Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt, Toward a United States of Russia: Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, 1981.

7
Mikhail Dragomanov: Russian-Ukrainian Federalist
(1841-1895)

Only small states, or rather communities, can be truly free societies. Only a federation of communities can be truly free.
-M. Dragomanov

Qui dit: Liberte, dit federation, ou ne dit rien. -P. J. Proudhon

A major exponent of federalist ideas in the second half of the nineteenth century, Dragomanov was a journalist and political leader who was also a scholar- historian specializing in Roman history. He played an important role in the Ukrainian national movement in Russia and in Austrian Galicia, but has also a place in the political history of Russia. A complex personality, he was a polemical and nonconformist writer with a varied career. His writings, mainly in Ukrainian and Russian but also in several Western European languages, were directed against Russian autocracy and centralism, against the terrorism of the narodniks and against Ukrainian separatism. He was a strong advocate of political freedom, civil and political rights, and a federal constitution for Russia, with historical regions as units of the federation. We are here [131] concerned with Dragomanov's Russian political works, which were collected and edited by Bogdan Kistiakovsky, professor of sociology and philosophy of law at the University of Kiev, in the first decade of this century.1 His writings in Galicia in Ukrainian, are outside the sphere of this study.

Dragomanov's voluminous and widely scattered works are not easily accessible and present difficulties of interpretation. This is due in part to the vagaries of Russian-Ukrainian relations in the past century and in the present, but also because of Dragomanov's controversial and polemical approach. He thrived on controversy, even though he always denied this. B. I. Rogosin, author of a doctoral dissertation on Dragomanov, complained of the difficulty in classifying him: "Was he a liberal or a socialist? A nationalist or a cosmopolitan? A Westerner or a Slavophile?"2 No doubt, he was all these things at different times, possibly even at the same time; his thought was complex and at times ambiguous and contradictory.

Between 1876 and 1905 Dragomanov's works were forbidden in Russia. Only after 1905 did he gain recognition as "a pioneer of the Russian constitutional-democratic movement." This was principally due to his friend and editor of his Russian works, Bogdan Kistiakovsky; and was also helped by P. B. Struve's publication of Dragomanov's political works (2 vols., Paris, 1905) with Struve's laudatory introduction.

The Ukrainian historian M. Grushevsky, as indicated by B. Rogosin,3 distinguished three periods in the development of Dragomanov's political views:

1 . 1859-73 Cosmopolitan-liberal, modified by Ukrainian populism.
2. 1873-81 Ukrainian-socialist; based largely on Proudhon and to a certain extent on Bakunin.
3. 1881-95. Liberal-constitutionalist, antirevolutionary and antiterrorist.4

Dragomanov was born in the small provincial town of Gadiach in Poltava province. His parents were small landowners and belonged to petty Ukrainian gentry. He grew up in an environment similar to that of Gogol, full of Ukrainian [133] folk traditions but apparently without animosity toward Russian language and culture. Under the influence of his father, he imbibed liberal humanistic ideas, which he described as consisting "of a mixture of Christianity with the eighteenth century philosophy of enlightenment and of Jacobinism with democratic Caesarism."5

At an early age he developed a love of history. At the age of twelve he read Bantysh-Kamensky's History of the Ukraine and twice Karamzin's History of the Russian State.6 Later, in the Poltava gymnasium, he was absorbed in a study of the historians Schlozer, Macaulay, Prescott, and Guizot. Thanks to a perceptive history teacher, A. I. Stronin -- who was later suspected of separatism -- he became acquainted with contemporary writers: Herzen, whom he greatly admired, Shevchenko, Proudhon, and the regionalist historians of Russia, Kostomarov and Shchapov.7 These writers helped to mold his intellectual outlook and remained influences throughout his life.

In 1859 Dragomanov was admitted to the faculty of history and philosophy at the University of Kiev. He was preparing himself for an academic career in the field of Roman history.8 In ancient history his attention was attracted by the Roman federal communes, which enjoyed considerable freedom and administrative independence from the Roman governors. It is possible that this was the origin of his interest in small communities and in federalism. Later, of course, this idea combined with other, more important influences.

Dragomanov's monograph Tacitus and the Question of the Historical Importance of the Roman Empire (1870) showed some of his characteristic ideas on the philosophy of history. He perceived the historical process as a struggle of two opposite principles, centralism and autonomy, i.e., he saw the national energies as flowing either in the centripetal or centrifugal direction. In the ruling nations the energies, he found, were always directed toward centralism; in oppressed minorities they moved always outwardly, in the direction of greater autonomy. The struggle for autonomy Dragomanov saw as an expression of universal justice. This concept of [134] history undoubtedly owes something to the views of Proudhon, who saw the struggle of the two antagonistic principles as authority versus liberty.9 The evils of centralization is a major theme in Dragomanov and runs through all his political works. He was convinced that centralization weakens the national energies, lowers initiative, and brings everything to a deadly level of uniformity.10 "Centralism," he wrote elsewhere, "is a weed which must be uprooted from the deepest corners of the heart."11 While criticizing the centralism of Western European countries, which developed, he thought, under the influence of Roman law, he nevertheless recognized some of its historical merits. In Russia, centralism was useful at certain periods of its history, but in the nineteenth century it became a drag and prevented further progressive development of the country. The only remedy for Russia and the Ukraine was to widen the local self-government and allow the local population to decide their own affairs independent of the center. 12 This was the starting point and basis of his understanding of federalism.

Unlike many populists, Dragomanov had no faith that revolution in Russia was imminent. An evolutionist and empiricist in politics, he thought that the Russian intelligentsia should first strive to achieve political freedom, socialism would come later. Strangely, he avoided referring to himself as a liberal, but preferred to be called a socialist, without specifying which school he identified himself with. He shared some basic attitudes and ideas with Russian populists: he admired Herzen, idealized the peasants, especially the Ukrainian peasants, and believed in an alliance of the intelligentsia with the peasantry. On the other hand, he was dubious of the populist doctrine of the mir. The elected elders, he thought, were often despots, and the rights of the individual in the commune were not sufficiently protected. Nor was he convinced that Russia had a separate path of development, as did the populists. He was inclined rather to agree with the Marxists that Russia was following the same road of bourgeois development as Western Europe.13

At the end of the 1850s, Kiev, although the administrative [135] center of the Southwest, was still a provincial town of some 60,000 inhabitants. The cultural tone of the city was provided by the Polish landowning aristocracy, as the educated people at the time were mostly Polish nobles and Russian officials. The university was the center of the cultural life. The atmosphere on the campus was very "Ukrainophile," full of plcturesque and colorful Ukrainian shirts, kerchiefs, and hats.14

In the Ukraine, as in Central Russia, it was the beginning of "the going to the people" movement. Many Ukrainian students had responded to Herzen's appeal. Dragomanov was very quickly drawn into the student ferment of the time. He helped to organize Sunday schools for the town workers, and after they were closed by the government, he became active in the zemstvo schools promoting the use of the Ukrainian language.

In his autobiography he mentions two events which had some influence on his political education and career. The first event was the dismissal, in 1861, of the famous surgeon and educator Pirogov, who had been head of the Kiev school district and was a patron of the young Dragomanov. At a banquet given in his honor, Dragomanov gave a fiery farewell speech praising Pirogov's high moral and humane standards as an administrator. The speech was officially condemned and its printing was prohibited.15 This "daring" speech brought Dragomanov close to the circle of liberal professors of the university. In 1862 he was recommended to the University Council for the chair of history which was then vacated by a professor who held liberal views.16

He soon married, and in order to supplement his income, he began writing articles and editorials for the liberal St. Petersburg press.

In 1864 Dragomanov successfully defended his thesis on Emperor Tiberius, and in the following year was appointed a university lecturer.

