Journal Article

Mykhailo Hrushevs´kyi and the Construction of the Medieval History of Rus

Raffensperger, Christian

2021

Overview

At the end of the nineteenth century, Mykhailo Hrushevs 'kyi began writing his monumental History of Ukraine-Rus This ten-volume work rewrote the history of Ukraine in many ways, including writing Kyivan Rus ' into the history of medieval Europe. This was a clear challenge to the normative Russian narrative of a Rus ' tied to Byzantium. Despite the breadth of Hrushevs 'kyi's scholarship, his view lost out in the battle for controlling the memory of Rus ' and its relations with the rest of the medieval world. Part of the reason why Hrushevs 'kyi's worldview lost was the challenge from Vasilii Kliuchevskii's Short Course on Russian History, as well as the enormous popularity of both the book series and the instructor. This article compares the treatment of Rus' in both Hrushevs'kyi's and Kliuchevskii's works to see how they discuss Rus ' as part of medieval Europe, and then goes a step further by examining how medievalists of that time considered and used the work of Hrushevs 'kyi. Finally, the article suggests issues which prevented the widespread acceptance of Hrushevs 'kyi's work which would have, or could have, remade the map of medieval Europe in twentieth-century scholarship.

• Publisher: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
• Subject: 19th century / Anglophones / Book series / European history / Medieval period / Russian history