No, not ours Hryhorii!

Abstract

The article analyzes the figure of Hryhorii Kupchanko, the Bukovynian ethnographer, journalist, publisher, and public figure. The author dwelled on some aspects of his biography, publishing, and journalistic activities, scientific research in ethnography, local history, and history that were unknown to the public. It is noted that H. Kupchanko quite often submitted false information about himself, which caused a lot of errors in the work of his researchers in the memoirs and autobiography. The source base of research was rather narrow. Major attention is paid to understanding the changes in the social and political views of H. Kupchanko, his evolution from old Russophilia to radical Moscophilia, as well as propaganda activities. The article confirms that since the late 1880s H. Kupchanko moved to the positions of the most consistent supporters of the Russian idea, in his numerous newspaper articles, brochures, he sought to impose Russian identity on the Rusyns of Bukovyna, Galicia and Transcarpathia, to convince them that they were the part of the «single Russian people», and that their language was a Great Russian dialect. This is evidenced by his numerous publications in the newspapers Russka Pravda, Prosvieshchieniye, various brochures, which were published in mass circulation and distributed free of charge to peasants of the Western Ukraine lands. The desire to justify H. Kupchanko by the fact that he made a certain contribution to the study of the customs, rituals, folklore of the Rusyns of Bukovyna and seems to be only a Russophile and not a radical Moscophile, does not hold waterand is refuted by numerous facts on his public and propaganda activities.

Keywords

• Hryhorii Kupchanko
• Bukovyna
• Galicia
• Austro-Hungary
• Moscophilia
• old Russophilia