The Polish insurrection of 1863 was another event which, indirectly, had some effect on his political outlook as well as his career. Dragomanov did not side with the Polish cause. As a youth he had observed the hypocrisy of the Right Bank Polish nobles who beat their servants while spending much time kneeling in the churches and, as most Ukrainian students at the time, he considered Polish pretensions to the Right Bank Ukraine unjustifiable. The Soviet biographer Zaslavsky states that the Polish rebellion brought Dragomanov closer "to the camp of Russian reaction."17 This may be doubted, but there is little question that Dragomanov did not favor Polish independence, believing that Russia should strengthen her borderlands against the German Drang nach Osten, aiming to dominate the Slavs. According to Zaslavsky, Dragomanov considered General Muraviev, the "hangman," a savior since he helped "to free" the Ukrainian peoples from the Polish landowners.18

Dragomanov's Ukrainian origin naturally propelled him to join the Ukrainian circles at the university. These were for the most part interested in the development of Ukrainian language and literature but had also political aspirations for greater autonomy for the Ukraine within the empire. Dragomanov did not share, however, the more extreme views of the nationalists who dreamt of reestablishing a Cossack republic, nor did he approve of the contemptuous attitude for Russian literature, which he considered richer and more developed than the Ukrainian, and a better channel for transmitting European ideas. From an educational point of view, he thought that The Bell and The Contemporary were more important than the Ukrainophile Osnova.19

Dragomanov had many-sided interests in Western European ideas and culture, and because of this orientation he was sometimes derisively called "the cosmopolitan." This, however, he considered to be a compliment.20 In spite of this cosmopolitanism, he was drawing nearer to the Ukrainian circles, and in 1863 he joined the Kiev branch of the Ukrainian organization Gromada (Community). These Gromadas were legal and semi-legal organizations which sprang up in various cities of the Ukraine. Leading the movement was the Kiev Old Gromada, which had several hundred members mostly school teachers, professors, and also some landowners and business people. These were not revolutionary organizations; [137] their chief functions were cultural and educational. Soon upon joining it, Dragomanov and his friend V. Antonovich became leaders of the Kiev Gromada.

In official circles the Polish uprising was erroneously connected with the Ukrainian cultural movement, thanks largely to Katkov's anti-Polish articles in The Moscow Messenger, in which the purely linguistic and literary aspirations of the Ukrainians were interpreted as political separatism and "the outcome of the Polish intrigue." Then came the repressive decrees of Valuev which forbade the publication of religious and popular books, including the Bible, in the Ukrainian language. Dragomanov's reaction to this was to identify himself even more closely with the Ukrainian cause.21 He continued, however, to write articles and editorials for the Russian liberal press on such subjects as Russo-Polish relations, the Ukrainian question, and Slavic affairs in general, "from the democratic-federalist point of view," as he put it.22

On the question of the use of the Ukrainian language in elementary schools, he called for textbooks in Ukrainian.23 This was in direct opposition to the views of Prince Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, the new head of the Kiev school district, who had published a book for teachers stressing the use of the Russian. The prince denounced Dragomanov as belonging "to a Ukrainophile party." Henceforth i Dragomanov was considered to be politically unreliable and was placed under police surveillance.24 In spite of these annoyances, perhaps because of them, he devoted more time to Ukrainian studies. He began a systematic study of Ukrainian legends and folklore. Together with the well-known historian V. Antonovich, he brought out a two-volume collection of Ukrainian historical songs-a major contribution to Ukrainian history and literature.25

Dragomanov's feelings for Ukrainian folklore he expressed in his autobiography:

The study of the rich and wonderful Ukrainian folk literature, especially of the political songs which conveyed the political history of the Ukrainian people, as expressed by the people themselves, [138] made me love this people and experience with my whole soul all the aspects of the Ukrainian question in Russia and in Austria-Hungary.26

The study of the historical songs turned Dragomanov's attention to the problems of the Slavic world, especially the political organization of Eastern Europe, which he envisaged along federal-democratic lines.

Upon further reflection on the Ukrainian folksongs, he concluded that all Slavic folklores have essentially a common content with Western European folklore. In other words, he saw that there are no completely separate, independent cultures in Europe, that they were all interconnected. This idea was a further confirmation of his general "cosmopolitanism."

In 1869 an incident occurred which was symbolic of Dragomanov's future political activity. He was invited to speak at a student revolutionary circle in Kiev. At this meeting he was accused by a student delegate from St. Petersburg of Ukrainian nationalism and of not supporting a united front against autocracy. Dragomanov noted that the discussion that ensued marked the beginning of his struggle with "the Great Russian revolutionary centralists and the pan-Russian 'Jacobins.'"27

In 1870, Kiev University sent Dragomanov abroad on a scholarly mission. He visited Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. While in Vienna, he met several Galician Ukrainian leaders and thereafter became deeply involved in the cultural and social developments in Galicia. While there, he helped to establish the Shevchenko Society in Lvov, which soon became a real center of Ukrainian thought. He found Galicia more backward than the Russian Ukraine and urged the use of Russian literature there. "I daresay," he observed in his autobiography, "that not a single Moscow Slavophile had spread in Austria so many Russian books as did I, 'the Ukrainian separatist.' "28

In an article entitled "Germany's Eastern Policy and Russification,"29 he expressed the idea that the Russian policy of centralization and Russification of the Western border- [139] lands actually played into the hands of Germany, and that a policy of autonomy and self-government in the Western regions would have strengthened Russia's position vis-a-vis Germany.30 This idea Dragomanov often repeated in later years.

In 1873 Dragomanov visited Zurich and described in his autobiography the two political trends into which the Russian political colony was then divided: the Bakuninists or anarchist followers of the program of Alliance Socialiste, and the Lavrovists, whose ideas, he thought, had many similarities with the German social democrats. Dragomanov thought that both of these programs were premature for Russia, "where even the socialists must above all strive to achieve political freedom."31 Nor did he approve of Lavrov's Forward (Vpered) -- which was just beginning publication then -- not so much because of its emphasis on revolution, but because of Lavrov's attitude to the Ukrainian question, which Dragomanov later analyzed in his Historical Poland and Great Russian Democracy. His profession de foi at this time was perhaps best expressed in a Hromada declaration on the basis of Galician politics: "rationalism in culture, federalism in politics, and democracy in social questions."32

The same year (1873) he wrote to V. Navrotsky (an editor of Pravda, the organ of Galician liberals which attacked the Russian government for oppressing the Ukraine and demanded more freedom) to let the Kiev Ukrainians together with the Great Russians undertake the reform of Russia: "In my opinion, the Ukrainians can receive political freedom within Russia, not by separatism but together with other nations and regions of Russia by way of federalism."33

When he returned to Kiev, in September 1873, he found the university in turmoil. The narodnik movement was in full swing, and Dragomanov at once associated himself with it. During his absence a new center of Ukrainian studies had been established-the Southwestern Section of the Russian Geographical Society. This became the new center for Dragomanov's activity -- he lectured there, presented reports, and supervised the publication by the society of his works on [140] Ukrainian folklore, historical songs, and legends. He took part in the Archaeological Congress in 1874 and continued to publish on Ukrainian themes in the press of the capital. At the same time, he wrote critically of the local administration in the Kiev newspaper, the Kiev Telegraph.34 Some of his articles were stopped by censorship. Pressures against him began to build up. He was charged with advocating the separation of Ukraine from Russia, and Tsar Alexander II was advised that he was a socialist and a dangerous radical. The university made several attempts to have him resign voluntarily, but failing to achieve this (he flatly refused), he was finally dismissed by administrative order.35 It was then that he made the decision to emigrate to Austria, where he had many contacts and where the political atmosphere was somewhat freer than in Russia. At the beginning of 1876 he applied for a passport, which, much to his surprise, was quickly granted. This was the year of the so-called Ems Act of 1876 (a decree signed by Alexander II at the German resort) which placed serious limitations on the printing and importation of books in Ukrainian, as well as on theatrical performances in the Ukrainian language. It was a serious blow to the Ukrainian national movement. Some of the Ukrainian intelligentsia became increasingly antagonistic to the government; others, politically active intellectuals, chose to emigrate. Dragomanov chose the latter. The Russian period of his life was over -- he left Russia never to return again.36

The next, the Geneva period of Dragomanov's life is the most active and the most important one from the point of view of his political activities and writings. In emigration he could probably have achieved a leading position in the Russian revolutionary camp, comparable perhaps to that of Lavrov or Plekhanov, but this did not occur, for reasons which we shall presently examine.

