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Panteleimon Kulish Пантелеймон Куліш | |
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| Born | (1819-08-07)7 August 1819 Voronizh,Chernigov Governorate,Russian Empire |
| Died | 14 February 1897(1897-02-14) (aged 77) Motronivka, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire (nearBorzna, nowChernihiv Oblast,Ukraine) |
| Occupation | writer,critic,poet,folklorist,translator |
| Nationality | Ukrainian |
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Panteleimon Oleksandrovych Kulish[a] (Ukrainian:Пантелеймон Олександрович Куліш; 7 August 1819 – 14 February 1897) was aUkrainianwriter,critic,poet,folklorist, andtranslator.
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Panteleimon Kulish was born 7 August 1819 inVoronizh (nowSumy Oblast) into an impoverishedCossack gentry family. His mother, Kateryna Ivanivna, spoke exclusively Ukrainian and taught her son numerous folk songs, tales and legends. After completing only five years at theNovhorod-Siverskyigymnasium, where he got acquainted with classical works ofRussian literature andfolklore,[1] Kulish enrolled atKyiv University in 1837 but was not allowed to finish his studies because he was not a noble. Thanks to the protection ofMikhail Yuzefovich andMykhailo Maksymovych,[2] in 1840 he obtained a teaching position inLutsk, where he wrote his first historical novel inRussian,Mykhailo Charnyshenko, or Little Russia Eighty Years Ago (2 vols, 1843).
In 1843–45, Kulish taught inKyiv and studied Ukrainian history and ethnography. There he befriendedTaras Shevchenko,Mykola Kostomarov, andVasyl Bilozersky; their circle later became the nucleus of the secretBrotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which envisioned a Ukrainian national rebirth, including national independence, within a free and equal Slavic federation.[3] In 1847, Kulish was arrested for his participation in this organization, and spent some time in prison and a few years in exile. In the late 1850s, he was reunited with Kostomarov and others of the Cyril-Methodian "Brethren" and participated in the Ukrainian journalOsnova (The Foundation). At this time, he published his famousNotes on Southern Rus' in which he pioneered a newUkrainian orthography for the Ukrainian vernacular, theKulishivka alphabet, based on phonetics rather than etymology. This later became the basis of the modern written Ukrainian language.[4] In the early 1860s Kulish published several scientific papers on Ukrainian Medieval and Cossack history.[5]
In the 1860s and 1870s, Kulish gradually turned more conservative and began to criticize Shevchenko, the Cossack revolts, and the ideal of the Cossacks as the defenders of popular liberty. Eventually, despite Tsarist repression of Ukrainian culture and the ban on the appearance of the Ukrainian language in print, he developed a theory that Ukraine and Russia should be politically united but divergent in culture, an approach which won few adherents among the Ukrainian intelligentsia of the time. Nevertheless, this conservative approach to Ukrainian affairs was never completely extinguished and was later resurrected in a different form by other Ukrainian political thinkers such asVyacheslav Lypynsky, Stepan Tomashivsky, and others.
In the 1880s, after the introduction ofEms Decree, Kulish moved to AustrianGalicia. In light of the ban on Ukrainian publications in the Russian Empire, he resigned from being a Russian subject and adopted the citizenship ofAustria.[6] In Galicia Kulish cooperated with the local Ukrainian cultural and political leaders. Thus he was one of the first Ukrainian figures to, at least in part, successfully bridge the gap between Russian and Austrian Ukraine. He also appealed to Poles, calling for them to recognize Ukrainians as equals and to establish mutual dialogue, but his proposal was ignored by most leaders of Galicia's Polish community. This led Kulish to return to his previousRussophile views.[7] The author spent his last years isolated on his homestead in northern Ukraine. During these years he translated a great deal of west European literature, including Shakespeare, into Ukrainian.
During his early years at the University of Kyiv, Kulish came under the influence of the historian and literary figure Mykhaylo Maksymovych who turned his attention to his native Ukrainian culture. Maksymovych promoted Kulish's literary efforts and published several of his early stories. His first longer work written in Ukrainian was the epic poemUkraina (1843).[8] In Kyiv Kulish also got in contact with localPolish nobility and learned thePolish language, which allowed him to read the works ofAdam Mickiewicz and other Polish-language authors. Living in Lutsk, he befriended Stefan Zienowicz, a Polish chemist and mineralogist who had earlier worked at the University of Kyiv, and had close relations with the city's Polish community. During his second period of life in Kyiv Kulish got acquainted with Polish writer and literary criticMichał Grabowski, who remained his lifelong friend.[9] Thanks to his acquaintance with Grabowski's compatriot,antiquarian Stanisław Świdziński, Kulish got access to valuable documents of Polish-Ukrainian history, including materials from the time of Cossacks andHaidamaks, as well as written correspondence ofhetmanPylyp Orlyk, letters and documents of theKhanenko family and the chronicle ofSamiilo Velychko.[10]
As a result of his research, Kulish created several historical novels in Ukrainian. His most famous contribution in this field wasBlack Council [uk], which was dedicated to ahistorical event fromCossack times. The author was also active in historical writing, composing a brief history of Ukraine in verse (under the titleUkraina) and a much largerHistory of the Reunification of Rus in three volumes.[11] The latter dealt with the era of HetmanBohdan Khmelnytsky in the seventeenth century. His two-volume collection of Ukrainian folklore,Notes on Southern Rus retains its scholarly significance to the present day.[8]
Together withIvan Nechuy-Levytsky, andIvan Puluj, Panteleimon Kulish was the first known person to translate the whole of theBible into themodern Ukrainian language. The originalUkrainian translation of the Holy Script was published in Vienna in 1903 by the British and Foreign Bible Society.[12]
Kulish's works had a significant influence on the formation of Ukrainianintelligentsia and its views by introducing a native Ukrainian perspective on history as a counterweight to Russian imperial ideology. At the same time, Kulish was not among the devoted proponents of the so-called "populist" school of Ukrainian history, which saw the Ukrainian society as exclusivelydemocratic and standing in direct opposition to Polisharistocratism andRussification. Instead, he viewed high culture andstatist tradition as important components of Ukrainians' development as a nation. He recognized the potential of theAll-Russian political idea, simultaneously considering Polish rule over Ukraine to have been an important civilizing factor for the country, and refused to see Ukraine's historical development solely through the prism of Cossack history. In his public activities Kulish strove to achieve reconciliation between the Polish, Ukrainian and Russian nations.[13]
On 7 August 2019, aGoogle Doodle was created to celebrate Kulish's 200th birthday.
A nine-episode television series was created by Mykola Zaseyev-Rudenko on the base of Kulish's novelBlack Council at theDovzhenko Film Studios in 2000.[14]
