" wrote that during the Revolution of 1848 there were four orientations
among Galician Ruthenian intellectuals: pro-Ukrainian, pro-Polish, AustroRuthenian and pro-Russian.18 The opposition of those four orientations was evident
yet by the beginning of the XX century, as it may be seen from later publications. 19
Besides that, among the first generezations of national activists (1810-1830s) there
was the fifth, though not clearly outspoken, orientation toward a building of Greek
Catholic Eastern Slavs (former Orthodoxes of the Rzecz Pospolyta and future
Belorusians and Ukrainians) a separate "Ruthenian" nation, distinct from both
Catholic Polish and Orthodox Russian nations.20
See: John A. Armstrong, Myth and History in the Evolution of Ukrainian Consciousness//
Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter / Ed. by Peter J.Potichnyj, Marc Raeff, Jaroslaw
Pelenski, Gleb N.Zekunin. Edmonton, 1992.P. 129-130.
18 Podolinski ç. B.Slowo przestrogi. Drukiem Karola Pollaka w Sanoku (1848). S. 21-22.|.
19 ÑË‚.: åÓ̘‡ÎÓ‚Ò¸ÍËÈ é. ë‚flÚ‡fl êÛÒ¸. 㸂ӂ, 1903. ë. 4.
17
20
Most of Galician Ruthenian activists agreed upon the fact, that they are not "Poles of
Uniate [Greek-Catholic] rite", as they were quite often referred to by their opponents
from the local Polish national camp. Historical arguments were very important to
prove that Galicia - Galician Rus' - was not a Polish territory, and by an implication,
the Polish nationalism could not claim its political rights for this territory. "Whose
are the Carpathians, whose are San, Buh, and Dniepr with Dniester, and all the fertile
territory with those rivers and theirs tributaries? Which princes made their capitals
in Kyiv, this mother of Ruthenina towns, in Cherven, Volodymyr, Peremyshl,
Halych? How many names, how many holy and dear for a heart Ruthenian tokens? "wrote rethorically one of the first Galician Ruthenian historian Antin Petrushevych
in a response to Polish historical writings.21
The problem was that the Galician Ruthenian activists could not provide an
unambiguous answer to the questions put by Petrushevych. In the Galician history
there was enough of historical material to construct several identities. The local
Ruthenian intellectuals might refer to Galician-Volhynian princedom as to historical
precedent of the Ruthenian part of the Austrian Galicia - and this was exactly an
argument that served as a legitimization of historical rights of Habsburgs to this part
of the former Rzecz Pospolyta during the first (1772) partition of Poland. Potentially
this scheme could be expended on to the adjacent Eastern Slavic territories which
were under the Austrian rule, i.e. Bukovyna and Transcarpathia (Hungarian
Ruthenia). Such an Austro-Ruthenian version of the national history was the safest,
while, in
a contrast to others, it did not question a territorial integrity of the
Habsburg monarchy. Ruthenian intellectuals might as well accept the concept of
"historical Poland", according to which this territory originally belonged to the
Polish crown, later was annexted by the Kyivan prince Volodymyr the Great, and
[Pietruszewicz A.] Słów kilka napisanych w obronie ruskiej narodowości. Lwów, 1848. S.47-48.
-ÔÓÎ¥Ú˘ÌÓÏÛ ÊËÚÚ¥
ɇ΢ËÌË, 1848-1867.
21
then reconquered by the Polish king Kazimierz Great. Or, they could join Ukrainian
intellectuals from Kyiv and Xarkov, who claimed a continuity of their national
history from the Kyivan Rus' till the Cossack Ukraine and well into the XIX century.
And, finally, they might be seduced by a more ambitious project to regard their
territory as a part of the historical legacy of the Russian Empire, that was a legitimate
heir of the Kyivan Rus' from a point of view of preservation of dynastic links
between the Kyivan Rurikades and the Petersburg Romanovs.
Not all of those version had equal chances to won. A possibility to construct a
broader Polish identity (along the lines of "gente Rutheni, natione Poloni", born as
Ruthenians, but Poles by their nationality) was rather limited, while there was a
strong confessional and social distinctiveness between the Polish and Ruthenian
societies. The pure "Ruthenian" scenario could not satisfy psychological needs of
Galician Ruthenian activists. What they needed was an identification with a large
national community which could be tantamount to the Polish nation both by its size
and its historical grandeur. Both the Cossack Ukraine and the tsar Russia met those
criteria - while at the some points of their history they not just opposed succesfully
the Polish national aspiration, but defeated them efficiently as during the Xmel'nycky
revolution or suppression of the Polish uprising of 1831-1832.
