FATHERS, SONS, AND IDENTITY IN THE GALICIA. MYKOLA HANKEVYČ AND HENRYK WERESZYCKI

Abstract

The author approached the problem of national identity – the most popular topic among Ukrainian scholars still – in the terms of relativism. Despite the ancestry, a person might choose other identity in Ukraine.The article focuses on biography of Henryk Wereszycki (1898–1990), a Polish historian.His natural father Mykola Hankevyč was a leader of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party, mother was Rosa Altenberg, a daughter of a Jewish book trader. Contrary to his parents, Henryk became neither Ukrainian, nor Jewish but a prominent Polish historian.After graduating from the Faculty of History of Lviv University, H. Vereshytskyi taught history at Lviv gymnasiums. In 1930 was published his fi rst book «Austria and the 1863 Up- rising». For the last four pre-war summers he worked as a librarian at the Pilsudski Institute in Warsaw. In September 1939, H. Vereshytskyi participated in the fi ghting for Warsaw, was captured and spent fi ve years in fascist concentration camps. His mother, brother and sister were died  in captivity. In the postwar period G. Vereshytsky continued his career as a historian.From 1945 to 1947 he worked in the Institute of National Memory, 1947–1956 – docent of Wroclaw University, 1956–1969 – Professor, later is a Doctor of Jagiellonian University. The entire edition of his fi rst book «The Political History of Poland. 1864–1918» (1948) was destroyed by censorship. This book (fi rst reprinted in Poland in 1990), as well as his «History of Austria» and «Under the Habsburgs» were included in the gold fund of Polish historiography.