In spite of Dragomanov's obvious devotion to the Ukrainian cause, his ultranationalistic compatriots in Galicia accused him of internationalism and indifference to his homeland. He replied to these accusations in a letter: [141]

Allow me to remind you of my history.... While I was still young, I became a professor in a Russian university, in a field which is quite remote from the Ukrainian question. I had a recognized position as a contributor to the best Russian periodicals. What made me give up all this in order to study Ukrainian problems and to dedicate myself to the journalistic battle to defend Ukrainian national interests? Why did I begin to write in Ukrainian when I knew that this would narrow my circle of readers? My radical comrades are in a similar position. Who dares to say that my love for our land is less than those who vaunt their patriotism but write little or nothing in Ukrainian and publish all their writings in Russian? It is obvious that a man works first of all for what he loves.37

A word may be said here about Dragomanov's attitude to nationalism. In general it was not unlike that of the Russian philosopher V. Soloviev. Dragomanov opposed extreme nationalism as narrow and selfish. Moreover, his studies of Ukrainian folklore convinced him that there is no completely independent national culture, but that all European cultures have a basic common folklore content and differ only in the form of their expression.38

Dragomanov came to Vienna via Galicia in 1876, but his stay in Austria was of short duration. Accused by the Austrian government of being a member of a socialist conspiracy, he fled and took refuge in Geneva. When he settled there, he founded the Ukrainian free press "to defend the Ukrainian interests in the West," as he was instructed to do earlier by the Kiev Gromada. He started two publications in Ukrainian, both entitled Hromada; one a compendium of articles of which five volumes appeared, the other, a review which he edited with S. Podolinsky and M. Pavlik, of which only two issues appeared.39 The aim of these was "the application of the ideas of European socialism to the Ukraine."40 He wrote a long and ponderous introduction to the first Hromada collection in which he summarized Ukrainian history and cultural renaissance and outlined his ideas of a federated socialist state based on a free union of self-governing communities (Gromadas).41 [142]

In Geneva, Dragomanov devoted a good deal of his time and energy to a critique of the Russian revolutionary movement. It was his firm belief that Russian socialists were guilty of Jacobin centralism and were, in general, insensitive to the aspirations of the non-Russian nationalities.42

Lavrov's Forward (Vpered), for example, always spoke of "Russian interests," as if the empire were homogenous and consisted only of Russians. It published exclusively in Russlan. The major narodnik organizations, the Land and Liberty and later the People's Will, were also predominantely statist, Dragomanov thought, and rejected nationalist aims and aspirations "as an unnecessary splintering of forces which should be united against the common enemy, tsarism."43 He attacked the bigotry of the Russian revolutionaries: "Their pseudo-cosmopolitan sermons against nationalism are not directed against those who oppress other nationalities, but rather against those who seek to defend themselves against this pressure. They substitute denationalization for internationalism."44

The People's Will party, according to Dragomanov, was strongly centralist and Jacobin, even though several members on its central committee considered themselves federaIists.45 Zheliabov, who was of Ukrainian origin and a member of its central executive committee, complained to Dragomanov about the weakness of the Ukrainian movement in Russia: "Where are our Fenians, where is our Parnell?" In a letter to Dragomanov he explained that he had no alternative but to vote for an all-Russian Constituent Assembly.46 For Dragomanov this compromise with the centralists on the central committee of the party was weakness and sheer opportunism.47

The Black Partition group called itself socialist-federalist. In the first issue of their journal, they emphasized the ethnic variety of the empire and the right of autonomous development for all the regions. Soon, however, Dragomanov observed the same statist trend creeping in.48 In the end, the journal became an organ of "Great Russian socialists," publishing propaganda exclusively in Russian.49

But the worst culprit of centralism was Tkachev's Tocsin [143] (Nabat), an openly Jacobin and Blanquist organ.50 Tocsin argued that the working class was becoming increasingly homogenous -- same environment, same habits, same interests -- thus the proletarians truly had no nationality.51

Dragomanov found only one departure from the prevailing centralizing trend among Russian socialists -- a Geneva paper, Commune (Obshchina). It was started in 1878 by N. Zhukovsky (a Great Russian who was the most active participant and organizer), P. Akselrod, D. Klements and Z. Ralli. The organizers announced that the journal's aim was to unite all socialists of different regions and nationalities. "Only their united efforts could bring down the edifice of the contemporary monster, known as the Russian Empire."52 Zhukovsky wrote: "The Muscovite, the Pole, the Ukrainian, the Siberian should not be laying down the law to each other, but should be comrades to one another. Now they all live under the hegemony of the Great Russians and are called the Russian people, precisely because there is a Russian policeman over them. Once the policeman is gone, all these peoples will be left to themselves, but how exactly they will federate with each other, only the future can tell."53

Unfortunately, Dragomanov complained, the majority of Russian socialists were not in sympathy with the regionalist-federalist approach of the Commune or of the Ukrainian Hromada. One reason for this disregard or neglect of national peculiarities was simply that it was easier to print socialist propaganda in one language, Russian, than in many different languages.

Dragomanov insisted that propaganda should be directed from the bottom up, and not from the top down, and that the so-called plebeian nationalities -- Ukrainians, Belorussians, Latvians, Estonians -- should form their own socialist organizations and cadres on equal footing with the Great Russians and Poles.54 To achieve this he advocated organizing political societies in all regions and nationalities of the empire. Eventually, from these societies a federal-democratic party would evolve, which would then attempt to transform Russia into a genuine federation.55 This conception of regional revolutionary organizations was in sharp contrast with the prevailing [144] idea in the 1870s that a strong, central organization was essential. It was assumed, even before Lenin's time, that the central committee would form the basis of a provisional revolutionary government.56

From the 1870s on, Dragomanov was a vigorous opponent of the populist method of individual terror, on moral and humane grounds. "Gradually," he wrote in his autobiography, "I became more and more an enemy of Russian revolutionaries. Besides their Great Russian centralism and anti-cultural tendencies, the narodnik illusions, Machiavellianism of means (like the forged manifestos of Ia. Stefanovich and others, robberies of banks, post offices, and treasuries, with the killing of a watchman), what separated me from them was the elevating of political assassination, or what was called terror, into a principle of revolutionary struggle, while I considered it only as a natural, even though pathological consequence of the terror of the government itself."57

Dragomanov's tactics changed a number of times depending on the general political situation. In his youth he thought that peaceful progress was possible through the reforms initiated by Alexander II. Repression of the Ukrainian national movement changed his attitude to a more militant one. During the Balkan War of 1877-78 he was unsparing in his criticism of Russia's policy in the Balkans; he even put out pamphlets which summoned Russian soldiers to armed rebellion. In one, "Domestic Slavery and the War of Liberation," he gave a long and tedious survey of despotism in Moscow Russia and under the empire; Russia, he said, must first abolish its "internal Turks," it must first become a free country, a free federation of Slavs, before it can free the Balkan Slavs. He urged more local self-government and immediate election to Zemsky Sobor.58

By 1880, it was clear to Dragomanov that there was no possibility of a revolutionary change in Russia in the forseeable future, consequently, the alternative course was peaceful and gradual reform.

Of course, adopting our viewpoint on political and social change in Russia means accepting the views to which Russian revolutionary [145] and even radical circles in general have become accustomed to give the unflattering epithet of "gradualism," But what can one do if history indicates that people progress only In a rather gradual way? Indeed, the conversion of many Russian socialists, including the most active ones, from "pure socialism" to the struggle for political freedom, is nothing other than an admission of this gradualism. One must be completely logical and admit that in our time the gain for the popular cause will be great if Russia obtains even this political freedom alone.59

Dragomanov considered himself a Russian-Ukrainian writer and politician.60 It is characteristic of this highly complex man that he was able to play different roles before different audiences: to the Ukrainians he spoke as a socialist and as a Ukrainian patriot; to the Russians as a moderate liberal-constitutionalist. This seemingly contradictory nature of some of his views and activities soon got him into difficulties with the Geneva political colony. The more radical Russians attacked him for his liberal views (as did the populist Ia. Stefanovich in Obsbchina); other Russians found his Ukrainian nationalism unacceptable and irritating. He was perpetually engaged in controversy, with Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles, but reminiscences of contemporaries attest that for a time at least he was accepted as one of the leading figures in Geneva. Lev Deich, who was not particularly friendly toward Dragomanov, described him as basically a "hohloman" and a liberal. Socialism for Dragomanov was only a "remote ideal," although, according to Deich, he liked to appear as a radical. Deich described his political views as those of a moderate anarchist.61

O. S. Llubatovich, a well-known narodnik who visited Geneva in the late 1870s, found Dragomanov brilliant, erudite, and was charmed by him.62