Naturally, an identification with any of the two latter versions implied some
problems and inconsistance of arguments. For an example, Galician Ruthenians had
to downplay some moments of their regional history which came into a conflict with
larger Ukrainian or Russian schemes. Markian Shashkevych(1811-1843), the most
influential Galician Ukrainian national activist in 1830s, wrote verses on
Xmel'nyc'kyj's siege on L'viv (1648), praising the besieger as the leader of the
Ukrainian revolution against. He did not mention, however, that according to
historical records, during this siege Orthodox Ukrainian Cossacks committed
atrocities among the inhabitants of L'viv although the latters invoked commnity of
both religion and language with formers.
22
In the same way, it was not that easy for
Galician Ruthenians to reconcile a poetry of Taras Shevchneko (1814-1861), the
greatest Ukrainian poet, with their Greek-Catholic identity23. After all, as Ernest
Renan put it, "[f]orgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a
crucial factor in the creation of a nation [...]."24
With a coming of nationalism as both a new ideology and new social and cultural
practices, the tradtional Christian names could not satisfy psychologic needs of first
national patriots to emphasize their own proximity with historical tradition of the
people which they seeked to "awake" and to "revive" as a nation. One of the most
interesting episode has been told by Yakiv Holovats'ky, a leading figure at the initial
stage of national revival among Galician Ruthenians. At the beginnings of 1830s he
and two other young intellectuals Markian Shashkevych and Ivan Vahylevych called
the "Ruthenian Triad" (Rus'ka Trijcia). He wrote later in his memoirs,
" We has come upon a common agreement that anyone chosen by us to join our
organization had to take a honest oath that he had work through all his life a
benefit of his people and for a revival of Ruthenian popular literature. To make
this oath sacred, we accepted Slavic names: Shashkevych became Ruslan,
Vahylevych became Dalibor, and I became Yaroslav. Then there appeared
Lopatyns'kyj as Velymyr , Il'kevych as Myrolsav, my brother Ivan as Bohdan,
Bulvinski as Rostyslav...; there also appeared Vsevolods, Mstyslavs, Volodars
and others."25
_evčenko, Ukraine. 124. Markian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych, Jakiv Holovac'kyj, Tvory
(Kyiv: Dnipro, 1992), p. 30.
23 See: Yaroslav Hrytsak,"Poshyrennia poemy "Mariya" v Halychyni", in: Radians'ke
literaturoznavstvo. 1986, no 3, p. 51-64.
24 Ernesr Renan, What Is a Nation?, Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor, Suny, eds. Becoming National,
p. 45.
25 Quoted after: "Rusalka Dnistrova". Dokumenty i materialy ( Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1989), p.
298. It has to be noted that Yakiv Holovats'kyj was commonly referred by other member of the
Ruthenian Triad milieu as Yaroslav.
22
It is worth to underline that, according to those memoirs, for the young urban
intellectuals of Ruthenian origins the Slavic names Volodymyr, Yaroslav and Bohdan
sounded as exotic and bookish
as Velymyr, Dalybor, or Ruslan. The
"naturialization" and "normalization" of those names were a result of teh process
which took several generalization to accomplish.
This process had a dramatic character. Suffice if to say, that among "the Ruthenian
Triad" only Markian Shashkevych remained true to their initially chosen Ukrainian
orientation, while Yakiv Holovats'ky evolved into the Russophile trend, and Ivan
Vahylevych adhered to the Polonophile camp. 26 Up to the end of the XIX century
national consciousness was not yet formulated in mutual exclusive concepts. In their
historical memory could peacefully coexist several schemes of the national history.
