Myron Korduba and the Archeographic Commission of the NTSh: cooperation in the early XX-th century

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to find out the features of M. Kordub’s cooperation with the Archeographical Commission of the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society (AK NTSh) at the beginning of the 20th century. The formation of the Korduba-Archaeologist occurred under the influence of M. Hrushevsky. The initiative of his teacher was an immediate impetus for the archaeological searches of a young scientist to publish the sources of the Ukrainian Cossacks, which were identified as a priority direction created in January 1896 by the Archeographical Commission of the NTSh. Including the long-term M. Korduba’s interest in the Ukrainian Cossacks and the already considerable source material he had gathered, M. Hrushevsky identified the student’s task to find, process and publish the documents which were covering the Khmelnytsky era. The peculiarity of M. Kordub’s collaboration with AK NTSh was that, unlike the other colleagues at the school of Lviv, for a long time he did not formalize his participation in the project of the Cossack archeology, being in the role of a guest lecturer. Another important feature was that, when he was working as a professor at a gymnasium in Chernivtsi, M. Korduba didn’t have the possibility of direct contact with the teacher to discuss the various aspects of the realized project. This discussion took place in writing, which gives us an unique opportunity to look into the creative laboratory as a whole project of the Cossack archaeography, and, more importantly, to recreate the process of becoming Korduba-Archaeologist. As a result of the painstaking study of the Viennese, Lviv and Moscow archives, during the first half of 1908 M. Korduba made arrangements and proposed his project to AK NTSh as another part of the archeographic series «Zherela to the History of Ukraine-Rus».