Ivan Franko and Ukrainian Identity Discussed in Eleventh Petryshyn Lecture

April 19, 2004

If an individual life can reflect a nation’s history then Ivan Franko’s biography is the case in point. His influence on the formation of Ukrainian identity was unparallel, his life story as thinker, man of letters, and political activist like, no other, exemplifies Ukraine’s intellectual history in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Thus argued Yaroslav Hrytsak in his presentation entitled "A Ruthenian Peasant in a German Outfit: Ivan Franko and the Making of Ukrainian Identity,” given within the annual Vasyl and Maria Petryshyn Memorial Lecture Series on April 19, 2004.

Yaroslav Hrytsak, professor and director of the Institute for Historical Research at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine.

He is a leading scholar of the history of modern Ukraine and Ukrainian-Jewish relations, as well as the history of Austrian Galicia and Eastern Europe. He has written widely on modern intellectual history and nationalism. Recent publications include Narys istorii Ukrainy (Survey of Ukrainian History, 1996 and 2000) and Historia Ukrainy 1772-1990 (The History of Ukraine, 2000).

Hrytsak earned his doctorate in history from Lviv State University in 1987, and his doctor habilitatis degree from the Institute of Archeography of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in 1996.

Hrytsak has held appointments as guest lecturer at Harvard University, Columbia University, the Central European University, the New School University, the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna; the University of Tubingen, and most recently at the University of Cambridge.