A leading Galician Ruthenian intellectual Bohdan Didyts'kyj in his "Elementary
history of Rus' from the very beginning to the modern times"(1868) started a
narrative with the Kyivan Rus' and its princes, continued it with the period of Rus'
appanages, inlcluding Galcian and Suzdal' (later Moscow) princedoms, and than
concluded with retelling stories of the Moscovite tsars Ivan III and Vasyl' Ivanovych
with the Polish kings. Twenty years later, in his "Ruthenian Chronicle for Ruthenian
People in Galicia" (1885) he provided quite a different historical scheme, which after
the Kyivan princes presented the Ukrainian Cossack hetmans Bohdan Xmel'nyckyj
and Ivan Mazepa instead the Moscovite tsars. It is disputable whether those this new
turn in a historical narrative mirrored a shift in the author's national orientation, or it
was a mere result of his opportunism. In the context of our discussion, however, it is
imortant to note that a reader of Didyc'kyj's popular books could identify Volodymyr
the Great and Yaroslav the Wise as both Russian and Ukrainian (not to mention
Ruthenian) princes.
26
ß.ëÚ·ΥÈ. ä˪‚: ç‡ÛÍÓ‚‡ ‰ÛÏ͇, 1987.
-
A victory of Ukrainian historical scheme came as a result of activity of Myxajlo
Hrushevs'kyj (1866-1936), dean of the modern Ukrainian historiography, and his
Lviv school. Raised in the milieu the Kyivan Ukrainian intellectuals, he moved from
Kyiv to Lviv to take a position at the Lviv University. Here, in Lviv, he wrote his
magnum opus - a multivoluminous "Istoria Ukrainy-Rusy" (History of Ukraine-Rus')
which, according to John Armstrong, served as a "superb intellectual legitimization
of the national myth".27 The choice of the title was of a programmatic importance: in
that way Hrushevs'kyj integrated history of the Kyivan Rus' into the Ukrianian
national history on one hand, and Galician Rus' with the Russian Ukraine, on
another. Besides that, by connecting "Rus'" with "Ukraine", he undermined the
Russian monopoly on the legacy of the Kyivan Rus'. The new scheme implied that
Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise were not just the most famous Kyivan
princes, but also ruling monarchs of the ancient Ukrainian state. 28
We do not know, unfortunately, to what extent the Hrushevs'kyj work was read in
Galicia. It is safe to assume that the new historical scheme was promoted more by
popular publications "for people", rather than by its academic version. Still, even an
analysis of the mass publications would not provide with an adaquate idea how this
scheme was recieved by Galician burghers and peasants. The number of texts that
would enable to analyze mass attitudes and identities is comparatively small and
therefore is not representative.
27
28
Armstrong, Myth
-
-91, 93.
This predicament can be overcomen by analyzing a rather peculiar historical source
of mass character - the names that were given to new born child. Emergence of a
new tendency to choose names of
national heroes - Kyivan princes, Cossack
hetmans, national awakers - instead of traditional Christian names can be regarded
as a safe proof that parents were becoming "nationalized" and they adhere to a
national scheme of history.
Traditionally, names given by baptizm usually were names derived from the Bible
or from the later Church practices, i.e., names of canonized saints. Among all saints
only those were taking into an account who had their feast days. Therefore a choice
of a name was most often was predetermined by the Church calender: if a boy was
born, say few days before or after the Saint Dymyrtij feast day (November 8), he
most likely would be baptized as Dymytrij - it was considered that a child brought
himself (or herself) a name. While there several names under each day, both a priest
and parents had a certain, though very limited choice. Most often, they chose a name
which stood at the beginning of the list for this or that date. Thus, in Galicia the
usual male names were Ivan, Stefan, Mykola, Petro, Vasyl', Hryn'ko, Mixal, Fedio,
Oleksa, Semko, Andrux, Pavlo, Myter, Yurko, Matvij, Il'ko, Tymko, while females
had names of Marija, Anna, Anastasia, Kateryna, Paraskevija, Pavlina, Jevka,
Ahafija, and so on. The names were giving according a Church calendar, say if a girl
was born at the end of August she would most probably would be baptized as Maria.
