THE ROLE OF RIGHT-BANK UKRAINE'S ORTHODOX CLERGY IN THE LOCAL LORE MOVEMENT (SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH – BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURIES)

. The study outlines the place and the role of Right-Bank Ukraine's Orthodox clergy (Kyiv, Volyn, and Podillia provinces) in the local lore movement in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The Roman Catholic Church and Polish historical science significantly influenced this region, which considered Right-Bank Ukraine to be Poland's eastern provinces. To eliminate Polish influence and justify the annexation of these areas to the Russian Empire and mass Russification in all spheres, the government authorities granted privileges to the Orthodox Church in Right-Bank Ukraine and encouraged the clergy to conduct local lore study. In the middle of the 19th century, Orthodox clergy were actively involved in creating historical and statistical descriptions of the Kyiv, Volyn, and Podillia Orthodox dioceses. The Kyiv Theological Academy, the Volyn, and Podillia Orthodox Theological Seminaries became the main centres of Right-Bank Ukraine's local lore movement. They were centres of regional research in history, archaeology, ethnology, folklore, and museum activity of Right-Bank Ukraine until the early 20th century. In the second half of the 19th - early 20th century, the clergy of Right-Bank Ukraine also published periodicals and scientific collections with their results. As evidenced by the conclusions of this research, these authors did not follow Synod's recommendations and expanded their study. They published not only church descriptions but also the history of provinces, cities, towns, villages, archaeological maps of regions, historical monographs, collections of documents and materials, other local lore studies. This activity has had a favourable impact on the formation and development of the local lore movement. regională în domenii precum istoria, arheologia, etnologia, folclorul și de activitate muzeală pentru Ucraina din dreapta Niprului. În același interval de timp (a doua jumătate a secolului al XIX -lea – începutul secolului al XX-lea), clerul din aceste teritorii a publicat în diverse periodice și colecții de studii rezultatele anchetelor întreprinse. Potrivit concluziil or acestei cercetări , autorii amintitelor anchete nu au respectat recomandările Sinodului și și -au extins aria de cercetare. Ei au publicat nu doar descrieri ale bisericilor , ci și istori i ale provinciilor, orașelor, târgurilor, satelor, hărți arheologice , monografii istorice, colecții de documente și acte, tradiți i locale. Această activitate a avut un impact favorabil asupra formării și dezvoltării istoriografiei locale.


INTRODUCTION
As a result of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's second and third divisions of 1793, Right-Bank Ukraine was annexed to the Russian Empire, and the Kyiv, Podillia, and Volyn provinces were established on these lands. Official authorities actively promoted the region's Russification, refusing to acknowledge the Ukrainian language or a separate Ukrainian nation and attempting to eradicate cultural traditions.
The creation of a privileged position for the Orthodox Church, as well as efforts to strengthen its prestige and economic status, was a distinctive characteristic of state policy in Right-Bank Ukraine. This weakened the Roman Catholic Church's influence in the region and made it easier to implement the Russification strategy.
One of the main tasks laid before the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) by the authorities was to resist Polish historical research, which considered Kyiv, Volyn, and Podillia to be Poland's eastern provinces. To this purpose, the Orthodox Church undertook a large-scale project in the mid-nineteenth century to establish historical and statistical descriptions of churches and parishes within dioceses. Such operations should, on the one hand, justify the Russian Empire's historical presence in Right-Bank Ukraine and, on the other side, invalidate Polish propaganda claims.
Local lore study only began in the first half of the nineteenth century in Right-Bank Ukraine, and it was developed, with some exceptions, without the participation of representatives of the Orthodox clergy. However, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the Orthodox clergy was systematically collecting church chronicles, ancient plans and maps, descriptions of places, churches, and monasteries, and compiling descriptions of churches and parishes, first in collaboration with the Russian Geographical Society and later on by diocesan historical and statistical committees.
Local lore study in Right-Bank Ukraine differed from that in other regions of the Russian Empire. First and foremost, it aimed to counteract 19th-century Polish historiography regarding the interpretation of Ukrainian history.
Furthermore, because Podillia and Volyn lacked higher educational institutions, these provinces' theological seminaries became the main centres of the local lore movement.

SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE REVIEW
The legacy of scientists and local historians from the late 19th and early 20th centuries set the foundation of historiography on the participation of Orthodox clergy representatives from Right-Bank Ukraine in the local lore movement. Among the most important, mention should be made on the works of Volodymyr Antonovych, a Ukrainian historian and professor of the Kyiv University, including his review of Yukhym Sitsinsky's book "Historical Information on Parishes and Churches of the Podillia Diocese" and an article on the Podillia Diocesan Historical and Statistical Committee's activities 1 , as well as a series of critical essays and reviews in certain periodicals of the writings of local amateur historians among the Orthodox clergy. Orest Fotynsky and Archpriest Yuhym Sitsinsky 2 , representatives of the local lore movement, conducted a partial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of clergy participation in the local lore movement.
Vasyl Bidnov 3 , a historian of the Ukrainian church, and Volodymyr Sichynsky and Dmytro Doroshenko 4 , scholars of the Western Ukrainian diaspora, made significant contributions to the historiography of this topic and the extension of the clergy's participation in the local history movement.
Historians involvement of some representatives of the Orthodox clergy in the local lore movement and concluded that their activities were one of the factors that contributed to the country's national and spiritual revival. In their works, modern Russian historians Alexander Musin, Irina Komarova 6 , and others addressed the Orthodox clergy's participation in the local lore movement. These works are important in finding the typical characteristics of the local history movement in the Russian Empire and the control of the Russian Orthodox Church. They do not, however, contain resources demonstrating the peculiarities of the clergy's local history activities in Right-Bank Ukraine, which frequently did not meet or even contradicted the official authorities' tasks.
Victor Berdinskikh's work 7 , which explores the role of the parish clergy in the development of local lore in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is significant in the historiography of the topic.
During the research for the study, materials from the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg), the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine (Kyiv), and the Central State Archive of Ukraine's Higher Authorities and Administration (Kyiv) were used.

