STANISLAV DNISTRYANSKYI AND LVIV UNIVERSITY: THE PROSOPOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to depict Professor Stanislav Dnistryanskyi’s scientific and public activity during his work at Lviv University and the Austrian Parliament, to determine the conceptual provisions substantiated by the scientist concerning the Ukrainian society’s national state and historical legal perspectives. The methodology of the research is based on the general historical principles of systematization, scientific objectivity; the principles of historical and legal research and socio-historical methods (problem historical, historical systemic, problem chronological, historicaltypological, etc.) were introduced into the scientific circulation. The scientific novelty is that for the first time a systematic work was done and dedicated to S. Dnistryanskyi’s activities at Lviv University on the background of the major social events in Galicia at the end of the XIXth – at the beginning of the XXth century. The Professor’s participation in the Ukrainian struggle for the national university in Lviv is considered to be a separate scientific direction in the work. S. Dnistryanskyi’s work has been presented in the State Council in Vienna in 1907 – 1918 and its relation to the main Galicia social problems of the studied time has been shown. The scientist’s conceptual positions concerning the Ukrainian people’s national policy and law, national self-determination, national-state prospects have been determined. The study expands the Ukrainian scientists’ prosopography, whose careers have been connected with Lviv University. The Conclusions. S. Dnistryanskyi’s activity was connected with Lviv University, where he was formed as a scientist and public figure, and the scientist’s scientific work was implemented at the Department of Austrian Civil Law with the Ukrainian as the language of instruction, where he organized lectures and legal seminars on Civil and Constitutional law, expanded and created the Ukrainian legal terminology; defended the Ukrainian language rights in the educational process, based on the principles of the “Basic Austrian Law…”; together with M. Hrushevskyi, S. Rudnytskyi and the others joined the movement for a Ukrainian university in Lviv. Furthermore, S. Dnistryanskyi combined work at the department with work at the T. Schevchenko Scientific Society (SSS), publishing activities, the Ukrainian lawyers’ structures creation. During 1907 – 1918 he was an Austrian Parliament member, without leaving the work at the department. In the State Council S. Dnistryanskyi defended not only the Ukrainian university opening issue but also the other Ukrainian society’s nagging problems at that time: the preparation and the elections’ holding to the Austrian Parliament and the Galician Sejm; the national issue; the census in Galicia; the land reform and forest lands economic problems. During this period, the scientist introduced into the scientific circulation the theoretical and methodological principles of statistical research; the historical and legal bases of the policy and the norms of law; the historical bases of the Ukrainian people’s self-determination and its national state prospects. S. Dnistryansky’s activity study expanded the Ukrainian scientific prosopography of Lviv at the end of the XIXth – at the beginning of the XXth century.