Hromada movement and the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness

The hromada movement, which originated in the Russian Empire in the late 1850s, played a decisive role in the Ukrainian national revival and the development of Ukrainian national consciousness. Because of police persecution and the mobility of their members, most hromadas existed for only a few years. Members differed in political conviction; what united them was a love for the Ukrainian language and traditions and the desire to serve the people. The general aims of the hromadas were to instill through self-education a sense of national identity in their members and to improve through popular education the living standard of the peasant masses. Members were encouraged to use Ukrainian and to study Ukrainian history, folklore, and language. Each hromada maintained a small library of illegal books and journals from abroad for the use of its members. The larger hromadas organized drama groups and choirs, and staged Ukrainian plays and concerts for the public. The hromadas were active in the Sunday-school movement: they financed and staffed schools and prepared textbooks. Avoiding contacts with revolutionary circles, the hromadas regarded their own activities as strictly cultural and educational. However, in the 1880s, under pressure from younger members, these societies gradually became involved in some political activity as wel

Clandestine societies of Ukrainian intelligentsia that in the second half of the 19th century were the principal agents for the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness within the Russian Empire. They began to appear after the Crimean War, in the late 1850s, as part of the broad reform movement. Being illegal associations they lacked a definite organizational form, a well-defined structure and program, and a clearly delimited membership. Because of police persecution and the mobility of their members, most hromadas existed for only a few years. Even in the longer-lived ones the level of activity fluctuated considerably. Members differed in political conviction; what united them was a love for the Ukrainian language and traditions and the desire to serve the people. The general aims of the hromadas were to instill through self-education a sense of national identity in their members and to improve through popular education the living standard of the peasant masses. Members were encouraged to use Ukrainian and to study Ukrainian history, folklore, and language.

 

55.REALISM AND ROMANTICISM AS THE MAIN STYLES IN LITERATURE AND ARTS OF THE 19^TH CENTURY: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Realism. A term that usually refers to art that is representational and depicts the visible material world as closely as possible. It may also be used to designate the opposite of stylized or abstract art or simply to describe a work of art that portrays not the beautiful and idealized, but the common, unconventional, or ugly. As a 19th-century art movement it is usually associated in painting with the work of French artists, such as Gustave Courbet, even though it found independent expression in other countries, including Ukraine.

Realism became popular in Russian-ruled Ukraine through the efforts of the Peredvizhniki, a group of artists established in 1870 in Saint Petersburg that promoted enlightenment through traveling exhibitions of pictures portraying the conditions of contemporary life, particularly of the peasants, and depicting landscapes. Style was relegated to a minor role, and socially relevant subject matter was of major importance. Several prominent Ukrainian-born artists were members of or exhibited with the Peredvizhniki (eg, Nikolai Ge, Ilia Repin, Kyriak Kostandi, Serhii Vasylkivsky).

Romanticism. An artistic and ideological movement in literature, art, and music and a world view which arose toward the end of the 18th century in Germany, England, and France. In the beginning of the 19th century it spread to Russia, Poland, and Austria, and in the mid-19th century it encompassed other countries of Europe as well as North and South America. Romanticism, which appeared after the French Revolution in an environment of growing absolutism at the turn of the 19th century, was a reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the stilted forms, schemata, and canons of classicism and, at times, sentimentalism. Paramount features of romanticism were idealism, a belief in the natural goodness of the individual person, and, hence, the cult of feeling as opposed to reason; a predilection for the more ‘primitive’ expressions of human creativity as being closer to the fundamental goodness of the person and, hence, an enthusiasm for folk art, poetry, and songs; a belief in the perfectibility of the individual person and, hence, a predilection for change and the espousal of ‘striving’ as a mode of behavior; and a search for historical consciousness and an intensified learning of history (historicism), coupled at times with an escape from surrounding reality into an idealized past or future or into a world of fantasy. The Romantic world view fostered its own style and gave rise to specific genres of literature: ballads, lyrical songs, romances, and historical novels and dramas. Certain elements of romanticism, especially those which emphasized the value of the folk, such as Johann Gottfried von Herder's notion of the importance of folklore in the development of literature, encouraged a resurgence of interest in folklore and history. The study of both resulted in a general reawakening of Slavic peoples, including the Ukrainians.