GEOGRAPHY OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE OF UKRAINE (UkrSSR) AS ASSESSED BY PROF. MYRON KORDUBA
Authors: RUDENKO Valerii , BARAN Liviia 
Published: November 2022

Professor Myron Korduba’s (1876 – 1947) creative contribution into geography of science and culture of Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (UkrSSR) from the day of its formation and until the 1930s is disclosed. Development and allocation of scientific establishments of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, as well as the same of the republican archives, museums and libraries was highlighted through Prof. M. Korduba’s eye. Preconditions and details of accelerated growth of Ukrainian scientific movement at the beginning of post-revolution time in Ukrainian SSR are cleared up, as well as territorial specificities for the same are presented, namely, the availability of scientific Ukrainian associations outside the borders of Russia; a significant number of outstanding Ukrainian scientists in the Tsarist Russia itself; participation of representatives of different- ethnicity authors living on the territory of Ukraine in Ukrainian-language publications Three stages in brief history of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences are outlined and characterized as follows: 1918-1923 – the stage of formation; 1923-the last quarter of 1930 – full-scale development; and, the end of 1930 – the period of persecution and repressions of the members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; consolidation of “communist” science on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology. 

The activity of three departments within the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences is highlighted, namely, I. Historic-Philosophic; II. Physic-Mathematic; and, III. Social-Economic. Each of these had its own sections and boards to prepare a series or even several series of publications. Among the most distinctive collections of expressly geographical content, Myron Korduba outlined the “Historic-Geographic Series (1927; 4 volumes edited by the Board for Compilation of Geographical Dictionary of Ukraine); “Materials of the Seminar for the Study of National Economy of Ukraine” (from 1926),  “Writings of Demographic Institute” (from 1924), “Transactions of Social-Economic Department of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences” (from 1923, 6 volumes), “Collection of  Works by Social-Economic Department of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences” (from 1925, 35 issues).

An essential portion of attention was given by Prof. Myron Korduba to institutes, associations and establishments affiliated and closely connected with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Among these, there was National Library of Ukraine in Kyiv, Institute for Ukrainian Scientific Language, Kyiv and Odesa Boards for Regional Studies.

The scientist had assessed the activity of 52 self-employed scientific departments, institutes and associations close to Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The most important of them, to Prof. Myron Korsuba’s opinion, was the group of institutes for public education that published their “Writings”, i.e., Volyns’kyy in Zhytomyr, those in Dnipropetrovs’k, Kamyanets’-Podil’skyy, Kyiv, Luhansk, Nizhyn, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kherson.

Of great importance and interest is the scientist’s information on archiving in Ukrainian SSR as of the beginning of the 1930s. Prof. Korduba distinguished between three classes of archives in the republic, namely, 1. Central; 2. Land (oblast); and 3. District (rayon) archives, and presented the map of territorial disposition of the same in the Soviet republic.

Specificities of territorial organization of 95 republican museums are disclosed, where 19 were national-level museums, 54 – regional and district, 6 were associated with the Academy of Sciences and the Commissariat for Public Education, and 15 – with the other establishments.

Myron Korduba brought special thoroughness to assessment of heritage available in 28 libraries of Ukrainian SSR. In particular, the scientist scrupulously characterized territorial differences in librarian funds and the number of visitors, while his analysis of bibliographic editions and of bibliographical science of is a unique study of the achievements of the Ukrainian Soviet republic.

Prof. Myron Korduba’s assessment of the development of science and culture in the Ukrainian SSR is presented with a breakdown into every rayon of the republic and bears an expressly geographic aspect. 

Key words: Professor Myron Korduba, geography of science and culture of UkrSSR, “Minerva-Zeitschrift”.