Slovak Views of Ukraine (1880–1914)

Abstract

The Ukrainian themes appeared in the Slovak context of the period 1880–1914 within three thematic lines: 1) the Slavophilic line (a wide complex of ideological, historical, linguistic, ethnological, confessional and cultural issues concerning Russia and Eastern Slavs); 2) the documentary factual line (travelogue narratives); and 3) the literary line (translations of Ukrainian literary works and information about the Ukrainian literary life in the genres of literary journalism). These lines overlapped, but the first one, i.e. ideologically-based line of Slavic solidarity, was the most significant. This line substantially determined the nature of the Slovak views on the Ukrainian religious life, emancipation movement (in correlation ‘Little Russia’ – ‘Great Russia’), institutions, personally witnessed affairs and also the Ukrainian literature. In terms of the conservative national discourse, the Ukrainian independence movement was represented as a manifestation of separatism and the distinct Ukrainian nationality was rejected or questioned. Its acceptance was a matter of the later period. The interliterary contacts were sporadic and occasional. At the beginning of the 20th century, under the influence of the modernization and liberal attitude of the rising generation to the right of self-determination, the Ukrainian literature was primarily perceived as a literature of a close Slavic nation, which was, as well as the Slovak nation, in the position of an oppressed ethnic group lacking its own political independence.