Cultural activity of M. Drahomanov

Drahomanov began his scholarly work as an ancient historian and wrote Vopros ob istoricheskom znachenii Rimskoi imperii i Tatsit (The Problem of the Historical Significance of the Roman Empire and Tacitus, 1869). Later he worked in Slavic, especially Ukrainian, ethnography and folklore, using the historical-comparative method.

Drahomanov was an outstanding Ukrainian political thinker. He dealt extensively with constitutional, ethnic, international, cultural, and educational issues; he also engaged in literary criticism. Drahomanov’s ideas represent a blend of liberal-democratic, socialist, and Ukrainian patriotic elements, with a positivist philosophical background.

Drahomanov declared himself a socialist, without subscribing to any school of contemporary socialist thought. The motivation for his socialism was ethical: concern for social justice and the underprivileged and exploited. He advanced a program of concrete socioeconomic reforms (eg, protective labor legislation, progressive income tax).

Drahomanov continued the democratic-federalist tradition as represented by the Ukrainian Decembrist movement of the 1820s the Society of United Slavs, of which his uncle, Yakiv Drahomanov, had been a member, and the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. He wished to link the Ukrainian movement with progressive trends in the contemporary Western world. Drahomanov regretted that the Ukrainian people had not preserved an independent state in the past.

Viewing the Ukrainian problem in a broad context, Drahomanov devoted attention to Ukraine’s neighbors. Concerning Russia, he advocated a common front of moderate liberals and revolutionary socialists against autocracy, but condemned terrorist methods. Drahomanov drafted a proposal for a constitutional reorganization of Russia (Vol’nyi soiuz/Vil’na spilka [A Free Union], 1884) with rule of law, guarantees of civil rights, regional and local self-government, and equality of nationalities. (Max Weber praised Drahomanov’s constitutional plan for its treatment of the nationality problem.) Drahomanov endorsed the right of minorities in Ukraine, particularly the Jews, to a corporate national-cultural autonomy. He welcomed the liberation of the southern Slavs from the Turks but cautioned against tsarist imperialism in the Balkans. He criticized equally the Russian oppression of Poland and Polish claims to lands where the majority of the population was ethnically non-Polish. He saw threats to Eastern Europe in Prusso-German militarism, in the inflated territorial aspirations of the Polish ‘historical’ patriots, and in the ‘Jacobinism’ of Russian revolutionary groups.

69. MODERNISM IN EUROPE (BOUNDARY OF THE 19^TH AND 20^TH CENTURIES): GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Modernism. An international movement in literature and art that emphasized the sense of a radical break with the past and the possibility of a transformed world. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century as a rejection of realism and populism, it experimented with new literary and artistic forms, often under the influence of photography, film, and new technologies. Non-traditional materials were often used in architecture and sculpture, such as new metal alloys, glass, and synthetic plastics. The focus in literature and art was often on subjective perceptions and on the inner psychological conflicts and complexes of the urban intelligentsia. Depictions of individual personalities often included the eccentric, the taboo, and the deranged. Modernism coincided with and reflected the rapid growth of capitalist production and the rise of strong feminist, political, and national movements.

Central and East European modernism in the years 1880–1913 is often viewed as encompassing the “isms”: impressionism, symbolism, cubism, abstractionism, futurism, and expressionism. A second wave of modernism appeared in the years 1914–30, which was strongly influenced by radical political movements in Europe and sometimes identified itself as the cultural avant-garde of these movements. It was closely associated with the futurists, constructivists, expressionists, and surrealists of the post-First World War years.