1930–2018
Myroslav Popovych
Philosopher, author of The Red Century
A logician who studied the language of science wrote a history of Ukrainian culture and won the Shevchenko Prize for it. Myroslav Popovych headed the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, co-wrote a novel about Skovoroda himself and sat on the leadership of the People’s Movement of Ukraine.
Key accomplishments
- An Outline of the History of Ukrainian Culture, Shevchenko National Prize (2001)
- The books The Worldview of the Ancient Slavs (1985), The Red Century (2005) and To Be a Human Being (2011)
- Co-author of the biographical novel Hryhorii Skovoroda (1984), with Ivan Drach and Serhii Krymskyi
- Director of the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (2001–2018)
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (2003); Order of Freedom (posthumously, 2018)
From teacher to academician
Myroslav Popovych was born in 1930 in Zhytomyr. In 1953 he graduated from the philosophy faculty of Kyiv University and went to work in Zolotyi Potik in the Ternopil region, where for three years he was the school principal and a history teacher. In 1956 he began graduate studies at the Institute of Philosophy in Kyiv, and the institute remained his home for the rest of his life.
The logic of language and the worldview of the ancient Slavs
How do you work out what the words of science really mean? Popovych started as a logician, studying the language of science and semantics: how signs are tied to their meanings. In 1966 he defended his doctoral thesis, and in 1969 he became head of the department for the logic of scientific knowledge. Later he turned to the history of ideas: he wrote about Gogol and Dostoevsky, and in 1985 he published The Worldview of the Ancient Slavs.
A novel about Skovoroda
A logician who studied the language of science went on to write a novel. In 1984 a biographical novel about Hryhorii Skovoroda came out, written by Popovych together with the poet Ivan Drach and the philosopher Serhii Krymskyi.
The history of culture, and freedom
In 1989 Popovych was one of the organisers of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), and he set up its very first branch. During perestroika he became, in effect, the intellectual face of Rukh, debating on television with Leonid Kravchuk, who was then speaking for the Communist Party leadership. After 1989 he sat on Rukh’s leadership.
In 2001 he received the Shevchenko Prize for An Outline of the History of Ukrainian Culture, and the same year he became director of the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, which he led until 2018. His book The Red Century (2005) is about the 20th century. Later he joined the First of December Initiative Group, whose founders included Liubomyr Huzar, and The Philosophy of Freedom came out in 2018.
Myroslav Popovych died in Kyiv on 10 February 2018.
Why it matters today
Myroslav Popovych helped Ukrainians see their culture as a whole, from the worldview of the ancient Slavs to the 20th century. He showed that philosophy does not have to stay in the study: a scholar can stand up for freedom and democracy in his books and in public life alike. His path from village teacher to academician is a reminder that honest, independent thinking is one of the ways a country is built. Anyone who wants to understand where Ukrainian culture comes from, and why freedom is worth defending, can start with his books.
