Docenione Księstwa Halickie i Halicko-Włodzimierskie. Kształty ukraińskiej państwowości w średniowieczu: Stefan Tomaszewski (Stepan Tomasziwski)
Appreciated Principalities of Halych and Halych-Vladimir. Shapes of Ukrainian Statehood in the Middle Ages: Stepan Tomashivsky

Summary/Abstract: When during the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century European non-dominant ethnic groups were transformed into nations, native history was one of the pillars that lay solid foundations for this transition. Professional historians giving lectures on the indigenous past became the makers of historical nation-state identity. Early Medieval period played considerable part in this process. Apart from cognitive function, it also proved the historicity of the community and its historical, or even spiritual, rights to the lands they inhabited. For the Ukrainian nation (term commonly used since the end of the second decade of the twentieth century) the situation was highly complicated because it was shaped in various circumstances, that is under the reign of the Romanov and Habsburg dynasties. In two centres of the development of historical reflection (Kiev and Lviv), scholars looked quite differently on the origins of the Ukrainian state, but it was Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s – a professor at Lviv University (1894–1914) – view that became dominant. In his opinion, the Grand Principality of Kiev (ninth to twelfth century) was the first Ukrainian state. In 1919, Stepan Tomashivsky developed an idea that became representative for the Lviv school of history – the first Ukrainian state organism was the Principality of Halych (twelfth century) and the first completely formed, sovereign Ukrainian state – the Principality of Halych-Vladimir (thirteenth to fourteenth century). According to Hrushevsky, the former of these was just a Grand Principality of Kiev’s march, while the latter was its imperfect continuation.

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