Popyk Volodymyr

Fate of Ukrainian scholars in the humanities during the first decades of Bolshevik totalitarian regime: Methodological problems of creating a collective biography

Section: Prosopographical studies

Abstract: The purpose of the study is to develop, in the most general, staged plan, theoretical and practical-methodical approaches to creating a collective biography, a prosopographic portrait of generations of domestic humanities scholars who worked in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. - the first two decades of the establishment of the Bolshevik totalitarian system. The methodological foundations of the research are based on the comprehensive use of methods of historiographic and scientific analysis and synthesis. At the same time, the firstplace is not a general outline of the contribution of scientists to the development of individual scientific directions, but penetration using hermeneutic approaches into the harsh realities of the historical past, the circumstances of the life and work of scientists, the political atmosphere in which they were, which tragically affected their human destinies and creative activities. The scientific novelty lies in focusing on the insufficiently researched until now issues of the collective fate and experience of generations of Ukrainian scientists, which is now gaining relevance in light of the need for the most complete return to national memory and proper appreciation of their works and creative heritage. Conclusions. Problems of human fate and creative heritage of generations of scientists in the field of socio-humanitarian sciences who had to live and work in the 20th century. in a totalitarian society, require thoughtful and careful rethinking, a “new reading” not only from the standpoint of modern political, intellectual and spiritual realities, but also a hermeneutic entry into the sometimes little understood by our contemporaries, dramatic circumstances of the past. Scientists, who were among difficult, often insurmountable circumstances, which had a limiting, deforming, often destructive impact on both scientific research and human destinies, worked for the benefit of the development of science, education and culture of Ukraine. Their tragedy was the inability to fully realize their creative potential.

Keywords: generation of Ukrainian humanities scientists of the 1920s-1930s, repressions, collective biography, prosopographic portrait.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.26.265     Citation

• Popyk Volodymyr (V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, Ukraine, Kyiv, [email protected]) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8746-1026

Cite:
Popyk Volodymyr (2025). Fate of Ukrainian scholars in the humanities during the first decades of Bolshevik totalitarian regime: Methodological problems of creating a collective biography. Biographistica Ukrainica, (26) 265-293. (In Ukrainan). https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.26.265

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