Vera Zasulich, when she came to Geneva in the summer of 1878, thought Dragomanov was a central figure in the emigration: "Every newly arrived [revolutionary from Russia] was taken to see him at once, and on Sundays almost the whole colony gathered at his house."63

The traveler and geographer M. I. Veniukov (1832-1901), [146] in his reminiscences of the Geneva colony, praised Dragomanov's intelligence and erudition, but thought him "high-handed," vain, and too much of a Ukrainian nationaIist.64

V. L. Burtsev, who considered Dragomanov among his friends in Geneva in the early 1880s, wrote: "For me Dragomanov was a big public figure and a wonderful political writer, not only a scholar but also a talented journalist."65

Most Russians freely acknowledged Dragomanov's gifts, erudition, and charm, his popularity, however, began sharply to decline in the early 1880s. One reason was Dragomanov's increasingly critical attitude toward Russian revolutionary narodnik groups, especially as expressed in the paper, the People's Will. He disapproved of their centralized organization, their Machiavellian tactics, and their raising of terror to a principle of revolutionary action.66 Dragomanov himself admitted that his polemical writings evoked bitter attacks against him. "Almost every week," he recalled, "there would be an attack directed against me from the camp of Muscovite, Polish, or German conservatives, as well as revolutionaries" even from the Ukrainophiles, especially those from Galicia. . . . They called me 'Russifier' and even accused me of being an agent of the Russian government, sent abroad to compromise the cause of Ukrainian socialism."67

One enterprise of Dragomanov's during the Geneva period contributed especially to the tarnishing of his reputation and isolating him from the Russian political emigres. This was his association with the weekly paper the Free Word (Volnoe slovo) as contributor and later as editor in chief. This episode started a controversy which has lasted to this day and which has still not been entirely resolved. Here we cannot go into the details of this affair, except to summarize the main points of the controversy. There is a fairly extensive bibliography on the subject, both Soviet and Western.

In May or June 1881 a certain A. P. Malshinsky, who claimed to be a liberal journalist from Odessa, appeared in Geneva and came to see Dragomanov. He said he was a representative of an illegal liberal organization in Russia, [147] "Zemstvo Union," and was empowered by this organization to start in Geneva a weekly liberal paper. He promised anonimity to the contributors and asked Dragomanov to collaborate. Dragomanov responded willingly, and the Hromada press, of which he was the head, soon proceeded to print the paper.68

In his autobiography Dragomanov described the circumstances of his becoming editor of the Free Word and his reasons for accepting the invitation:

At the end of 1882, a special representative of Zemsky Soiuz offered to me to become editor of the Free Word. I agreed, and attempted to make from a paper which originally aimed to give the oppositional and revolutionary elements in Russia the opportunity to express freely their opinions, an organ of agitation for political freedom and for zemstvo self-government. In addition, I devoted much space in the paper to social questions with the intention of presenting to the Russian socialist and the more conservative public, all shades of opinion on social questions in Western Europe and in America, in order to prevent summary judgments on these questions.69

This statement conforms to what we know of Dragomanov's political views at the time. As we have seen, he opposed terror, thought Russia was not ready for socialism, and believed that the political reconstruction of Russia could best be achieved through the zemstvos, both Russian and Ukrainian.70 Consequently Dragomanov accepted the invitation on condition that he be given complete freedom of editorial policy. He was apparently unaware of what he was getting into, and, as Bogucharsky pointed out, "he was led into a dense, dark forest" from which he has never quite emerged. Certainly, one cannot doubt his intentions that the paper should be "in line" with the zemstvo movement and, as Nancy Butler observed, "he freely guided it in that direction."71 Apparently, he had a completely free hand in the choice of topics and collaborators. At no time was the Free Word influenced by the reactionary views of its masters -- the Holy Brotherhood.72 [148]

After May 15, 1882, the Free Word began to appear officially as the organ of the Zemstvo Union. In an unsigned editorial, Dragomanov described the program of the paper: self-government, human and civil rights, and close contact with the masses.73

The attitude of the Geneva colony toward the Free Word was at first quite favorable. Soon, however, rumors began to spread that the paper was subsidized by the reactionary voluntary police, the Holy Brotherhood (Sviashchennaia druzhina), organized after the assassination of Alexander II, and that Malshinsky was its foreign agent. It was further rumored that the Zemstvo Union was a fiction, a facade for the Holy Brotherhood.74

It was only in 1912 that the well-known narodnik and historian of the revolutionary movement, V. Ia. Bogucharsky (pseudonym of V. I. lakovlev) was the first to show that the Zemstvo Union was the creation of Count Paul Shuvalov, a member of the Holy Brotherhood and also, paradoxically, a liberal constitutionalist who actually presented Alexander III with a pro)ect for a constitution.75 He was the real boss of Malshinsky and the founder of the Free Word.76

It would appear that at one point -- it is not clear precisely when --Dragomanov found out that his paper was subsidized by Count Paul Shuvalov of the Holy Brotherhood. Later, he admitted to his friend, V. L. Burtsev, that he had compromised himself in order "to keep alive the only existing outlet for liberal opinion abroad" and, one may add, to keep alive himself and his family.77 A recent investigator of the subject, S. Galai, concluded: "By early 1883, if not before, Dragomanov realized that the Zemstvo Union did not exist but decided for various reasons to continue as editor of the Volnoe slovo and to cooperate with Shuvalov, of whose position in the [Holyj Brotherhood he must have been aware."78 Galai's interpretation of Dragomanov's motivation is that either he did not care where the money came from, as long as he had complete editorial control, or else he believed that Shuvalov was a genuine constitutionalist who used the [149] Holy Brotherhood for his own aims. Galai also wondered whether the Free Word should really be considered a genuine liberal organ. In this connection, he brought in a complicating factor -- Dragomanov's alleged anti-Semitism. In 1882 there appeared in the Free Word a number of articles on the Jews in the Ukraine.79 Dragomanov described the Ukrainian Jews as "a nation, a religion, and a social class" and gave a fairly impartial history of popular anti-Semitism in the Ukraine. In addition, several articles appeared which dealt with the anti-Semitic movement in Germany.80 They emphasized the Jews' excessive financial influence, their exploitation of the working class, and their control of Germany's banks and much of the industry. Still, it seems hard to reconcile these views with Dragomanov's enthusiasm for Jewish national renaissance in Russia. In order to achieve a better solidarity between Jewish classes, he advocated a Jewish socialist organization and a Yiddish socialist press, anticipating the Jewish Bund organization. Another student of Dragomanov, Rogosin, in his informative and balanced dissertation, was less emphatic on this point; he concluded, however, that Dragomanov "inherited Cossack anti-Jewish prejudices which undoubtedly colored his thinking."81

As is known, the Holy Brotherhood was disbanded by order of Alexander Ill at the end of 1882. The Free Word continued to exist until May 1883. For reasons that are not clear, Shuvalov continued supporting the paper for a time. Money came to Dragomanov more and more irregularly, and he was obliged to borrow from friends in order to meet expenses.82 Finally, at the end of May, the Free Word ceased publication.83

Still Dragomanov did not lose hope. He continued to write to Malshinsky, apparently still trusting him: "Once again, please, help to resolve this money matter, one way or another. You can't imagine what a difficult situation I am placed in by these unfulfilled expectations. It is as if someone was making fun of me."84 In desperation he even telegraphed for money to Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, a former member [150] of the Holy Brotherhood. But there was no response. "The dense forest," Zaslavsky concluded, "failed to yield all of its secrets."85

The years following the discontinuance of the Free Word were difficult ones for Dragomanov, materially and morally. His letters show disappointment and bitterness. He had no means of support, and most of his friends had abandoned him: "Indeed," he wrote, "after 1883 I became demode, even among most of my former friends." Among the Russian revolutionaries he acquired the reputation of a downright enemy; among the liberals he was thought to be naive and even dangerous because of his radicalism; and even the Ukrainians in Russia became alarmed by his socialist orientation.86 The Kiev Gromada, which had sent him abroad and helped him financially, became with the years more conservative and began to think that his radicalism was injuring the Ukrainian cause in Russia. As the conflict grew sharper in the mid-1880s, the Gromada stopped sending him money. At the same time, the nationalist clerical circles in Galicia, who were separatists and hated everything Russian, also attacked Dragomanov for his Russian activities and publications.87 Thus, for a time, Dragomanov felt abandoned, an outcast, but he never stopped fighting his various political adversaries in defense of his convictions.

