André Mazon’s Letters to Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Kateryna Hrushevska

(вступна стаття й публікація В.Тельвака, Є.Луняка)

Abstract

The publication based on André Mazon’s letters to Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Kateryna Hrushevska, which were deposited in their family fund in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, clarifies the peculiarities of the relationship between French and Ukrainian intellectuals.

The methodological basis is the interdisciplinary approach. At the same time, methods of philosophical, general scientific and concrete-historical nature played an important role. Particular emphasis is placed on the structural-functional systematic analysis of historiographical facts, comparative-historical method and the method of critical analysis of documentary material based on the principles of objectivity and historicism.

Scientific novelty. A.Mazon’s letters to M.Hrushevskyi and K.Hrushevska are published for the first time.

Conclusions. The epistolary covers little-known contacts between French and Ukrainian scholars. It was established that the direct reason for the correspondence was A.Mazon’s interest in Ukrainian science and culture, as well as M.Hrushevskyi’s attempts to spread his historiographical ideas in France by translating the Essay on the History of the Ukrainian People. The letters of the beginning of the 20th century are devoted to these questions. During the years of emigration, the Ukrainian scientist, with the mediation of his French colleague, popularized in Western Europe the publishing products of the Ukrainian Sociological Institute headed by him. In the second half of the 1920s, correspondents raised the issue of book exchange and formation of the Ukrainian collection in the library of the Institute of Slavic Studies in Paris. Along with this, the problem of K.Hrushevska’s scientific trip to European academic centers, as well as to the French capital, was discussed. The content of the published epistolary allows us to draw conclusions about the long-standing friendly relations between the two scientists.