Therefore, as a matter of a fact, if you were born in a village, your name to a large
extent was predetermined by the date of your birth. And the date did not mean
necessariy an exact day, but rather a whole period between two neighboring Saint's
days. Therefore most of elder peasants never remebered their birthdays (urodyny);
what they did remember was their patron Saint's day (imenyny), which meant that he
or she was born sometimes around this date. The only exception of this rule dealt
with illegitimate children. They were given very rare and sometimes strange names
such as Mojsej, Amroz, Makryna, and so on. This would brand them for all the rest of
thier life. There were many irregularities and deviations from this scheme. For
example, in certain localities, parents tried to avoid some Christian names, while
there were believed to bring a bad lack for their children. The choice of a name
might become a subject of negotiations between two sides involved. For an
additional payment of parents, a priest could give a "normal" name for an
illegitamate child. Or, to the contrary, he might name a legitimate child with a rare
name, if he was in a conflict with parents, or considered the payment not sufficiently
high.29
The naming practices might be different among different social groups or became
subject of different fassions. Metrical books of the XIX century reveals certain
divergencies between the rural and an urban practicies. In a countriside, by choice of
a name the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was kept much
more strict than in cities. Thus, in Rechychany village (Horodots'ky district) which
has metrical books preserved for the longest period, from 1791 to 1944, the first
illegitimate boy and girl with
"normal" names (Ivan and Anna) were fixed
respectively under the dates of 1858 and 1864. Before that, all illegitmates were
given such rare and unusual names as Kalistrat, Kunigunda, Ursula, Nykyfora,
Maksym, etc.30 In a cotrast to that, in the two L'viv Greek-Catholic churches - of St.
George and St. Nicholas - records on illegitimate children with "normal" names are
found for 1820s. Besides that, many legitimates were baptized with "Latin"
(Catholic) names Adamus, Adolphus, Cecilia, Elizabeta, Emilia, Valentius, Victoria,
Magdalena, etc. There was a practice to endow a child with two (Adrianus29
-
-1944 (=ç‡ÛÍÓ‚Â
- 륉ÌÂÈ -
5. 㸂¥‚, 1907. ë. 142„ÛˆÛÎ¥‚ // á‡ÔËÒÍË Á ÓÌÓχÒ
-144.
30
Alexander, Eduardus-Antonius, Antonius-Marceli) or even three names (StanislausGregorius-Antonius - but then again, at least one of them, if not all, were of "Latin"
character.31
Starting from the middle of the XIX century, Greek-Catholic metrical books in L'viv
reveal an emergence of a new tradition: ancnient Slavic names were being revived,
among them - names of Kyivan princes. In the St. George Church the first
Volodymyr and Jaroslav were baptized under the year of 1849, while the first Olga
has been noted under the following (1850) year. During the first three decades
(1850-1870s) the frequency of those names is rather low. And only starting from
1880s, they started to used on a more regular basis, even on a mass scale. 32 While the
St. George Church was the Greak Catholic Cathedral, a seat of Greak-Catholic
Metropolite, its case might not be fully representative. While it was attended by the
highest strata of the Ruthenian society, its role may regarded as that one of
establishing new norms and practices. This is confirmed by the case of the St.
Nicholas Church, which were situated in a less prestigious place, on outskirts of the
city. Here examples of choosing princes' names remained rare until at least end of
1880s (the lack of data for 1888-1925 does not enable to trace the period when those
new emerged practices has becomen more regular).33
The data of metrical books are indirectly corroborated by lists of national patriotic
activists in 1830-1919. Among the first generation - that one of the Ruthenian tried
and of the 1848 Revolution - the only Slavic names were found of the list of
Ruthenian Union (Rus'ky Sobor). Still the pro-Polish character of the organization
and Polish name forms suggest that those namebearers were Poles or Polish
assymilated Ruthenians (1 Boleslaw, 1 Wladimierz, 1 Wladyslaw, 2 Rostyislaws, 2
31
ñÑß
-9Á‚., 19 Á‚.
32
2-2Á‚., 5, 31, 44, 48, 96, 99, 134.
33
Stanislaws on the total list of 60 persons). 148 names on the lists of Ruthenian triad
and Union od Ruthenian Scholars demonstrate explicitly that this was not the case
among anti-Polish Ruthenian patriots.34 Since this is the first generation of the
Ruthenian partiots it is natural to assume that their names reveal a "pre-national"
state of mind of their parents.
The picture gradually changes when we move to the later generations of national
patriots. On the list of 399 persons from 1860-1870s there were 13 Volodymyrs, 2
Volodyslavs. The list of 577 persons for 1890-1919comprises 1 Bronyslav, 36
Volodymyrs, 4 Viacheslavs, 3 Liubomyrs, 1 Myroslav, 2 Stanyslav, 5 Yaroslavs. Of
course, a certain increase of several cases might be contributed to the fact that the
second list is much longer. Still, a duplication of frequency in the Volodymyr case
(from 3,3 % in the second list till 6,2 % in the third list) proves that this was not just
a coincidence, but a result of changes in the naming practices.
