Student Academic Union of Kyiv Commercial Institute of the beginning at the 20th century

Abstract

The aim of the article is to explore the reasons and the essence of pro-government sympathies in the student surrounding in the Ukrainian lands at the beginning of the 20th century, when they were a part of the Russian Empire. The article is based on the analysis of the statute and biographies of the members of the student Academic Union in Kyiv Commercial Institute; to identify factual material to supplement the reconstruction of the history of students in Ukraine in the early XX century, in particular the daily life of students and their corporate consciousness. Research methods are synthesis of general scientific (analysis, objectivity, synthesis, generalization) and special scientific (historical-genetic, historical-systemic, comparative, prosopographical) methods. The main result is the introduction of a set of archival documents related to the student Academic Union and its members to the scientific circulation. This allowed to characterize the representatives of the youth of that time, who were included into the academic movement, and to analyze their paths in the student years. In particular, it was found that representatives of the titular ethnic group of the empire were mainly included into the academic movements. But other nationalities, who were active, also were involved in it. The vast majority of participants of the academic movement were characterized as those who had high ambitions and unsatisfactory financial situation. Accordingly, they joined this movement with purely pragmatic purpose, and it was testified by the circumstances of World War I, when the vast majority of such individuals used all possibilities to avoid mobilization. This discrepancy between the number and the real percentage of sincere adherents of the imperial power in pro-government organizations in general partly explains the latter's inflated calculations on the impossibility of the emergence of powerful internal protest movements. The other reason is ignoring the thought of the masses by the Russian Empire government. The practical importance is to create a scheme for further research of pro-government movements in modern Ukraine. Also, it can help to develop approaches to detect appropriate manipulations in information space and fight with them effectively. The originality is due to the intensification of the theme of the fifth column in national history. The type of article is empirical.