APOLOGIA OF FACT IN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY WORKS OF MYKHAILO MUKHYN

Abstract

Mykhailo Mukhyn (1894‒1974) as a public and political figure, literary critic and writer is, on the one hand, almost lost among the ukrainian intellectuals of XX century, while on the other hand, is potentially impossible to disregard. M. Mukhyn wrote for The Ukrainian Student (Ukrainskyi Student, Prague, 1923-1924), Society – La Société (Suspilstvo - La Société, Prague, 1925-1926), Student Bulletin (Studentskyi Visnyk, Prague, 1928, 1930-1931), Literature and Science Bulletin (Literaturno - naukovyi visnyk), later known as The Bulletin (Visnyk) edited by D. Dontsow (Lviv, 1928 - 1934. 1949), worked in the publishing house Proboem (Prague, 1939-1943), and published his works in Free Cossacs (Volne Kazachestvo, Prague, 1927), Our Community (Nasha Hromada, Podebrady, 1924-1926), New Ukraine (Nova Ukraina, Prague, 1923- 1927), Booklover (Knyholiub, Prague, 1928-1931), Free Thought (Samostiina Dumka, Chernivtsi, 1935-1936), Scientific Journal of Ukrainian Research Institute in the USA (Saint Paul – Prague, 1939), Tower (Vezha) (1947-1948), Liberation Path (Vyzvolnyi Shliakh, London, 1963) etc.

Scientific, journalistic, cultural and literary works of Mykhailo Mukhyn are characterized by a Ukrainian-centric nation-building focus, reinforced by in-depth historical, political, ideological and psychological justifications, as well as thorough and versatile factual argumentation with the use of several confirming sources. This distinctive feature can be observed throughout all periods of the author’s work: the years of the Ukrainian national revolution; the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people in 1917-1921; and during his first (First Czechoslovak Republic: Praha, Podebrady, Uzhgorod) and second emigrations (Germany).

The experience of state-building efforts, despite their dramatic outcome, left a profound impression on Mykhailo Mukhin, becoming a key factor in his constant search for the causes of failure and the ways to implement national policies and ideologies in both the present and future.

Evhen Malaniuk, in characterizing the generation of Ukrainian intellectuals whose life experience is connected with the defeat of the fight for Ukraine’s liberation, in his article, Delayed Generation, notes: “From that group of “pleiada” as they once said, I think that only Yuriy Darahan and Oleksa Stefanovych were born poets. And the somewhat older Mykhailo Mukhyn was born a critic and literary historian.