This is further corroborated by the list of
680
members of national student
organizations in Lviv (1870-1882). Here we have 56 Volodymyrs and 6Yaroslavs.
The two earliest of them were born in 1852. In this list Volodymyrs made 8 per cent,
and Jaroslavs - ca. 1 per cent. In terms of their frequency Volodymyrs are second
only to the most popular name, Ivans (70 cases) ; and Yaroslavs occupy 24th place
among all 107 positions35. The same proportion was preserved until the beginning of
the XX century. Among 470 members of the "Ukrainian Student Union" there were
listed 37 Volodymyrs and 3 Yaroslavs36.
It is rather hard to trace for an every case who were parents of the first Yaroslavs
and Volodymyrs. Still, in those
cases when
fathers' identity has been firmly
34
35
List of members of "Druzhnij lykhvar" and "Akademichnyj kruzhok", 1870-1882, compiled by
Victoria Sereda.
36 Zvit z dijal'nosti tovarystva "Ukrajins'kyj Students'kyj Sojuz" u L'vovi za chas vid 1 padolysta do
30 zhovtnia 1912 r. (L'viv, 1912). - to check again!
established, they were "national awakeners". The father of Volodymyr Shashkevych
was famous Markian Shashkevych, Yaroslav Ilnyts'kyj's father Vasyl' was a known
Ukrainian patriot and director of the Lviv Ruthenian Academic gymnasium. The
father of Yaroslav Lutsyk was Theodor Lutsyk, a head of the Kachkovskyj society
in Zolochiv and founder of the first village reading house in Galicia 37.
This tendency is also revealed by metrical books. The father of a boy, who was first
to be baptized at the St. George Church (March 1849) as Yaroslav (it was also the
first case of choice of a"Ruthenian" name) was famous Yakiv Holovac'kyj. He was
also the father of the first girl baptized by the name of Ol'ga, his second child born in
1850. His third child born in 1858 has got a double name - Sofija-Sviatoslava - both
parts of which refered to the Kyivan Rus' legacy. In 1849 another national activist,
Myxajlo Kuzemskyj, was a godfather of the first child named as Volodymyr
(Prokopovych) - and he was a godfather of the first Yaroslav (Holovac'kyj), too. Two
othre Galician Ruthenian "national awakeners", Denys Zubryckyj and Myxajlo
Malynovs'kyj performed a role of godfathers by baptism, respectively, of the first
Olga (Holovackyj), and the first Vsevolod (Lepkyj, the latter was baptized at the St.
Nicholas church).38
Starting from 1870s' data , it becomes harder to identify parents whose children
were baptized with Slavic names. By their occupation, they were clerks, railway
officials, postmants, workers, janitors, etc.39
Judging by historical records, these
parents have not left any significant trace in the poltical and cultural life of the
Galician Ruthenians. It leads to an assumption that they were receipients , rather
than inventors, of the new traditionand, if so, that a spreading of the new naming
37
L'vivs'ka Naukova Biblioteka im. V. Stefanyka NAN Ukrajiny, Viddil rukopysiv, f. I.
Levyts'koho, spr. 1998, ark. 1-4.
38
í‡Ï
2-2Á‚., 5, 31, 44, 48, 96, 99, 134.
39
culture in this milieu testified a "nationalizing" of larger groups of Ruthenin urban
dwellers.
Viacheslav Budzynovs'kyj - a national activist from the end of the 1880s - wrote
later that "with coming of national revival every literate Galician named his first son
as Volodymyr and his first daughter as Ol'ga. By this he documented his wish to be
under all-Ukrainian ruler in Kyiv. When the Galician had a second son, he gave him
another name, but very often it was name of another representative of United
Ukraine, or united Ukrainian political thought: Yaroslav, Danylo, Bohdan." 40
The latter statement is clearly an exaggeration. Still, generally speaking, it is right in
stressing a connection between a spreading of the princes' names and development of
national consciousness. This is reflected by another tendency found out by analysis
of geneleogical trees of several Galician Ruthenian/Ukrainian families: by the end of
the XIX- beginning of the XX century, if a family had a child with a prince's name,
then his/her brothers or sisters would had most probably a "national" name as well.
