SUMMARY

In his essay, Hennadii Korolev analyzes the multiplicity of historiographical approaches toward the legacy of the Ukrainian revolutionary era. He demonstrates that these diverse representations are rooted in memoirs and historical texts written in the immediate aftermath of the revolution by its participants. These individuals, Ukrainian émigré politicians, interpreted Ukraine’s failure to become a full-fledged autonomous nation-state based on their respective ideological convictions. In Soviet Ukraine, however, the theme of the Ukrainian revolution as a phenomenon in its own right was marginalized. Nevertheless, Korolev argues, the legacy of Soviet historiography is still tangible to this day, since the majority of studies of the revolutionary era produced in Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been written in opposition to the Soviet ideological paradigm. The author compares various contemporary historiographical approaches to the revolution and points out their common shortcomings, first of all, a methodological bias toward political history and a geographical one toward events in Central Ukraine and Kyiv in particular. He concludes by calling for a reassessment of traditional myths, and outlines some promising directions for future research, such as studying the revolution in the politics of memory context and postcolonial paradigm, which would allow for a departure from ethnic biases and oversimplifications.