Contribution of Shevchenko cientific society to the founding of Ukrainian University in Lviv (the end of the 19th century - mid-1920s)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the contribution of The T. Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) in spreading the idea of establishing the Ukrainian University in Lviv among the population of Galicia at the end of the 19th – at the beginning of the 20th century and the founding of Secret Ukrainian University (1921). The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, consistency, scientific pluralism, objectivity, systematicity and comprehensiveness, application of general scientific and special scientific methods, as well as a thorough analysis of contemporary periodicals, memoir literature, archival documents. The scientific novelty of the article consists in the following: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography, there has been analyzed a significant contribution of the T. Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) in the formation of the idea of establishing Ukrainian University under the conditions of polonization of the Lviv higher school and implementation of this idea in the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which resulted in the founding of Secret Ukrainian University. The Conclusion. Starting from the end of the 19th century, the members of the scientific society advocated the Ukrainization of higher education in Galicia, pushed for the opening of the national University, which in practice manifested itself in sending Appeals to the highest authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, cooperation with the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation (UPR), national and cultural organizations of the region on the basis of realization of declared aspirations. The demands of the NTSh were identical to the demands of the Ukrainian student organization, which on the eve of World War I organized a large-scale wave of student demonstrations, which ended in the promises of the Austrian government to establish Ukrainian University. During World War I, the NTSh did not abandon its intention to establish Ukrainian higher educational institution, which, however, was not successful. Under the conditions of the Polish regime, the initiative of the NTSh to establish the national University found many supporters among political, cultural and educational intelligentsia, which resulted in the establishment of a secret Ukrainian University. Its scientific and organizational activities were built around the NTSh, the majority of whose members worked as lecturers in a higher education institution, and also prepared textbooks for students. The anti-Ukrainian activities of the central authorities of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth made the activities of a secret Ukrainian University impossible, which ultimately led to its self-liquidation (1925)