For many years one of Dragomanov's most cherished ideas had been the transformation of Russia into a constitutional federal state, with broad regional autonomy and self-government. He was convinced that the only way to advance the Ukrainian cause was for Russia and the Ukraine to form a federal union. In 1883, he drew up a program for the reconstruction of the Russian Empire along federal lines. It was called Free Union and urged the establishment in Russia of a secret organization to promote this objective.88 The pamphlet was printed in Geneva, in Russian, and transported to Russia, but all the members of the group were arrested upon crossing the frontier. The society never came into being and the program was never implemented. But it should be noted that Dragomanov's Free Union continued the federal trend in [151] Russia initiated by the Decembrist Nikita Muraviev and the United Slavs, and deserves a place in the history of Russian political thought.

Dragomanov's federal ideas came from a variety of sources, Russian and European. In his youth he was attracted by the free federal communities of the Romans; later, in the university, he studied the federal programs of the Decembrists and he was especially sympathetic to the ideology of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, which, he thought, had best formulated the idea of a Slavic federation with full political and national equality. In the 1860s, however, according to Dragomanov, the majority of Russian political writers understood only two political alternatives -- centralism or separatism.89 The theory of federalism was best understood not by the publicists and politicians, he thought, but by academic historians and ethnographers, notably, Professor P. V. Pavlov in Kiev, N. I. Kostomarov in St. Petersburg, and A. P. Shchapov in Kazan.90

But Dragomanov's strongest inspiration for the federative system came from the French anarchist P. J. Proudhon. The Soviet investigator V. G. Sokurenko calls Proudhon "a reactionary utopian" and maintains that Dragomanov's political outlook was completely different from Proudhon's and the anarchists': "In contrast to the anarchists who favored abstention from the political struggle, Dragomanov saw in this struggle a guarantee of social progress."91 Acknowledging Proudhon's influence, Dragomanov identified anarchy, as expounded by the former, with the British idea of self-government: "The teaching of anarchy, i. e., of statelessness, is an exact opposite of the more or less centralist monarchist, constitutionalist, and republican theories of France in the 1840s and 1850s. Proudhon defines his doctrine as that of complete independence of the individual and of the inviolability of his rights from all governmental authority, even from that of elected representatives. . . . Accordingly, Proudhon considered 'an-archy' as synonymous with the English term 'self-government.' In its practical application the theory of anarchy leads to federalism."92 Elsewhere, in a letter to a [152] friend, he pointed out the advantages of federal organization: "Among continental authors who have been concerned with the problem of federalism, the first place belongs to Proudhon and his Du principe federatif. . . . Federalism has two main practical advantages: (a) Through the use of the national languages a federation aids education and brings the courts and administration closer to the people. . . . (b) Administrative affairs are conducted by those whose interests are most directly affected."93

Dragomanov's social-political ideal was undoubtedly very close to Proudhon's: "Mankind's goal," he wrote in the introduction to Gromada, "which is completely different from that of present-day states, is a condition where both larger and smaller social bodies will be composed of free men, united voluntarily for common work and mutual help. This goal is called anarchy, i.e., autonomy of every individual and free cooperation of men and groups."94

In Switzerland he saw the best example of a country enjoying solid political freedom. He admired the English system, which guaranteed rights of classes, corporations, counties, and cities, and to some extent Holland and Belgium, where centralism was never very strong.95 However, the French republic, with its system of parliamentary centralism, did not provide such freedoms, he thought.96 Contrary to the prevailing views of the time, Dragomanov thought that the popular will can be tyrannical, and sometimes is in opposition to the interests of a large part of the population and the essential rights of individuals, groups, areas, and nationalities.97 Dragomanov firmly believed that no political freedom is possible under a centralized system and that all the changes of the revolutionary regimes in Europe since the French revolution have failed to achieve it, because they merely substituted autocracy of kings with autocracy of a parliamentary majority, leaving untouched and even improving the centralized bureaucratic machinery which had been ruling the country.98

Bakunin's anarcho-federalist teaching, a further extension of Proudhon's, was in Dragomanov's view a useful and [153] desirable program for a multinational state such as Russia. Russia's Byzantine and Tartar heritage predisposed her to sacrificing liberty either to the state or to religious unity.99 He speaks with approval of Bakumn's scheme for a federal union of Belorussians, Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Galicians with the Ukraine; or a union of Ukraine with either Poland or Great Russia, provided it not be dominated by either; or Bakunin's more ambitious scheme of an East European federation which would include non-Slavic peoples as well.100 He rejected Bakunin's messianism, however, and the view that Slavs in general and Great Russians in particular are basically anti-state and are "by instinct socialist and revolutionary."101 On the other hand, he shared Bakunin's ultimate vision of a society re-created after the state had been abolished, into a free association of communes, on a worldwide scale.102 The time for anarcho-federalist ideas had not arrived yet, he thought, but when it does come, Bakunin will be hailed as one of the pioneers of a truly international order, and, for Russia, "of the only possible direction of political and social life."103

In the late 1880s, Dragomanov became more critical toward Bakunin's anarchism, because of its propensity for conspiracy and violence, and its advocacy of peasant banditry. Nevertheless, he retained the belief that his teaching could somehow be reduced to an orderly system a la Suisse.104

How, then, was the Russian federation to be realized? It was clear to Dragomanov that the main support would come from the borderlands, consisting for the most part of non-Russian nationalities of the empire. Support would also be forthcoming, he thought, from some Great Russian groups, who had developed a strong feeling of local patriotism, and who had traditionally opposed the centralism of the Russian state; these were Siberia, the Don Cossacks, the Volga and Ural regions, and the Russian Northeast. He noted, hopefully, in Gromada: "Even now, no matter where we cast our glance -- on the Caucasus, on the Volga, on Siberia --everywhere we note that the borderline peoples begin to think, speak, and live in accordance with their own [local] [154] ways, and not according to the instructions from the capitals."105

In 1883, Dragomanov, with the help of a few delegates from the Russian Ukraine, worked out a program for the transformation of the Russian Empire into a democratic federation. The Free Union (Volnyi Soiuz-Vil'na Spilka) had a subtitle: Draft of a Ukrainian Political and Social Program.106 In the introduction Dragomanov stated that the Free Union was a combination of the programs of Russian zemstvo-constitutionalists and of the minimum demands of the European socialist and labor movement.107 It is a regional program, specifically referring to the Ukraine, in conformity with Dragomanov's belief in organizing regional societies in the territories of the empire. Such a society, he thought, should first be established in the territory of the Ukraine, since the Ukrainian people have traditionally aspired to a federation, and in the nineteenth century twice attempted to realize it.108

The Free Union is divided into two parts; the first deals with the basic principles of the society, the second gives Dragomanov's detailed commentary. In this draft constitution Dragomanov proposed to divide the Russian Empire into twenty territorial units or oblasti. The boundaries of the units were not to be based exclusively on the ethnic principle, but on a combination of geographic, ethnic, and economic factors. The old administrative divisions of Russia were rejected as unsuitable for a system of wide self-government. Composite regions were to be formed.109 For the Ukraine Dragomanov proposed three oblasti: Kiev, or the Right Bank Ukraine; Kharkov, or the Left Bank Ukraine; and Odessa, or Southern Ukraine, with Bessarabia and the Crimea. It was assumed that Latvians and Estonians would want to form a single region as would the various nationalities of the Caucasus. National equality was to be assured by self-government of smaller units (communes, Volost, etc.), by the inviolability of personal rights, and by the wide use of native languages. The organization of the local self-government conformed to Dragomanov's idea that it should be from the [155] bottom up: communal, volost (groups of villages), district, and region. The lower echelons were to administer the local public economy, public works, welfare, and elementary and secondary education.110 Speaking of the Ukraine as a part of the Russian Empire, Dragomanov stated that at that time its welfare and development were closely connected with the freedom and development of the other nationalities of the empire and that separation from Russia was neither desirable nor possible.111 He gave the reasons for this: economic ties; absence of definite boundaries between Great Russia and the Ukraine; mixed population; and probable separation of the Don-Kuban territories from the Ukraine if it were to become independent.112