Thus, three children of Volodymyra Bilyns'koho (1869-1918) were respectively
named as Natalka - Yaroslava - Taras. In the fifth generation of the Sonevyts'kyjs'
genelogical tree (end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century) there were three
family whose children had names: Yaroslav -- Rostyslav-Ihor; Yaroslava-Ol'ha
(double name) -- Yaroslav; Roman -- Volodymyra -- Yarolsav--Nestor -- NadijaRostyslava (double name) -- Nestor-Volodymyr (double name), in the sixth
generation (1920-1930s) a family had three children named as Yaroslav--Roman-Oleh. In families like those, if a child would be given a double name, sometimes
both parts of that name had a "national" character: Yaroslav-Nestor (b. 1898),
40
21-22.
Yaroslav-Volodymyr (b. 1919), and Yaroslava-Ol'ha (b. 1919) in the fifth generation
of the Sonevyts'kyj's geneological tree 41.
A spreding of new naming practices was made possible only after the domination of
religious tradition was undermined. Moreover, the Greek-Catholic Church had to
accomodate itself to those practices. The most telling cases are revival of Volodymyr
and Ol'ha names. While both them were regarded as saints by the Church, until the
end of the 1850s they were not included in Misiatseslov - a religious calendar book
that a priest and parents could choose a name from. Those names appered in that
book only by the 1860s, Ol'ha listed by July 23, and Volodymyr by July 27
(according to the new calenar style).42 A further innovation was that by the beginning
of the XX century along canonized Kyivan princes Borys, Hlib, Volodymyr and
Ol'ha, there appeared uncanonized Yaroslav the Wise listed under the date of his
death (February 19),43 which meant a serious break in the Church tradition. Another
break was that under new circumstances both priest and parents did not keep the
Church requirements, as a comparison between birth dates of children baptized as
Volodymyrs, Yaroslavs, or Ol'has and Misiatseslov's dates for those princes suggests.
Until the W.W. I using the prince's names was largely an urban phenomenon. A
Galician village was barely touched by this new fashion. On the list of 394 peasant
activists of 1880s compiled by John-Paul Himka there are only 4 Volodymyrs, 1
Vladyslav, and 1 Bohdan - which is hardly comparabe with the frequency of those
names on the list of urban national activists.44 An analyses of several village metrics
41
Z. Sluzhyn'ska, Rid Bilyns'kykh (L'viv, 1998); record of the Sonevyts'kyj's geneological tree is
preserved in the Society of St. Volodymyr (Tovarystvo im. sv. Volodymyr, L'viv). Using the
opportunity, I would like to thank Adriana Ohorchak and late Roman Krypiakevych for making
those geneological materials available for me.
42
‰˙ ‚ËÒÓÍÓÒÌ˚È 1904. 㸂ӂ,
43
-50.
44
John-Paul Himka, Galician Villagers, Appendix.
which had data on XIX - beginning of XX centuries45, revealed the only exception
that rather confirmed a general tendency: in the only village where peasant had
Slavic names - village Belzets' (Sokal region) - it was a local priset who was
responsible for establishihg a new tradtion. The first Volodymyr mentioned in the
village metryka under year of 1856 was a son of the priest. The baptization was
made as a social gathering of all local elites. The son was baptized by a local dean
(decan), and to commemorate an outstanding character of this event there were 4
pair of godparents, including a landlord, a school director, a neighboring priest, and
a village school curator with their wifes. In the next fourteen years (1856-1870) there
were 13 Volodymyrs and 23 Ol'has
listed in the metric as names of peasant
children46. The Rechychany metrical book the first Volodymyr was dated under 1861
and the first Ol'ha unter 1880; both were children of local priests. The first peasant
offsprings with those names appeared only in (respectively) 1903 and 1908. 47
An idea of the popularity of the prince's name in cities and countryside before the
W.W.I. may be provided by the list of the Ukrainian sharpshooters who made a
Galician Ukrainian national unit of the Austrian-Hungarian army on a voluntary
basis. On that list there were 20 Volodymyrs born in a city and 17 Volodymyrs and
6 Yarolavs born in a village. The all cohort belonged to a generation born by the end
45
ëÓ͇θ˘ËÌ¥ (1853-1869; ñÑßÄ Û ã¸‚Ó‚¥, Ù.
