Local knowledge and amateur participation. Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1892–1914

This article discusses the possibilities which amateur participation offered to the young Shevchenko Scientific Society – limited to the description of the activities of this Society in the years 1892–1914. The Society intended to develop rapidly into an academy of sciences in the Ukrainian language, but lacked the necessary resources. The existing network of Ukrainian associations in Eastern Galicia, which contributed to the development of scientific exchange, was helpful in achieving that status. Before looking into the details of research agendas, the possibilities to use concepts of citizen science are measured for the context of the late 19th and the early 20th century. The relation between ‘scientists’ and ‘amateurs’ is problematized on the basis of biographical examples of engaged scientists and activists, especially Volodymyr Hnatiuk from the Ethnographic Commission and Stanislav Dnistriansky from the Statistical Commission. In order to understand the specific relations of Hnatiuk to his network of folklore collectors, their projects, aims and possibilities, Hnatiuk’s research is contrasted with the statistical surveys initiated by Dnistrians’kyĭ. Based on their archival documentation and published sources, these research projects are analyzed together with the different circumstances between the poles of “national science” and “local knowledge”. The article suggests that Ukrainian amateur researchers contributed intensely to the nation- and region-building in the multinational Empire.