July 28, 2025

The Emergence and Formation of Ukrainianophilism during the Reign of Nicholas I

Key Points

Ukrainophilism emerged in the 1840s as an early form of ukrainian nationalism, challenging the russian empire.
The core ideas stemmed from the cyrillo-methodian brotherhood, including Nikolai Kostomarov and Taras Shevchenko.
The movement promoted an artificial language and a falsified history to establish a separate ukrainian identity.
Subsequent forms of ukrainian nationalism relied on these foundational political technologies for their development.

Abstract

In the article the author analyzes Ukrainophilism, - an early form of Ukrainian nationalism, that emerged in the 1840s under the influence of Polish nationalism, which sought to revive the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and was interested in creating a separatist movement to weaken the Russian Empire. The article focuses on the ideas of the so-called “Cyrillo-Methodian Brotherhood”, a secret political circle that included prominent figures of early Ukrainophilism, such as Nikolai Kostomarov, Taras Shevchenko and Pavlo Kulish. They developed basic nationalist political technologies: the creation of an artificial language and the Russophobic falsification of Russian history, which were intended to prove the existence from ancient times of separate people that were different from the Russians. All subsequent versions of Ukrainian nationalism were based on those technologies.

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