The United States and Switzerland served Dragomanov as principal models.113 Dragomanov envisioned a division of sovereignty between the federal union and the regions. The legislature was to consist of two chambers: the State Duma, whose members were to be elected by electoral colleges in regional electoral districts, and the Union Duma, whose members were to be elected by the regional Dumas. The ministers appointed by the chief of state, either a hereditary emperor or an elected president, would be responsible to both Dumas and would have the right to impeach them.114 In case of usurpation of power at the federal level, authority was to pass into the hands of the regional Dumas. Jurisdictional disputes were to be decided by the Supreme Court (the Senate).115

As some have observed, Dragomanov's divisions of the empire were artificial and not too realistic. As is to be expected, he placed a strong emphasis on decentralized and federalist forms of organization. His regional constituent assemblies were given much power as he was convinced that a central all-Russian assembly "would preserve the hegemony of the Great Russian people and the central Great Russian regions over all others, particularly in questions of education and economics."116 Dragomanov's short-term political aim was to achieve an autonomous Ukraine within the borders of a federated, democratic Russian state, and he consequently [156] urged Ukrainians to participate actively in the struggle to establish a constitutional regime in Russia. To achieve this aim, at the time of writing the Free Union program, Dragomanov favored peaceful, gradual reforms: "Basically," he wrote in Free Union, "the theory of liberalism goes hand-in-hand with the idea of gradual reforms in political, social, and cultural matters, and not with the idea of revolution, understood as a violent overthrow of the existing order."117 His hopes were placed on a peaceful evolution of the zemstvos.

As a historian, Dragomanov was convinced that Russia had to go through the stage of political liberalism, as did the Western European countries. A quarter of a century of the zemstvo movement, he thought, was proof that Russia was actually following this road. Now, the first objective was to obtain a constitution, however limited.

The method he advocated was to put pressure on the government, but he was not too optimistic that the government would accede to zemstvo demands for further reforms: "Circumstances have shown," he wrote, "that neither the Romanov dynasty nor the ruling group surrounding it have any enlightened patriotism and political wisdom, nor even a sensible instinct of self-preservation."118 Nor did he see much unity among the opposition circles in Russia. The socialists were not particularly interested in obtaining political freedom and thought that the constitution was only for the nobility; the liberals, on the other hand, were opposed to revolutionary action and the basic economic changes advocated by the socialists.119 To achieve unity in the struggle against absolutism, some sort of a compromise was necessary between these groups. With this end in view, he contributed to Burtsev's liberal Geneva paper Free Russia (Svobodnaia Rossiia), which called for a united front of revolutionaries and liberals against the autocracy.120 Dragomanov thought that such a united front was possible and desirable but not probable because of the absence of agreement between propertied liberals and socialists who advocated social revolution.121

During his last years in Geneva, Dragomanov increasingly [157] placed his hopes on the zemstvos. He believed that a legal struggle for the new order in Russia should be started by the zemstvos, which in time should be able to force the government to grant a constitution. He thus visualized the zemstvos as the first stage on the road to a federation.

In the late 1880s, Dragomanov was approached by Russian emigres in Geneva to collaborate on Free Russia, which was edited by Burtsev. Dragomanov contributed two articles on the zemstvos.122 This pamphlet is Dragomanov's last writing in Russian on a Russian political theme. In addition, he edited two volumes of letters: one volume by K. D. Kavelm and I. S. Turgenev to A. Herzen (Geneva, 1892); and another collection by M. A. Bakunin to Herzen and Ogarev (Geneva, 1896) -- these two volumes are of some importance to the history of political ideas in Russia.

Galicia now became Dragomanov's second home. His writing, both literary and political, from then on is almost entirely in Ukrainian. In Galicia he had many supporters, and it was primarily under his influence that the Galician Radical party was founded.123

In 1889, while working on a history of Ukrainian literature (which remained uncompleted) Dragomanov received an invitation from the Bulgarian government to teach general history at the University of Sofia. The last six years of his life he spent in Sofia in comparative financial security. He lectured on pre-Hellenic civilization, but his scholarly work was devoted to Ukrainian and Slavic folklores and literatures. For the latter he received general recognition and many honors.

Dragomanov's ties with the Russian zemstvo-constitutionalists had been declining ever since the closing of the Free Word. During the Sofia period they ceased altogether. His friend Kistiakovsky says rather bitterly in his memoirs: "If Dragomanov considered the obtaining of the Russian constitution his own business, [his friendsl the Russian constitutionalists had little interest in his concern for the Ukraine."124 As for Russian politics, he wrote to Kistiakovsky shortly before his death: "For Russia now I can say only one thing: it is necessary to obtain political freedom. But by what means [158] I cannot say because I am now far removed from the details of life in Russia."125

One should note two related works on the Ukraine which he wrote during the last years of his life: Peculiar Thoughts on the Ukrainian National Cause (1892) and Letters to the Dnieper Ukraine (1894). In these Dragomanov presented a sociological interpretation of the Ukraine and warned his followers of the danger of chauvinism in the Ukrainian national movement. Here again he emphasized the importance for a nation to be aware of belonging to a larger, international community with which it must actively collaborate. As Rudnitsky observed: "The masses can only participate in a universal culture through the medium of their own national cultural tradition."126

Six months before his sudden death of heart failure (June 8/20, 1895), a thirty years' jubilee of his public and scholarly activity was celebrated in Lvov (December 16, 1894). On this occasion Dragomanov received many warm greetings from his Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and West European friends and colleagues. The address of welcome was signed by well known Russian revolutionary leaders -- Sergel Stepniak, Egor Lazarev, and Felix Volkhovsky.127 Ten years later, Peter Struve praised Dragomanov as the first among Russian publicists to give "a clear political program and the meaning and significance of the constitutional order, personal rights, and the principle of self-government."128

Dragomanov lived through the decline of populism and the beginnings of Russian Marxism. While in Kiev, he was acquainted with several individual Marxists, notably Professor M. Ziber (1844-88). But already in the 1870s he held negative views of the German social democrats, first because of their centralist attitudes, second, because of what he called their unrealistic view of the Polish insurrection of 1863.129 The Marxist doctrine of class struggle and the economic interpretation of history he considered narrow and rigid and deplored that so many intellectuals in Russia embraced it uncritically as a religious revelation.130 Nor did he think that social justice belongs solely to the proletariat, especially in Russia, which [159] has an overwhelmingly agricultural population and a proletariat comprising only one percent of the population. In such a country the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was a farce.131 Professor Rudnitsky was right in observing that Dragomanov must be regarded as a decided opponent of Marxism, which he consistently opposed among Ukrainian and Russian socialists.132

Dragomanov's anti-centralist, federalist ideas emphasizing national cultural autonomy had an impact not only on the Russian Cadet party but also on the socialists of various ethnic regions of Russia and on Russian democratic socialists -- the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. It was Dragomanov who was first to urge organizational independence and, in response, the Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews first began using their own languages in propaganda.133

From the outset of the Soviet regime Dragomanov's politics were found unacceptable. His major "mistake" was that he was a "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist" and, according to his Soviet biographer, Dragomanov's ideas served as an inspiration for the bourgeois counterrevolution in the Ukraine (the Petlura movement).134 Under Stalin, he was definitely an enemy, and had he lived, would have been liquidated or would have ended his days in a concentration camp. Since Stalin, the official attitude toward this "wavering and unreliable friend of the revolutionary movement," as he is now called, has been slightly more favorable. Basically, however, his ideology is still considered "utopian and socially harmful."135

Notes

1 . The following are some bibliographical references on Dragomanov's works: Sobranie politicbeskikh sochinenii M. P. Dragomanova, 2 vols. (Paris, 1905-1906), and Politicheskie sochineniia M. P. Dragomanova (Moscow, 1908). An important contemporary work, edited by Ivan Rudnitsky, containing a collection of articles and a bibliography of Dragomanov's major works is Mikaylo Drabomanov: A Symposium and Selected Writings (New York: Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1952). Henceforth this work will be referred to [160] as A Symposium. B. L Rogosin, "The Politics of Mikhail P. Dragomanov: Ukrainian Federalist and the Question of Political Freedom in Russia," a Ph.D. dissertation (Harvard University, 1967.)

