This event coincided with the centennial of the first Ukrainian translation of the Holy Bible. An explanatory note for the draft Resolution of Verkhovna Rada, On the Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the First Edition of the Holy Bible in the Ukrainian Language, reads: “The publication of the Holy Bible in the Ukrainian language facilitated the spiritual development of the Ukrainian people, its literary language, and stimulated translations.” On October 31, the Kyiv public celebrated the publication of the first Ukrainian canonical translation of the Holy Bible, by Panteleymon Kulish and Ivan Puliuy, at a special soiree.
THE FIRST UKRAINIAN VERSION: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Ukraine has long-standing traditions of book publishing. Ivan Fedorov [one of the earliest known Slavic book printers] found refuge and favorable working conditions in Ukraine. In 1568-70, he printed Uchytelne Yevanheliye [The Instructive Evangel], a collection of instructions based on biblical texts in Church Slavonic, at the estate of the Ukrainian magnate Hryhory Hodkevych. In 1589, in Ostroh, he printed the New Testament for home and school use, and shortly afterward put out 1,500 copies of the so-called Bible of Ostroh, the first complete Slavonic version of the Scriptures (in Russia, a similar edition appeared only in 1663). At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Ivan Fedorov’s effort was continued by Ostroh Academy graduate Demyan Nalyvaiko, printing works by Fathers of the Church simultaneously in Slavonic and colloquial Ukrainian. Church brotherhoods paid serious attention to educational projects, particularly translations of the Scriptures into the mother tongue. Metropolitan Petro Mohyla’s circle, in particular, prepared for publication an Old Ukrainian version of the Bible.
All this stopped after Ukraine joined Russia in 1686. The 1692 Church Council of Moscow banned practically all theological and church literature in Ukrainian. Peter I further banned publishing spiritual literature “in that special vernacular” (meaning Ukrainian). His edict became a standard for hundreds of subsequent ukases, circulars, and instructions by Russian imperial authorities, concerning book publishing in Ukraine. This lasted till the early twentieth century, and the tsarist Russification policy had remained the same for several centuries. Transgressors were punished with heavy fines, and print shops were closed. Books in Ukrainian used in church were impounded and replaced by Russian editions. The teaching staff of the Kyiv Academy was ordered to conduct instruction in Russian. All the Ukrainian institutions followed suit before long. Parish schools with instruction in Ukrainian gradually ceased to exist. The educational system was now completely Russified.
An upsurge in the Ukrainian national movement in the early 1860s caused a matching reactionary response from the autocratic government to all things Ukrainian. Writing and reading in Ukrainian was considered as verging on rebellion. Russian Foreign Minister Valuyev’s circular of 1863 is a graphic example. Among other things, it stressed that “there has never been, nor can or shall there ever be a Ukrainian language.” It further banned scientific, religious, and pedagogic publications in Ukrainian. In 1870, the warden of the Kyiv educational district noted, “Religion and the Russian language are the two principal means of Russifying this territory and culturally attaching it to the Russian people.”
THE BIBLE AND THE UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENTSIA
Biblical themes traditionally held pride of place in the creative heritage of Ukrainian writers and thinkers. Metropolitan Hilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace [a classically structured panegyric of Saint Volodymyr, Grand Prince of Kyiv (980-1015), the first Christian ruler of Kyiv Rus’ and the institutor of Orthodoxy as the state religion — Ed.] was a purely biblical creation. Biblical motifs permeated Hryhory Skovoroda’s works. In his philosophy he singled out the Scriptures as a special symbolic world, as a substantial manifestation of supranatural reality in which one can actually perceive the essence of God.
In the nineteenth century, most Ukrainian intellectuals were traditionally religious, although they had their own concepts of the Christian idea. Kostomarov, Kulish, Gogol, and other respected the Holy Bible, but their interpretations often differed from the official postulates. Religious topics occupied an important place in the works of Taras Shevchenko. He wrote Psalms of David, a cycle of poems based on certain psalms of the Old Testament; poems Maria, Saul, Prophet, and quoted from the Scriptures in a number of works. Ivan Franko’s Moses is also rooted in the Bible; Lesia Ukrainka’s play In the Catacombs addresses the persecution of early Christians.
