ЮРІЙ ГУЦА-ВЕНЕЛІН І ПОЧАТОК УКРАЇНСЬКО-РОСІЙСЬКОЇ ДИСКУСІЇ ПРО “ДВІ РОСІЙСЬКІ («РУССКИЕ») НАРОДНОСТІ”

Abstract

Background: For his short creative life Yuriy Venelin (his real name – Heorhiy Hutsa, 1802-1839) צ a native of the Ukrainian Transcarpathia, one of the founders of Slavistics in Russia, the first researcher of history and culture of the Bulgarians – wrote over 60 scientific works in history, ethnography, folklore studies, literature studies and linguistics of Slavic peoples. Purpose : The aim of a scientific research is to draw attention to that part of the scientific inheritage of Y. Hutsa-Veselin in which the vision of the idea of “two Russian nations” has been revealed as well as the understanding of the Russian-Ukrainian community and individuality. The views of Y.Hutsa-Venelin on these issues were formed under the influence of different factors: his origin, education including his studies at Lviv University, the Russian historiographic tradition, Romanticism ideas, first manifestations of modern Ukrainian nation germination, intellectual and private surroundings. Results : In a series of his works, Y. Venelin pointed to the ethnic community of “Northerners” (Great Russians, Russians) and “Southerners” (Little Russians, Ukrainians), although he noted considerable differences between them – in the language, song creativity, folk character, the territory of settlement. Analyzing the difference between “Northerners” and “Southerners”, the scientist identified himself with the latter: “I have the honor to belong to southern Russia by tribe and by birth ...”. Y. Venelin's attention was also attracted by an issue that has not been discussed in public yet - the dispute between the “northerners” and the “southerners” about which of them is more “Rus”, whom of them the Kyiv-Rus heritage belongs to. Although the researcher did not approve of this dispute, considering it to be harmful to both peoples, but his arguments indicate that he is on the side of the “southerners”. He had no doubt that the name “Rus” should also belong to “southerners”. In our opinion, Y. Venelin, a few decades earlier than M. Maksymoviych and M. Pohodin in their famous controversy (the second half of the 1850s) as well as M. Kostomarov in the articles published on the pages of the “Foundation” (early 1860s), began to formulate the idea of “two Russian nationalities”, emphasizing the linguistic and cultural individuality of the Ukrainians and Russians. Y. Venelin's views were an attempt to emancipate Ukrainian history and, at the same time, not completely break with the Russian-Ukrainian community. They fit in perfectly with the concept of so-called Little Russian identity, which, on the one hand, is a means of intellectual adaptation to the concept of multiple loyalties and identities peculiar to multinational states, and on the other hand, it is a transitional bridge to modern Ukrainian nationalism. Key words : Yuriy Hutsa-Venelin, “two Russian nationalities”, Russian-Ukrainian community, Russians (Great Russians), Ukrainians (Little Russians).