SUMMARY:

Success or failure of Ukrainian nation-building within the Russian Empire largely depended on whether Ukrainians and Ukrainophiles would succeed in developing Ukrainian as a standard language, whereas Russians and Russophiles would try to hinder it. A central issue was the question whether the printing of a bible in Ukrainian could be the next step after the translation of the holy scripture into Russian. This contribution is the first to show the entire competition of the forces struggling for and against the printing of a Ukrainian bible translation – a conflict that lasted half a century. It becomes evident that the society’s general tensions within the Russian Empire forced the government to give way in 1904; however, Ukrainophile forces had layed the foundations for the breakthrough before.
The ban on the Ukrainian bible in mid 19th century started the rigid imperial politics of language, its cancellation decisively helped the development of the Ukrainian national movement. The story of the Ukrainian bible translation underlines more than anything else the significance of language for the emancipation of non-dominant ethnies. At the same time however, it is pleaded not to classify forced russification of the late tsarist government and church administration towards the Ukrainian speaking population directly as “Imperial History”. Rather, it should be seen against the background of the project of the Great-Russian-Nation. The imperial viewpoint played a role for Russians and Russophiles in so far as they feared a Polish-Ukrainian interaction, in particular after the uprising in January 1863; the behaviour of the imperial centre towards other nationalities also served as important reference for Ukrainophiles in order to demand a bible in mother tongue for the Ukrainian speaking population as well. However, the project of the Great-Russian-Nation shows clearly that Russian-Ukrainian relations have to be seen as a special relationship, as the history of two mutual exclusive projects of nation-building within the framework of the Russian empire.