The Kyivan Academy and its Impact on the Establishment of Higher Education in Imperial Russia

by Ihor Cap

Learned Societies and Science Academies the world over were at the forefront of establishing and serving the higher learning needs of their citizens. Oxford   founded   England’s Royal  Society  in 1660. Six years later, Louis   XIV  and Colbert founded the French  Academy of Sciences (Donovan, 1990, p.13).  In the USA,  it  was  the Academy of  Natural Sciences of  Philadelphia, organized  in 1812,  that  first  gave encouragement  to scientific  investigation  (Sylvester,  1910).  The oldest Canadian  society  for the study  and promotion of science was  the  Royal  Society of Canada, which they established  in 1881 (Macnutt, 1967).  For Ukrainians, science and culture flourished under the leadership of academicians of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, which obtained its status as an Academy in 1658 (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_Mohyla_Academy ). Its impact on the establishment of higher learning and Ukrainian consciousness is certain. Its role in the establishment of higher education in Imperial Russia is also convincing.

Brotherhoods were schools in Ukraine that well served the rearing of national consciousness. They emerged in the late 16th and beginning of the 17th century.  The first Brotherhood school to appear was the Ostrozka (end of 1570s).   The L’vivska (1586), Kyivan (1615), and Lutsk (1624) brotherhood schools came later (Zastavny, 1994, p.43).  The Kyivan Mohyla Academy could be considered the first progressive centre of higher learning on Ukrainian lands. The  Archimandrite of  the Kyiv  Cave Monastery  and  later  the  Metropolitan of  Kyiv, Petro Mohyla, reorganized  the original  Academy  (Collegium)  in  1632,  but  was  based on  the  Kyivan  Brotherhood  School that originated in 1615.  In 1658, the Treaty of Hadiach elevates it to Academy status. A  “Rewarding Decree” was conferred  in  support of  the Kyivan Academy  in 1659  by  tsar  Alexei   Mykhailovych, and again in 1694 by  tsar  Peter I.   In 1701, it received a “Decree of Affirmation” from Tsar Peter I recognizing it as an Academy (Kortschmaryk, 1976).  The Polish Commonwealth  King, Vladislav IV,  issued  an  edict  giving this  institution  Collegium  status  in 1635, which  the edict of  1634 opposed earlier. Government and Jesuit circles feared losing their monopoly on higher learning (Yereniuk, 1997, p.7).   For  the Ukrainians, Petro Mohyla  left  them  with  an  important  legacy  - namely, the  principle  foundations of  the highest  intellectual  centre  for  the European  East  and  holy  Orthodox  see. According  to Professor  Ihor Shevchenko,  Mohyla  also ” . . .  strived  for  equality  for  his  nation  within the framework  of  the Polish Commonwealth”  (in Yereniuk, 1997, p.9).  Mohyla’s  Academy  provided  a  true  academic  alternative  to  the  unrestrained  Polonization  of  the  Ukrainian elite  and   postponed  its  Russification  for  at  least another 100 years (Yereniuk, 1997).

The  academicians of  the  Kyivan  Mohyla Academy  played  a  prominent  and  conclusive role  in  the  organization  and  development  of  Ukrainian  science  and  culture. Kyivan  science gradually spread  to all Eastern  Europe. Its  leadership  played  an  irrefutable  role  in  the  state of  Muscovy-Russia  for a  full century  especially  after  1654  and   reforming  the  Slavonic-Greco-Latin School in Moscow, i.e., an academy  (hereafter  the  Moscow  Academy)  since  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century.  The  curriculum, and  pedagogical  methods  applied  at  the Moscow Academy  were  modelled  after  the pro-Latin  school spirit  of   the  Kyivan  program  of  studies  (Hrushevsky,  1991; Kortschmaryk, 1976, p.45, 53).  The  Russian  historian  Ya  Grot  writes of  them, “In  the  middle of  the 17th  century  a  migration of  educated clergymen  began  from  Kiev  to Moscow,  and  thus  the gradual  grafting  of  Western   European  learning  concepts  and words  on  the  still  tree of  Great  Russian  life came  about”  (in Kortschmaryk, 1976, p.19).  Since  1701,  Kyivan   scholars at  the  Moscow  Academy  taught   in   the  hopes  of  giving  newly-founded  seminaries qualified  native teachers.  With  few exceptions, K.  Kharlampovich’s  detailed  research  shows  that   the  prefects   and  rectors  of   Kyivan  science “... headed  the  Moscow  Academy  and  were   its   directors  throughout  the  first  half  of  the 18th century”  (in Kortschmaryk, 1976,  p. 47).Moreover,  only   three  students  were  Russian  among  the  thirty-four  philosophy  students  in  the  newly-reorganized  Moscow  Academy  for  the  year  1704.  Former students of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy dominated the classrooms.  By  1708,  the  Muscovite tsar  Peter  I  issued  a  decree  compelling  recalcitrant  Russian  youth  to study  or  be  prohibited  from  work  in  any  profession   except  the   military.   In  1726, not  one  native  student  from  the  surrounding  dioceses and seminaries  was  sent  to  the Moscow Academy.    Consequently,  the number of graduates   in 1727 was no larger than twelve.  Six of these were former Kyivan Academy students.  In  1735,  the  Moscow  Academy  was  unable  to send  the  twenty  students  required  by   the  Petersburg  Academy of  Science established just ten years before. They sent only twelve. It  became   the  primary  supplier  of  qualified  members   for the Petersburg  Academy  of  Science because  it  was  the only  higher  education institution available  in  the  entire  state  of  Muscovy (Russia). Nonetheless, the  limited  number  and  quality  of  local  students  compelled  the Muscovite  government  to rely  on  qualified  students and  teachers  from  Kyiv.  According  to  Professor  M. I. Petrov’s  calculations,  between  1721 and  1750,  one   hundred  and  twenty-five  Kyiv Academy  students  taught  at   various  Muscovite  ‘seminaries.’  They called them seminaries although only three of the twenty-five newly established and reorganized seminaries offered theological instruction during this period.  The urgency of a more enlightened cadre of pupils emboldened by an  ecumenical curriculum also compelled the Muscovite Church to staff most Moscow bishoprics with Kyivan representatives (Kortschmaryk, 1976).  The  Kyivan-Latin  approach  to higher learning  was  exported  north  to Muscovy,  where  it  became  the  foundation  to all  the Russian  Academies  up to the  times of Catherine II. Many learned Ukrainians facilitated this. They sent them  north,  often  unwillingly, “ . . .  to  build  the  Imperial Russian  state  and  church  (e.g.,  Stepan Yavorsky, Teophan  Prokopovych  and  others),” observed  Dr. Yereniuk (1997, p.9). 

