Mykhailo Hrushevsky

Who is Mykhailo Hrushevsky?

Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky was born on 29 September 1866 in Kholm (Chełm), then in the Russian Empire. He became the foremost Ukrainian historian of his generation, holding a professorship at Lviv University and leading the Shevchenko Scientific Society. His monumental work 'History of Ukraine-Rus'' (Історія України-Руси), published in ten volumes, provided a comprehensive scholarly narrative of the Ukrainian people as distinct from the imperial Russian framework. In 1917, amid the collapse of the Russian Empire, he was elected head of the Central Rada, the revolutionary parliament of the Ukrainian People's Republic, making him effectively the first head of the modern Ukrainian state. After the failure of Ukrainian independence he lived in emigration, then returned to Soviet Ukraine in 1924 to work in the Academy of Sciences. He fell under political pressure in the Stalinist period and died on 24 November 1934 in Kislovodsk.

Sources: Mykhailo Hrushevsky, 'Історія України-Руси' (History of Ukraine-Rus'), 10 vols., 1898–1936 · Serhii Plokhy, 'Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History', 2005