As might be expected, there is no adequate biography of Dragomanov. The most comprehensive one is by D. Zaslavsky, first published in 1924 and drastically revised in 1934 to conform to Stalin' s policy directed against Ukrainian nationalism. The few biographies of Dragonmanov by Ukrainian scholars outside the USSR tend to be partial and narrowly nationalistic. There is also a valuable autobiographical sketch of Dragomanov, covering the period up to 1889, published in Byloe (June 1906), no. 6, pp. 182-213.

2. B. I. Rogosin, "The Politics of Mikhail P. Dragomanov," p. 10. Prof. I. L. Rudnitsky's essay "Drahomanov as a Political Theorist," in A Symposium, is a study of Dragomanov's politics, written from a Ukrainian liberal-nationalist viewpoint.

3. Ibid., p. 13.

4. Grushevsky wrote fairly extensively about Dragomanov in the early 1920s. See, for example, Drahomanov et le groupe socialiste de Geneve (Vienna, 1922), and his sketch of Dragomanov, "Ukrainian Nationalist and Social Critic," in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 5:233.

5. "Avtobiografiia," Byloe (1906), 6:182-83.

6. Ibid., p. 183; 0. Zaslavsky, M. P. Drabomanov (Moscow, 1934), p. 25.

7. Zaslavsky, p. 27.

8. He is the author, in Russian, of monographs and articles on Emperor Tiberius, on women in the first century of the Roman Empire, and on Diocletian and Tacitus. See "A Bibliography of Drahomanov's Major Works", by S. Drahomanov and I. Rudnitsky in A Symposium, p. 131.

9. A discussion of this topic is in Golda Patz's doctoral dissertation, Die Entwicklung des foderativen Gedankens in Russland . . . (Berlin, 1930). Section four of this dissertation (a separate pamphlet), dealing with Ukrainian liberalism, is in the B. Nicolaevsky Collection at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, see especially pp. 17-19.

10. Dragomanov, Volnoe slovo (1882), nos. 37-38.

11. Hromada (1878), no. 2, p. 567.

12. V. G. Sokurenko, Demokraticbeskie uchemia o gosudarstve i prave na Ukraine . . . (Lvov, 1966), pp. 84-85.

13. Zaslavsky, p. 169; Sokurenko, p. 23. Soviet commentators, in general, overemphasize this point in an effort to connect Dragomanov with Marxism.

14. Zaslavsky, p. 34.

15. "Avtobiogtafiia," p. 185.

16. Ibid., p. 186.

17. Zaslavsky, p. 71.

18. Ibid., pp. 73, 75.

19. Dragomanov, "Avtogiografiia," p. 187.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., p. 189

22 Ibid [161]

23. " O pedagogicheskom znachenii malorusskogo iazyka," St. Petersburg vedomosti (1866), no. 93.

24. "Avtobiografiia," p. 190.

25. Istoricbeskiia pesni malorusskogo naroda, 2 vols. (Kiev, 1874-75). Later, Dragomanov continued the publication of historical and political songs without the collaboration of Antonovich. After Dragomanov's death, his studies on ethnology and folklore were collected and published in Ukrainian by the Shevchenko Society in Lvov.

26. "Avtobiografiia," p. 191.

27. Ibid., p. 192; Volodymyr Doroshenko, "The Life of Mikhaylo Drahomanov," A Symposium, p. 11. A critical examination of the centralist trend in the Russian revolutionary movement is in Dragomanov's Historical Poland and Great Russian Democracy, Geneva, 1882.

28. "Avtobiografiia," p. 195.

29. Vestnik Evropy (1872), nos. 2-5.

30. "Avtobiografiia," p. 194.

31. Ibid., p. 196.

32. Ibid., p. 26.

33. Ibid., p. 203.

34. Doroshenko, p. 13.

35. Ibid., p. 14.

36. Ibid.; "Avtobiografiia," pp. 201-202.

37. The Correspondence of M. Drabomanov (Lvov, 1901), p. 162, cited by M. Stakhiv in A Symposium, pp. 53-54.

38. Zaslavsky, p. 109.

39. Sokurenko, p. 26; Zaslavsky, p. 159.

40. Sokurenko, p. 26.

41. Dragomanov, "Peredn'e slovo do 'Hromadi'," Hromada (Geneva, 1878), no. 1, see especially pp. 60-80. He also pointed out the lack of interest among Russian socialists in regional developments and in propaganda conducted in native languages.

42. Dragomanov, "Istoricheskaia Polsha i velikorusskaia demokratiia." Sobrame politicheskikh socbinenii (Paris, 1905), 1:153-67.

43. Rudnitsky, "Drahomanov as a Political Theorist," A Symposium, p. 103.

44. Dragomanov, "Ist. Polsha," Sob. polit. soch., 1:145.

45. Ibid., pp. 218

46. Ibid., p. 213.

47. Ibid., pp. 214-15.

48. Ibid., p. 224.

49. Ibid., pp. 225-26.

50. Ibid., pp. 147-53

51. Ibid., p. 147.

52. Ibid., p. 172.

53. N. Zhukovsky, "Reformy i revolutsiia," Obshchina, no. 5; Akselrod's article "Perekhodnyi moment nashei partii," nos. 8-9 of Obschina, summarized the weaknesses of the Russian socialist movement of the 1870s. [162]

54. Dragomanov, Sobr. polit. soch., 1: 170.

55. M. P. Dragomanov: Politicheskiia sochineniia, ed. I. Greves and B. A. Kistiakovsky (Moscow, 1908), pp. 492, 494-95.

56. Dragomanov, "The Centralization of the Revolutionary Struggle in Russia," A Symposium, p. 191; Dragomanov's fears that centralization would bring about dictatorship was justified in 1917, when the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party actually became the government, and not "provisional" but permanent.

57. "Avtobiografiia," p. 204. For Dragomanov's analysis of terrorists' proclamations, see Listok Hromady, 1878, and his pamphlet, "Terrorism i svoboda" (Geneva, 1880).

58. Dragomanov, "Vnutrennee rabstvo i voina za osvobozhdenie" (Geneva, 1877).

59. Dragomanov, " 'Narodnaia Volia' o tsentralizatsii revolutsionnoi borby v Rossii." Volnoe slovo (1882), no. 37, translated in A Symposium, p. 186.

60. "Avtobiografiia," p. 263.

61. Lev Deich, "M. P. Dragomanov v izgnanii," Vestnik Evropy (1930), no. 10, pp. 206, 211.

62. O. S. Liubatovich, "Dalekoe i nedavnee," Byloe (May 1906), no. 5, pp. 228, 230-31.

63. Quoted in Zaslavsky, p. 160.

64. M. I. Veniukov, "Iz vospominanii M. I. Veniukova 1877-1884," Golos minuvshago (October 1922), no. 2, pp. 40-57.

65. V. L. Burtsev, Borba za svobodnuiu Rossiu. Moi vospominamia: 1882-1922 (Berlin, 1923), p. 65.

66. "Avtobiografiia," p. 204.

67. Ibid., p. 205 and fn. 1.

68. Dragomanov was a regular contributor from the start; from January 1883 (starting with no. 52) to May 1883 (no. 62) he was the editor. See Sokurenko, p. 32, fn. 46.

69. "Avtobiografiia," p. 206.

70. Ibid., p. 204; Sokurenko, p. 31.

71. Nancy Butler, "Volnoe slovo and the Zemstvo Union. Was Russian Liberalism Dead in 1881?," Canadian Slavic Papers (1974), vol. 16, no. 1, p. 35.

72. Dragomanov himself published a great many articles in the Free Word including the important series of political articles, "Historical Poland and Great Russian Democracy," in which he attacked centralism in the government and in the revolutionary movement. Among his best-known collaborators were P. B. Akselrod, a leading figure of the Black Partition group; I. N. Prisetsky, a well-known narodnik, later member of the Cadet party; and I. I. Petrunkevich, the liberal leader, who published one unsigned article on the zemstvos.

73. Volnoe slovo, no. 37, pp. 4-5.

74. "Obshchestvo 'Sviashchennoi Druzhiny'." (Otchetnaia zapiska za 1881-82 gg). Tsentrarkhiv RSFSR in Krasnyi arkbiv, vol. 2 (21), 1927, pp. 200-2t7, based on a MS. in the Vorontsov Archives; this document was probably intended for Alexander III. It describes the history, ideology, and achievements [163] of the society. The introduction is by P. A. Sadikov, pp. 200-203. See also the editorial on the Holy Brotherhood and the Voluntary Police in Volnoe slovo, July 15, 1882, no. 41.