Serhii Plokhy (2008, p.35), the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, summarized the Ukrainian contribution to the imperial polity of 18th century Russia in these words:

   Throughout the eighteenth century, the alumni of the Kyivan Academy continued to transmit Western ideas and play an important part in the affairs of state and church – roles they had assumed under Peter I. Between 1754 and 1768 alone, more than three hundred students and alumni of the Kyivan Academy moved to Russia. The Latin that they learned at the academy prepared them well for classes in medicine. Thus, in the eighteenth century there were twice as many Ukrainian doctors in the empire as Russian ones. In the last two decades of the century, more than one third of the students at the St. Petersburg teachers’ college came from Ukraine.³ By some estimates, Ukrainians accounted for half the non-noble intelligentsia in the eighteenth-century Russian Empire. ⁴ 
   The peak of Ukrainian influence in the empire occurred during the rule of Elizabeth, when Oleksii Rozumovsky, the son of a rank-and-file Cossack from the Hetmanate, became the empress’s husband. At that time, all Russian eparchies except one were administered by Kyivans.⁵ 

This brief, albeit concise historical survey of the Kyivan Academy alumni’s role in the formation of Russian higher education and reception of a European curriculum and political culture shows that they were an indispensable element of the imperial polity. “Ukrainians emerged as the most active builders of the imperial ideology, institutions, and state apparatus, but they were also among the principal victims of the new imperial project,” concludes the Harvard scholar (Plokhy, 2008, p.34). Retrospectively, the  Russian  Academies and  seminaries  across  the  Muscovite  Empire  owed  their  existence  to the  work  of  Ukrainian  scientific and cultural  forces assembled at the Kyiv  Mohyla Academy.

Author: Ihor Cap, Ph.D. Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Canada

References

Donovan, F.J. (1990). “Scientific and  Technical  Education:  An  Historical  International Perspective.”  Journal of  Studies  in  Technical Careers.  Vol. 12(1) 9-16.

Hrushevsky, M. (1991).Mykhailo   Hrushevsky  pro  ukrainsku  movu  I  ukrainsku  shkolu. (Mykhailo Hrushevsky  about  the Ukrainian  language and   Ukrainian  school). First printed in 1913. (2nd printing).  Kyiv.: Veselka Publishers. (pp.23-24).

Kortschmaryk, B. F. (1976). The  Kievan  Academy  and  its  role  in  the  organization  of  education  in  Russia  at  the  turn  of  the seventeenth   century.  New York:  Published  by  the Shevchenko Scientific Society, Inc.

Macnutt. S. W. (1967). “The  1880s” The Canadians 1867-1967. Edited  by  J.M.S. Careless  and R.Craig  Brown. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited. p.75

Plokhy, S. (2008). Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the past. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.

Sylvester, H.C. (1910). (Editor in Chief).  The  New  Practical  Reference  Library.   William   F.  Rocheleau  (Associate Editor), Kenneth  L.M. Pray., Anna  McCaleb., Helga  M. Leburg., and  Albertus  V. Smith (Assistant Editors)., Vol. I, New York: The Dixon-Hanson Company.

Yereniuk, R. (1997). “Reformy Mytropolyta Petra Mohyly u sferi vyshchoi osvity v pershiy polovyni XVII stolittia.”  (“The reforms of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla in the sphere of higher education of the first half  of the XVII century.”) Ukrainian Voice, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Trident Press Ltd., Monday, January 6, 1997, Vol. LXXXVII(1):6-9.

Zastavny,  F. D.  (1994). Heohrafia  Ukrainy:  u  dvokh  knyhakh.  (Geography   of   Ukraine: In  two  books)  L’viv: Svit  Publishers.

Internet Reference

National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_Mohyla_Academy.  (Regarding the 1658 Hadiach agreement)