1. Mykhailo Drahomanov's uncle, Yakiv Drahomanov, was a member of the Society of United Slavs and a sympathiser of the Decembrists.
18 Facts About Mykhailo Drahomanov
1. 2.
Mykhailo Drahomanov became an avid learner, enrolling at the Poltava Classical Gymnasium in 1853, where he was exposed to the works of the socialist Alexander Herzen and the historian Friedrich Schlosser.
3.
In 1859, Mykhailo Drahomanov enrolled in the University of Kyiv, where he studied history.
4.
Mykhailo Drahomanov quickly joined a radical student circle that participated in the early stages of the "Going to the People" campaign, establishing some of the first folk high school in Ukraine, before their suppression by the Russian government in 1862.
5.
Mykhailo Drahomanov was present during the transfer of Taras Shevchenko's remains from Saint Petersburg to Kaniv in 1861, giving a speech over his coffin when the funeral train stopped in Kyiv.
6.
From his studies of ancient history, Mykhailo Drahomanov's interests shifted towards Slavic history, particularly concentrating on folklore.
7.
In 1870, when Mykhailo Drahomanov defended his master's thesis about Tacitus and was nominated by the university council to become an assistant professor, his appointment was initially blocked by Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, which prevented him from receiving funds during his scholarly trip abroad.
8.
Mykhailo Drahomanov's travels took him first to Germany, where he witnessed the Franco-Prussian War, attended lectures by Theodor Mommsen and studied the Slavic cultural movement in Lusatia.
9.
In September 1873, Mykhailo Drahomanov arrived back in Kyiv, where he was finally appointed as an assistant professor for the university and joined the Ukrainian section of the Russian Geographical Society, with which he published his collections of Ukrainian folklore and folk music.
10.
In May 1875, the local curator requested Mykhailo Drahomanov resign from the university, due to the allegations of separatism.
11.
Mykhailo Drahomanov's influence helped to stimulate political life in Galicia, especially through his articles in the student newspaper Druh, which formed the nucleus of what would become the Ukrainian Radical Party.
12.
In 1889, while working on a history of Ukrainian literature, Mykhailo Drahomanov was invited by the government of Bulgaria to teach history for three years at the University of Sofia, providing him with financial security.
13.
Mykhailo Drahomanov's continuing radical journalism made enemies of the Polish nobility in Galicia, the Tsarist autocracy in Russia, which each accused him of being an agent for the other.
14.
On 20 June 1895, Mykhailo Drahomanov died shortly after giving a lecture at the University of Sofia.
15.
Several members of Mykhailo Drahomanov's family were relevant in their own right.
16.
Mykhailo Drahomanov spearheaded the development of independent Ukrainian political organisations in Galicia, the first of which was established in 1875 by his followers, but this was quickly suppressed by the imperial authorities.
17.
Mykhailo Drahomanov was not as influential in Dnieper Ukraine, which only attained freedom of association after the 1905 Revolution.
18.
Two eastern Ukrainian parties that adopted Mykhailo Drahomanov's program were the Socialist-Federalist Party and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which came to hold a strong influence in Ukraine following the 1917 Revolution.