ORIGINAL UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES
Translations from the Holy Bible had become traditional toward the end of the sixteenth century. In 1580, Vasyl Tiapynsky translated the Gospel and the following year Valentyn Nohayevsky followed suit. In the nineteenth century, the Ukrainian intelligentsia embraced the idea of translating the Holy Bible. And so Ukrainian progressive intellectuals, not the Russified Church, found the inspiration and courage to undertake the great project.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Pylyp Morachevsky, inspector at the institute of history and philosophy of Nizhyn, translated the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The Holy Synod, contrary to positive expert findings from the Russian Academy of Sciences, banned publication. The final judgment was passed by the Governor General of Kyiv, who declared that the Ukrainian translation was “dangerous and damaging.”
As a result, work on Ukrainian versions of the Scriptures transferred to Western Ukraine and Europe. In fact, Markiyan Shashkevych, a Greek Catholic priest, translated all of St. John’s and part of St. Matthew’s Gospel. In 1869, a Lviv-based newspaper Pravda carried a Ukrainian version of the Mosaic Pentateuch by Panteleymon Kulish, a noted poet and linguist. In 1871, he and Ivan Puliuy, a celebrated Ukrainian scholar and expert on biblical translation, published a Ukrainian version of the Book of St. Matthew in Vienna. That same year, a Ukrainian translation of the Book of Psalms appeared in print in Lviv, followed by four Gospels next year.
In 1872, Kulish had a full translation of the New Testament and shortly afterward of the Old Testament. After that he started editing the Ukrainian versions. It took more than a decade, but the only manuscript perished in a fire at Kulish’s village in 1885. During his lifetime, Kulish managed to restore the translations of the New and two-thirds of the Old Testament. After his death, the project was continued by the prominent Ukrainian writer Ivan Nechui-Levytsky who completed the translation. A complete Ukrainian version of the Holy Bible came off the presses in 1903 in Vienna. The edition was financed by the British Biblical Society.
SUBSEQUENT UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS
In 1874-77, a Greek Catholic priest by the name of Anton Kobyliansky translated St. Luke’s and St. John’s Gospels in Halychyna. The Rev. Oleksandr Bachynsky translated all of the New Testament and the Book of Psalms (published in 1903). The Rev. Yaroslav Levytsky’s translations of the New Testament and Pentateuch were published in Zhovkva.
The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church finally allowed preparations for the publication of the canonical Ukrainian version of the Holy Bible in the early nineteenth century, when the situation in the Russian empire had shown a degree of liberalization and democratization. The editors relied on the existing Ukrainian versions of Morachevsky, Kulish, and Lobodovsky. Ukrainian Gospels were put out in 1906-11, but work on translations stopped shortly afterward and the Ukrainian editions started being withdrawn.
Ivan Ohiyenko, a noted Ukrainian scholar, religious and public figure, resumed work on the Scriptures in 1917, yet his complete translation of the Holy Bible (second after Kulish’s) was published by the Joint Biblical Society in 1962. The third complete Ukrainian translation of the Scriptures belongs to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergyman Ivan Khomenko. He worked mostly in Rome and it took him twenty years. His translation came off the presses in 1963.
Even during the harsh Soviet period, Christians in Ukraine cherished the idea of promulgating the Holy Bible in Ukrainian. In the 1980s, Yakiv Dukhonchenko, a prominent Baptist preacher, commenced negotiations on a new Ukrainian version with the Canadian Diaspora. His initiative was supported by pastors Hryhory Derkach and Fred Smolchuk. Translations of the New Testament, the Book of Psalms, and the Song of Solomon had been completed in the early 1990s and printed and reprinted in Stockholm, with print runs of many thousand copies. At that period several partial translations of the Scriptures were done, including the New Testament by Metropolitan Filaret (currently the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus’-Ukraine) and Cardinal Myroslav-Ivan Liubachivsky. Both versions appeared in print almost simultaneously, in 1988 marking the millennial jubilee of the baptism of Kyiv Rus’.
The proclamation of Ukraine’s independence attached special importance to the revival of Ukrainian spirituality, including the promulgation of the Word in the mother tongue. The task was undertaken in 1991 by the Ukrainian Biblical Society. The Holy Bible is being translated by Rafail Turkoniak, clergyman of the Greek Catholic Church, a scholar of note and polyglot. 100,000 copies of the Ukrainian version of the New Testament came off the presses in 2000-01. Work continues on the Old Testament.
