Between history and nation: Paul Robert Magocsi and the rewriting of Ukrainian history

Abstract

“Getting history wrong is an essential factor in the formation of a nation,” wrote Ernest Renan, basing this observation on his analysis of the nation-building experience in nineteenth-century Europe (qtd. in Eric Hobsbawm,On History.New York: New York Press, 1997: 270; for a different translation of the same sentiment, see Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation,” inNationalism in Europe from 1815 to the Present: A Reader.Ed. Stuart Woolf. London: Routledge, 1996: 50). Many historians today tend to agree with Renan's statement and are doing their best to “get history right” as they search for alternatives to national history. More often than not they face an uphill battle in that regard, both within and outside their profession.

The Tensions and Triumphs of the First History of Carpathian Rus’ and the Carpatho-Rusyns

“…“Magocsi’s Rusyn nation-building activities do not contradict his Ukrainian scholarship,” Motyl observes: “Quite the contrary, Magocsi has effectively become a Ukrainian nation-builder ( malgré soi , if you will), precisely because he needs an ontologically distinct Ukraine in order to make the case for a Rusyn nationality” (Motyl 2011, 107). Similarly, Serhii Plokhy has argued that Magocsi’s multiethnic approach to Ukrainian history, however praiseworthy for its rich, inclusive panorama of the country’s past, allows him to create “space for the construction of […] Carpatho-Rusyn history” (Plokhy 2011, 120) 5…”

“… 3 Similarly, Serhii Plokhy has critiqued the attempts of Carpatho-Rusyn historiography to establish a foundational myth distinct from Kyivan Rus’ (Plokhy 2011, 120).…”

Nation as a reflection of history, memory, language and culture

“…Manipulations with the principles of national consciousness and real values, the creation of alternative variants of interpreting historical events, the formation of the image of the threat and an external enemy reduce the delicate balance between nationalization and nationalism. Investigating this problem, Serhii Plokhii [4] cites Ernest Renan, and argues that history in a false interpretation is an important factor in the formation of a nation. Affirming the right of the nation to interpret its own historical events, or creating alternative national histories, is the subject of heated debate among many thinkers.…”