Bohdan Barvinskyi’s Cooperation with Newspaper ‘Ruslan’: Range of Issues and Reception

Abstract

The purpose of the research paper is to analyze comprehensively the ideology, range of issues, and reception of B. Barvinskyi’s diverse publications in the newspaper ‘Ruslan’.

The scientific novelty of the study is that it is the first special attempt to elucidate the peculiarities of B. Barvinskyi’s cooperation with the newspaper ‘Ruslan’.

Conclusions. The current reconstruction provides substantial evidence to support the assertion that the newspaper ‘Ruslan’ was a creative laboratory, important for Barvinskyi-Intellectual. First of all, the scholar’s research range is noteworthy for its breadth, as evidenced by his perceptive interpretation of events and phenomena of the Ukraine’s past from the Middle Ages to the second half of the 19^th century. In his interpretations, he spoke fundamentally from the position of a proponent of the national historiosophical model and consistently defended Ukrainian historical interests. At the same time, the selection of subjects for the reconstruction of bygone events was frequently determined not by his personal preferences but rather by the social requests of the time. For instance, it was those demands that led to the creation of B. Barvinskyi’s Mazepiana, which became a significant component of the Ukrainian understanding of the bicentennial of Poltava catastrophe.

Public interest also pushed him to reflect on the problem of creating a school textbook on native history, which had a practical consequence of his preparing a new educational book.

Concurrently, ‘Ruslan’ became a platform for the formation of Barvinskyi-Polemist, which, with youthful fervor, advocated for the cultural and historical rights of his people from that authoritative in Dnipro Ukraine region (Naddniprianshchyna) public tribune. Such a position led to the considerable popularity of the scholar’s diverse writings in the environment of his contemporaries, as evidenced by the reflective discussion of his colleagues and the emotional reactions of his ideological opponents. All that contributed to the transformation of B. Barvinskyi into a public intellectual whose voice acquired authority in the polyphony of public life among Ukrainians living beyond the Zbruch River on the eve of World War I.