У статті йдеться про передумови виникнення української академічної гуманітаристики й
розвиток вітчизняного літературознавства в 1918 – 1920-і рр. До вагомих наукових здобутків
тогочасних літературознавців слід зарахувати системне накопичення джерелознавчої бази
(архіви й листування письменників), створення узагальнювальних досліджень класичної
української літератури, критико-біографічних нарисів про знакові постаті українського красного
письменства. Пріоритетної ваги набуло методологічне осмислення засад шевченкознавства.
The institutionally-organized research work in the field of natural sciences and humanities in Ukraine
started in the 2nd half of the 19th century. The predecessors of the National Academy of Sciences
of Ukraine were the Society of History and Antiquities in Odesa, the Historical Society of Nestor
the Chronicler in Kyiv, the Southwestern Department of the Russian Geographical Society. In 1873
Shevchenko Society (later – T. Shevchenko Scientific Society) was founded in Lviv. It consisted of
three sections: philological, historical-philosophical and mathematical-natural-medical. The Shevchenko
Scientific Society became the first Ukrainian institution that consolidated humanities and natural
sciences, acquiring the same forms of research activity organization, as most Western European
academies and research societies had at the time. On the initiative of Mykhailo Hrushevskyi in 1907
the Ukrainian Scientific Society was founded in Kyiv following the structural model of the Shevchenko
Scientific Society. The Statute of the Ukrainian Scientific Society supposed that it was an institution
coordinating all research work in Ukraine.
On November 14, 1918 hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi signed the Law of the Ukrainian State on the
establishment of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. The National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine began to operate and, as it is believed, was practically established on November 27, 1918 in
Kyiv at the first Joint meeting of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAN). On November 26, 1918,
the “Statute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv” was published, the third section of which
certified the status of UAN as a self-governing institution.
Humanistic studies in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences focused on such areas of knowledge as
history of the Ukrainian people; foreign literature; history of the Ukrainian church; history of Ukrainian
art; archeology of Ukraine; ethnography; Ukrainian, Slavic, Arabic and Iranian philology; Turkology;
Jewish studies; philosophy. The significant achievements of philologists that worked at the period
include the systematic accumulation of sources (archives and correspondence of the writers), the
creation of generalized studies on classical Ukrainian literature as well as critical and biographical
essays about chief figures of Ukrainian literature. Then the methodological issues of Shevchenko
studies became a priority.
