Galicia as «Red Rus’»: visions of transdnieperian intellectuals at the end of the 18th – first half of the 19th century

Анотація

DOI https://doi.org/10.33402/zuz.2024-20-22-33

The image of Galicia as «Red Rus’», constructed in the visions of intellectuals of Transdnieperian Ukraine at the end of the 18th – the first half of the 19th century on the pages of the first generalizing (primarily historical and journalistic), and later – scientific works on the Ukrainian past, is analyzed. It is established that in the works «History of Ruthenians, or Little Russia» («History of Ruthenians»), «History of Little Russia» by Dmytro Bantysh-Kamenskyi, «History of Little Russia» by Mykola Markevych, the Galician lands as «Red Rus’» appear as an integral part of the «Ruthenian» (with an appeal to the tradition of Rus’) space, about which the corresponding historical memory was preserved among the population throughout the following centuries, even when these territories were first part of the Kingdom of Poland, and then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (ultimately, with the preservation of «Rus’» in the name of the «Ruhenian Voivodeship»). It is noted that the aforementioned works emphasized that the population of «Red Rus’» favorably treated the campaign against Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s territory, although their authors defined the hetman’s jurisdiction as territories east of the Sluch River. It is claimed that the first rector of the Imperial University of St. Volodymyr, Mykhailo Maksymovych, realizing the affinity of the cultural (folkloristic) material of the Transdnieperian region with the Galician lands, included songs from this region in the collections of «Little Russian Songs» and «Ukrainian folk songs» compiled by him in 1828 and 1834 respectively, and in a number of his works he emphasized the historical, linguistic, church and ethnic commonality of «Southern Rus’» with «Red or Galician Rus’», which, although it was divided for several centuries after the 14 th century, remained close to the Ruthenian space. On the other hand, ethnographer and folklorist Platon Lukashevych, in his collection «Little Russian and Red Ruthenian Folk Epics and Songs» emphasized the cultural and linguistic unity of the sub-Russian Transdnieperian region («Little Russia») and the sub-Austrian Galicia («Red Rus’»), although, like his predecessors, he had too general ideas about Galicia and its population and did not consider these territories in the context of anympolitical/national project.