Polish Intellectual, Political, and Legal Traditions in the Civic Thought of Left-Bank Ukraine, Second Half of the 18th to First Half of the 19th Centuries
Abstract
The paper sets out to uncover the influence of the Polish intellectual tradition on the evolution of civic thought and practice in Left-Bank Ukraine during the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. Despite the sustained attention to PolishUkrainian interactions in national historiography, the problem of the role and place of Poland and Polish intellectual heritage in projects for the reformation of Ukrainian society within the borders of the Russian Empire has not so far been studied in depth. The paper discusses the sources, techniques, and methods of the use of works and ideas of Polish historians, writers, and lawyers, as well as Polish law and legal practices, in the writings and civic pursuits of Hryhoriy Poletyka, a prominent Ukrainian intellectual and political figure of the mid-18th century. It is argued that the constitutional arrangements, legal norms, and ideological heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were of key importance to H. Poletyka in his efforts to develop “programs” for reforming the Hetmanate in the direction of modernization and preservation of ancient rights and freedoms in the face of centralizing imperial policy. His ideas, informed by a deep knowledge of history and law, including the historiography of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, laid the foundation for an attitude towards the Hetmanate that would be organically received by the subsequent generations. The educated elite of Left-Bank Ukraine at the beginning of the 19th century felt a deep influence of H. Poletyka’s writings, and in large part through them – of the Polish political and legal tradition. The intellectual heritage of H. Poletyka, in which the premodern conception of the Ukrainian (Little Russian) nation took its final form, established a solid ground for the elite of Left-Bank Ukraine to conceive of their historic birthright and gave an impetus for the ideological explorations of generations of children and grandchildren. One outcome of this was the burgeoning of a modern ethno-national identity in the Ukrainian lands during the first half of the 19th century.
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