Pavlo Halahan Collegium in Andronyk Stepovych’s memoirs

Abstract

The authors of the article examine the memoirs of the Slavic philologist and pedagogue Andronyk Stepovych (1856/1857–1935), dedicated to the history of the Pavlo Halahan Collegium in Kyiv. The aim of the study is a comparative analysis of several memoirs by A. Stepovych, united by the theme of the Collegium in the realities of the socio-political life of Kyiv in the author’s youth – the 70s of the 19th century. The scientific novelty of the publication lies in the comprehensive characterization of sources that have not yet been fully introduced into scientific circulation. For the historical and contextual analysis of the memoirs, the documents from the Halahan archive related to them in terms of their subject matter were used. The sources were processed using the methods of problematic chronology and historical comparative studies. The memoirs are examined in accordance with two periods of A. Stepovych’s activity in studying the history of the educational institution and the biography of its founder, Hryhorii Halahan: the 1890s, 1900s, and 1920s. The thematic and conceptual connection between these stages is determined. To do this, the authors compare A. Stepovych’s memoirs with his texts on the history of the Collegium and the documents he published as an archaeographer. Two texts, conditionally dated from the 1900s to the 1920s, are analyzed textually. These are a fragmented description of the events of A. Stepovych’s last year of study at the Collegium and a memoir “From the First Years of the Pavlo Halahan Collegium”. These memoirs contain facts that illustrate the challenges that the educational institution faced in the first years of its existence. The author has determined how these memoirs cover issues that were very important to A. Stepovych, such as the pedagogical concept of the institution, the peculiarities of the educational process, the intellectual atmosphere, etc. These texts are compared in terms of topics and issues with other memoirs by A. Stepovych created during the 1920s. These are “From Memories of the ‘Stara Hromada’” and “From the Student Moods of the 70s”. The conclusion is made about the conceptual meaning of A. Stepovych’s memoirs. The texts create a positive image of the institution and its founders and trustees, Hryhorii and Kateryna Halahan. This is in line with the author’s efforts to study the history of the Pavlo Halahan Collegium. They also indicate that in the intellectual and ideological situation of the 1920s, A. Stepovych sought to include the heritage of the Collegium in the national narrative. He positioned the institution as a progressive school that did not stand aside from the Ukrainian national movement. In other words, the memoirs deepen the historiographical concept of A. Stepovych’s other studies on the topic of the Collegium.