Chroniclers of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences: Nataliia Dmytrivna Polonska-Vasylenko

Nataliia Dmytrivna Polonska-Vasylenko (1884-1973) is one of the first chroniclers and historiographers of the high Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. N. D. Polonska-Vasylenko described her personal views of a scholar, a long-time employee of the Ukrainian Academy, a contemporary of events in the country, in a two-volume academic work on the history of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1918-1940 “Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (Essay on History)” (Munich, 1955-1958), unusual for the time and conditions of its appearance, as well as in terms of the chosen methods, structure and content. The article analyses the essay, taking into account the source base, particular features of the structure, the chosen methods and means of disclosure of the topic. Author’s non-standard approaches to the description of the issue of the influence of the Soviet state policies on the development of scientific thought and the fate of academicians and employees are outlined. Attention is drawn to the fact that the author was the first in the Ukrainian historiography who in the mentioned years put together a list of scholars, a kind of “register” of the staff of the Academy of Sciences who had undergone various forms of political repression, and described their significance for biographical, prosopographic and other studies in the context of the history of the academic institutions. The work emphasizes the unique character of the Essay as a social, cultural, historical, anthropological, and prosopographic source on the history of the Academy of Sciences. Using the memoir as a source, the article identifies several promising directions for researching the history of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in particular, the interaction of the academicians and the authorities, the Academy of Sciences as “site of memories”, etc.