Formation of Historical Ukrainian Studies at the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University during the 1918 and early 1930's
The article shows that the period from 1918 to the beginning of the 1930's was characterized by considerable efforts in the cause of the birth and advancement of historical Ukrainian studies at the Katerynoslav University, and later in the Katerynoslav (Dnipropetrovsk) Institute of Public Education (DIPE), as the first institutional forms of the Oles Нonchar Dnipro National University. It was emphasized that the central figure of that period was Academician D. I. Yavornytsky, who laid the foundations for a Ukrainian school of science, and rallied around him a number of professors, like-minded professors, post-graduate students and students. The activity of the People's Academician in the field of historical Ukrainian studies was closely linked with other areas of Ukrainian studies and contributed to the development of Ukrainian historical memory, consciousness and culture. The rise of authoritarianism, and then totalitarianism in the policies of the ruling Soviet-communist regime, led to the curtailment of Ukrainization, the intensification of ideological and political harassment and repressions against a number of professors, young scholars, postgraduates and students. Disclosed as having lost the opportunity to conduct scientific and pedagogical work at the DIPE, D. I. Yavornytsky did not stop creative contacts with staff and graduate students of the institution, using up to the early 1930's various forms of cooperation within the framework of the Dnipropetrovsk Research Department of Ukrainian Studies at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS), the Dnipropetrovsk regional historical-archaeological museum, the Dnipropetrovsk Scientific Society under the UAS and the DniproGES archaeological expedition. It was emphasized that after 1933 the further progress of the Dnipropetrovsk scientific school of Ukrainian studies and its important direction - historical Ukrainian studies - was interrupted under the conditions of the Stalinist totalitarian regime.