75. V. Bogucharsky, "Konstitutsionnyi proekt grafa P. P. Shuvalova," Sovremennik (March 1913), no. 3, pp. 251-67.

76. The main disclosures were in V. Bogucharsky's Iz istorii politicheskoi borby v 70kb i 80kh gg XIX veka (Moscow, 1912), see pp. 268-386. B. Kistiakovsky disputed some of Bogucharsky's points and defended Dragomanov's motives in his memoirs, Stranitsy proshlogo (Moscow 1912), see especially pp. 102-104, 105-106, 118-20. Bogucharsky died in 1915. Subsequent investigations by Soviet and Western scholars, in general, support Bogucharsky's contentions. However, the question of Shuvalov's motives as well as the nature of the early zemstvo groups still remains shadowy. For a summary, see Butler, pp. 14-38.

77. V. L. Burtsev, Borba za svobodnuu Rossiu (Berlin, 1923), pp. 52, 65; Butler, p. 35.

78. S. Galai, "Early Russian Constitutionalism, 'Volnoe slovo' and the 'Zemstvo Union'. A Study in Deception." Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas (1974), band 22, heft 1, p. 55.

79. See for example, Volnoe slovo, no. 41 (July 1882) and no. 45 (September, 1882).

80. Volnoe slovo, nos. 46, 50.

81. Rogosin, p. 631, cf. note 20.

82. Zaslavsky, "Mikhail P. Dragomanov i 'Volnoe slovo'," Byloe (1924), nos. 27-28, p. 119.

83. The last double issue (61-62) printed an awkward announcement that publication was suspended indefinitely because of the difficulty of separating accumulated material and because the expected material from Russia did not arrive.

84. Dragomanov to Malshinsky, early in 1884, Zaslavsky, Byloe, (1924), nos. 27-28, p. 122.

85. Zaslavsky, Byloe, 1924, nos. 27-28, p. 122.

86. "Avtiobiografiia," p. 208.

87. Ibid., pp. 208-209; Doroshenko, "The Life of Mikhaylo Drahomanov," A Symposium, pp. 19-20.

88. Volnyi Soiuz-Vil'na Spilka (Geneva, 1884); Dragomanov, Sob. polit. soch., vol. 1; "Avtobiografiia," p. 209.

89. Dragomanov, "Ist. Polsha," Sob. polit. soch., 1: 84.

90. Ibid.

91. Sokurenko, pp. 90, 91-92.

92. Dragomanov, "Ist. Polsha," Sob. polit. soch., 1:124.

93. Dragomanov, Letters to Ivan Franko and Others (Lvov, 1906), 1:138-39.

94. Dragomanov, Sobranie sochinenii M. P. Dragomanova (Prague, 1937), p. 120, cited in A Symposium, p. 73.

95. Dragomanov, "Ist. Polsha," Sob. polit. soch., 1: 194-95.

96. Ibid., p. 259.

97. Ibid., p. 219.

98. Ibid., pp. 194-95.

[164]

99. Ibid., p. 125.

100. Ibid., pp. 128-29.

101. Ibid., p. 124.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid., p. 126.

104. See Dragomanov's introduction to his edition of Bakunin's letters to Herzen and Ogarev (St. Petersburg, 1906; reprinted by Mouton in 1968), pp. 43, 105-106.

105. Dragomanov, Hromada (1878), no. 2, p. 216.

106. Geneva, 1884; it is included in Dragomanov's Sobranie politicheskikh sochinenii (1905), t:275-375. A translation of the first part is in A Symposium, pp. 193-205.

107. "Volnyi Soiuz," Sob. polit. soch. 1:275-76.

108. The delegates from the Russian Ukraine disagreed with Dragomanov. They did not want to concentrate the work of the Free Union exclusively in the Ukraine, but were inclined to spread it throughout Russia. (Dragomanov, "Avtobiografiia," p. 297.) They were anxious to collaborate with the Russian narodovoltsy, whom Dragomanov considered morally reprehensible and dangerous because of the infiltration of their group by the agents provocateurs. (p. 207.)

109. These are the territorial units into which Russia was to be divided according to the Free Union plan ("Volnyi Soiuz," Sob. polit. soch., I:fn. 1, pp. 28t-82):
I . Northern (Archangel and Vologodsk provinces)
2. Lake (Olonets, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Novgorod, Tver)
3. The Baltic region (Estonia, some districts of Latvia; Vitebsk and Kurland provinces)
4. Lithuania (the Kovno Province north of Suvalki and the northwestern half of the Vilna province)
5. Poland (provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, including the former Holm district and the western districts of Grodno and Belostock)
6. Belorussia (parts of the provinces of Vitebsk, Smolensk, Mogilev, Minsk, and Grodno)
7. Polessie (parts of Sedlets and Liublin provinces; Grodno, Minsk and Volyn)
8. Kiev (the Kiev province, parts of Volyn, Chernigov and Poltava)
9. Odessa (Podolsk, Bessarabia and Kherson; parts of Ekaterinoslav and Taurida)
10. Kharkov (parts of Taurida, Ekaterinoslav and Poltava; the Kharkov province and parts of Kursk and Voronezh)
11. Moscow (parts of Kursk, Orlov, Tula, Kaluga, Smolensk; the Moscow and Riazan provinces)
12. Nizhni Novgorod (the Nizhni Novgorod province; laroslav, Kostroma and Vladimir)
13. Kazan (the Viatka and Kazan provinces; Simbirsk and parts of Samara province) [165]
14. The Urals (the Perm, Ufa and Orenburg provinces)
15. Saratov (parts of Voronezh province; the Saratov, Tambovsk and Penza provinces; parts of Samara and Astrakhan)
16. The Caucasus (the Trans-Caucasian and Stavropol provinces)
17. Western Siberia
18. Eastern Siberia
19. The Cossack territories (Don, Kuban, and Terek)
20. Central Asia (This territory, because of its recent acquisition, was to have a special administration with as much self-government as was possible.)

110. "VoInyi Soiuz," Sob. polit. soch., 1:281-83.

111. Ibid., p. 301.

112. Ibid., fn. 1, pp. 301, 302.

113. Ibid., p. 321.

114. Ibid., pp. 285, 287.

115. Ibid., p. 286.

116. Ibid., 1:287; 2:248.

117. Ibid., 1:344.

118. Ibid., 1:338-39.

119. Ibid., 341.

120. Burtsev, pp. 71-72.

121. Dragomanov, "Volnyi Soiuz," Sob. polit. soch. 1:344.

122. Liberalism i zemstvo (Geneva, 1889), contains the two articles: "Zemsky Liberalism v Rossii, 1859-1883" and "Samoderzhavie, mestnoe Samoupravlenie i nezavisimyi sud."

123. Doroshenko, "The Life of M. Drahomanov," A Symposium, pp. 22-23.

124. Kistiakovsky, Stranitsy proshlago (Moscow, 1912), p. 118.

125. Quoted in Zaslavsky, M. P. Dragomanov, p. 223.

126. Rudnitsky, "Drahomanov as a Political Theorist," A Symposium, p. 87.

127. The text of the address is in M. Pavlik's biography of Dragomanov (Lvov, 1896), pp. 86-87.

128. P. B. Struve, Osvobozbdenie, no. 72, p. 364. Ukrainian scholars, as the historian Dmytro Doroshenko, indicated, generally recognized Dragomanov's commanding influence on the development of the Ukrainian national movement in Russia and in Austria.

129. Dragomanov, "Ist. Polsha," 1:136-38

130. "Volnyi Soiuz," Sob. polit. soch. 1:350 fn.

131. Ibid., 1:351 fn., 343 fn.

132. Rudnitsky, "Drahomanov as a Political Theorist," A Symposium, p. 99.

133. The Ukrainian socialists started to organize independently of the Russian socialists in 1875 and printed their works in Vienna, Geneva, and Lvov; Polish socialists began to organize in 1878 and the Jewish socialists in the 1880s, in Geneva (Kistiakovsky, M. P. Dragomanov: Pol. soch. [1908], introduction, p. xxxii).

134. Zaslavsky, M. P. Dragomanov, pp. 226-27.

135. Sokurenko, pp. 140-41.