-1867; ñÑßÄ Û ã¸‚Ó‚¥, Ù. 201,
-1944; ñÑßÄ Û ã¸‚Ó‚¥, Ù. 201,
-1944; ñÑßÄ Û ã¸‚Ó‚¥, Ù.
ÓÔ, 4‡
ÓÔ
7110); Ò. êflÒ̇ èÓθҸ͇ (1837-
-
(é‰Ì¥‚) ̇ ÜÓ‚Í¥‚Á˘ËÌ¥ (184246
47
Á‚., 88.
of the XIX century (1885-1899).48 Those statistics run counter to a statement that a
tradition to endow children with princes' names emerged in the Galician countryside
only during the interwar period (1919-1939).49 On the other hand, it is quite possible
that those differences reflect regional patterns in spreading of the naming practices.
It would be rather risky to draw some general conclusions on a base of fragmented
data.
What is perfectly sure, however, that during the interwar years this tradition became
deeply entranched in villages, like it has happened in cities by the last decades of the
XIX century. This regularity was a result of deliberare efforts of national activists.
Still, in a contrast to the previous period, the names of the Kyivan princes at that
time were used overwhelminlgy in the context of the Ukrainian national scheme. It
implies that the issue of the national identity was finally resolved for a benefit of the
Ukrainian orientation. Charactestically, the L'viv government of the Ukrainian sport
Society "Sokil"
suggested to members of its village filia "while reading the
Ukrainian history, to pay an attention mainly to brilliant moment of our past. Thus,
in the prince's period, it has to be explained how our princes gathered the Ukrainian
lands, seeked for their Unity, how they wanted to build a great state, which would
not be afraid of anybody." According to the further suggestions, the prince's period
had to be followed by the Cossackdom (stories on Khmel'nyts'kyj, Mazepa and
haidamaks) and then to be continued by the history of the Ukrainian national revival
of the XIX centrury and the Ukrainain national revolution of 1917-1920.50
National organizations encouraged Galician peasants to put in their houses along
with religious icons pictures of Cossack hetmans, Shevchenko, and other Ukrainian
national leaders. A choice of a name for a new born child was considered as a
48
ë.145-155.
49
50
-1920. 㸂¥‚: ç‡Í·‰ÓÏ ˛‚¥ÎÂÈÌÓ„Ó ÍÓÏ¥ÚÂÚÛ, 1935.
national issue. A Ukrainian newspaper in the 1930s cliamed that "every nation has
its own proper names". Therefore it suggested that parents were to chose the names
of national heroes, such as Bohdan, Borys, Wsewolod, Zynowij, Ihor, Jaroslaw, Lew,
Markijan, Motria, Myroslaw, Myroslawa. Natalka, Nestor, Ol'ha, Oksana,
Rostyslav, Sviatoslav, Taras, Jarema. The list comprised also the names that
personified national aspirations such as Wira, Nadija, and Liubov (that is Believe,
Hope, and Love).51
In the interwar period, a cult around the Yaroslav the Wise was raised. As some
memoirs suggest, it was very popular in the interwar Berezhany region.52 It is hard to
trace whether this culd had all Galician currency, or it was lemited only to a certain
region. It can be stated for sure, however, that at the least in the Berezhany case, this
cult was introduced by national organizations. In the 1935-1936 the central (L'viv
based) organization "Prosvita"("Enlightment") sent to that region 1200 copies of a
Yaroslav the Wise portrait, and 1000 copies with a portrait of Yaroslav the
Osmomysl, Galician prince. Out of the general number, there were spread 804
copies of the first of and 499 of the second portrait spread. 53
Intermidiaries in the introduction of the new naming practices were also peasants,
who were drafted to the army during the W.W. I, and later, due to the war
vicissitudes, participated in the Ukrainian national revolution in Russian Ukraine.
One of the cases is very telling. A Galician peasant Hryhorij Skazkiv during as an
Austrian prisoner of war was moved to the Russian Ukraine, where during the
revolution he was raised to the rank of a capitain of Ukrainian National Army. As
Quoted after: Stanislaw Stępień, "Ukraińcy i ich działalnośc społeczno-kulturalna w
Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w latach 1918-1939", s. 493.
