FRIENDS OR ANTAGONISTS: PAGES FROM THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IVAN FRANKO AND MYKHAILO HRUSHEVSKY

Abstract

Purpose. The article discusses the relationship between Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Hrushevsky when the publication of the Literary and Scientific Herald was moved from Lviv to Kyiv and the writer was left without his main source of income. Clarifying the details of this matter requires special attention, as some eyewitnesses considered the relevant decision of the Shevchenko Scientific Society to be almost the main cause of Franko's mental and emotional crisis.

Research methods and methodology. The research strategy is determined by the specifics of the research topic and is subordinated to the implementation of its goals and specific tasks, which required a comprehensive approach. As a result, elements of biographical and philological methods were used, as well as the heuristic potential of comparative studies and the achievements of psychological schools. 

Results. In the course of scientific research, it was found that the assumption of Hrushevsky's involvement is not without foundation, since he was often noted for his authoritarian and violent methods of management, was an arrogant and conceited person, and the magazines he edited directly became the printing organs of the editor-in-chief. Because of this, psychological trauma was inevitable in the process of collaboration. However, to attribute the aetiology of Frank's illness solely to the nature of his relationship with his patron seems exaggeratedly subjective — even if we take into account only the ‘Hrushevsky complex,’ because the conflicts at the newspaper were compounded by the vicissitudes associated with the publication of ‘An Outline of the History of Ukrainian-Russian Literature until 1890.’ At the same time, certain aspects of his relationship with Kyiv intellectuals became tense, leading to new nervous and psychological exacerbations. Therefore, the escalation of relations with Mykhailo Hrushevsky could only exacerbate the nosological symptoms, but was not the decisive determining factor in the illness. Ivan Franko himself acknowledged that his illness was complex in nature, i.e., it was highly complex and difficult to understand, which means that it was caused by a whole system of factors, among which the main role was obviously played by factors of endogenous origin, while ‘external’ phenomena and processes, including his relationship with Hrushevsky, shaped certain conditions for their development and influenced the dynamics of the disease in one way or another.