51
52
53
ëÛÒ‡Í Ç. ÜË‚‡ ¥ÒÚ
-ı —
-3. ë. 281.
self-educated person, he liked history very much, and once even taught Ukrainian
history in a Poltava gimnasium. After the fall of the last Ukrainian government he
has retured to his native village and became a local leader of Ukraine cooperative
movement. In 1921 he married a yound Ukrainian peasant woman. The wedding
took place secretly in Lviv, at the St. George cathedral. Before the wedding he made
a contract with his future wife. One of points was that they would have four
children, and two of them to be named as Yaroslav and Halyna (Halyna was a name
that he heard in Ukraine).54
For former Galician Ruthenians, spread of the new names to a large extent became a
symbol of sacrificing their smaller identities for a sake of a larger, national identity.
It seems like Galicia was the only Ukrianian region, where emracing of the panUkrainian identity has taken such a radical form. This is reflected by the fact, that in
the contemporary Ukraine the name of Yaroslav has a special regional popularity.
Among 23 Yaroslavs and Yaroslavas mentioned in "Who is Who in Ukraine" and
"Who is Who in Ukrainian politics" in 1996-1997, 17 were born in the L'viv, IvanoFrankivs'k and Ternopil' regions, i.e., in the former Galicia. In the two other cases,
of Ukrainian historians Yaroslav Pelens'kyj and Yaroslav Isayevych, their
birthplaces were outside of Galicia. Still, their families were Galician and therefore
they are to be add to the list of Galician Yaroslavs. If so, then 19 of 23 Yaroslavs
(82, 3 %) are Galicians by their origin, and more then half of them were born in the
countriside. 55
The provided above data show explicitly, that the Ukrainian national consciousness
in Galicia, at least in one of its major component - "[a] heroic past, great men,
glory... that is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea" 56 - was
54
Interview with Halyna Skazkiv, August 23, 1997. Oral History Archive. Institute for Historical
Research, Lviv State University.
55 ïÚ
ÔÓÎ¥Úˈ¥. ä˪‚, 1997, passim
56 Rennan E. Op. cit. P. 52.
created and implemented byseveral generations of national activists. "Re-emergence"
of historical memory was not just a mere recollecting of events that passed long ago.
Those events had to be selected first and that organized in a certain scheme to
confirm and to support a chosen national (Ukrainian, Polish, Russsian, or mere
"Ruthenian") orientation.
Those observations on functioning historial memory have to persuade once again
"doubting Thomas", which do not believe in a constructed character of national
identities. On the other hand, they reveal that not every intellectual construction had
an equal chances for a success. It is relatively easy to understand, why so many
parents followed the example set by Yakiv Holovats'kyj, who chose for himself and
for his son the name of Yaroslav, but not that one of his colleague Ivan - DalyborVahylevych. For them the former name was associated with a real historical person,
who envoked a reminiscences of some herioc historical moments, while the latter
name was purely intellectually constructed. In the same vain, among the two names
that were chosen by Markian Shashkevych for himself and his son, Ruslan did not
contain any message, comparing to Volodymyr, which was a symbol of national
greatness in the past.
Another factor for a success of a national project were corresponding external
conditions. The cult of the Kyivan princes emerged among the Ruthenian/Ukrainian
elites already in the XVII - XVIII centuries.It did not take deeper roots, however,
due to a domination of the church tradition that strictly regulated the choice of
names. And only in the second half of the XIX century, when the church was starting
to loose its position and yield to secular ideologies and practices, the cult of
Volodymyr, Yaroslav, and Ol'ha was firmly established in the Ruthenian, by that
time already largely Ukrainized society. It was characteristic from this point of
view, that some of the names which earlier were considered as symbols of ignominy
and fitted only for illegitimate children, then were becoming "national" and
considered as desirabe by parents (as in the case of Maksym ).
For sure, a celebration of the Kyivan princes as Ukrainian heroes is not a Galician
pecularity. Suffice it to say, that the highest official reward in the post-Soviet
independent Ukraine is called Orden Yaroslavav Mudroho (Order of Yaroslav the
Wise). Still, what is definitely missing on other Ukrianian ethnic territories beyond
Galicia is that kind of a long lasting and organic work -- both in terms of intellectual
efforts and their practcial implementations -- that was characteristic for the local
Ukrainian national movement in the Austrian Galicia and the interwar Poland.