METHODS OF RESEARCH
The research is based on the general scientific principles of historicism, objectivity, and consistency, which aim to provide a comprehensive study of facts, events, and phenomena.
The role of the Orthodox clergy in the formation of the national local lore study in Ukraine was investigated using comparative-historical and chronological methods. This allowed the article's content to be presented coherently.
The principles and methods used allowed for a historical analysis of the topic as well as an objective assessment of the processes of establishing and developing local lore structures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 6

GENESIS OF LOCAL LORE MOVEMENT
The ROC's Holy Synod repeatedly issued decrees and orders in the second half of the nineteenth century requiring the creation of historical and statistical descriptions of Orthodox dioceses, parishes, churches, monasteries, and settlements where churches and other religious buildings functioned 8 . Unlike other dioceses of the ROC, the Orthodox clergy of Right-Bank Ukraine was also motivated, including by increased funding for the Orthodox clergy compared to other Ukrainian dioceses 9 . Such measures attempted to strengthen local lore study to counteract the Roman Catholic influence. However, the true purpose of church authorities and imperial power's interest in the history of the diocese of Right-Bank Ukraine was to establish the affiliation of Ukrainian lands and Orthodox believers to Russian Orthodoxy, weaken the influence of the Roman Catholic faith in these regions, and end the hegemony of Polish historiography in regional studies. The role of this religion and its clergy was demonstrated in the book Roman Catholicism and its eparchy in Podillya (1872) by Mitrofan Simashkevich, Rector of the Podillia Theological Seminary.
The decrees of the Synod obliged the diocesan authorities to compile and publish descriptions, relying primarily on local theological seminaries, which were defined as scientific and methodological centres that provided a selection of authors, development of research programs, editing of manuscripts, and their publication. At the same time, the Synod and local church authorities depended on parish priests, teachers of theological seminaries, the school of theology, and parish schools to implement the project. 10  Kulish, Volodymyr Antonovych, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, figures of the Ukrainian national and cultural revival of the 19th century, laid the foundations of national local lore and historical regionalism. These well-known scholars sought to influence the activities of the Eparchial Archaeological and Statistical Committees and, as honorary members, sought to direct their work toward the Ukrainian national movement.
The Synod's decrees and relevant instructions and scientific programs (for example, "Program for collecting samples of folk language and speech", 1852 11 , "Program for collecting information on folk superstitions, beliefs, dialects of Southern Russia", 1867 12 , etc.) were in effect for over 50 years -until the beginning of the 20th century, when the publication of general historical and statistical descriptions of the Kyiv, Volyn and Podillia Orthodox dioceses was completed. Such a long and consistent action led to the establishment and mass development of local lore study in the second half of the 19th -early 20th century. Secular intellectuals, teaching staff of universities, scientific and public institutions were actively involved in the local lore movement, which led to the local lore movement and regional research becoming an essential component of the spiritual and cultural revival of the Ukrainian nation 13 . The local lore movement in the Right Bank of Ukraine was spread in Moldova, Bukovina, Galicia, and the Polish ethnic lands, as Ivan Franko pointed out in his article "Galician Local Lore" 14 (1892).
An example of the scale of such work is the activity of the Podillia clergy, during 1852-1855, to collect materials, documents, and memoirs on the history of parishes, churches, monasteries to create a description of the Podillia diocese. All priests of parishes, as well as seminarians of senior classes, were involved in this and the development of local lore study in the 19th century], in "Voprosy istorii" [History issues], Moskva, 1998, № 10, p. 134-138. 11  activity. In the mid-1850s, students Stepan Rudansky, Anatoly Svydnytsky, Kalenyk Sheykovsky, and others at the Podillia Theological Seminary actively helped to collect materials for the description of the Podillia diocese, and after graduation, published such ethnographic works by Anatoly Svydnytsky with the assistance of Panteleimon Kulish -"Easter in Podillia", Stepan Rudansky -"Wedding of Podillia" (1861), and Kalenyk Sheykovsky -a two-volume "Life of Podillia" (1859-1860) in the St. Petersburg pro-Ukrainian magazine "Osnovy". Later they became classics of Ukrainian literature, figures of the national and cultural revival. 15 Having collected historical sources, documents, and materials to create historical and statistical descriptions of dioceses, their authors also studied legends, myths, folk songs, customs, information about life, and peculiarities of rural life. This allowed them to gain a deeper understanding of the Ukrainian mentality, to go beyond the limits set by the church authorities, and to express the obtained information in their works from a pro-Ukrainian standpoint.

"ЕПАРХИАЛЬНЫЕ ВЕДОМОСТИ": BETWEEN PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AND LOCAL LORE EXPERTS
Weekly journals established by the clergy at Orthodox seminaries such as the "Podolskie Eparchialnye Vedomosti" (Podillia Diocesan Gazette) in Kamianets-Podilskyi since 1862, "Volynskie eparkhialnyye vedomosti" (Volyn Diocesan Gazette) in Kremenets since 1865, and "Kievskie Eparchialnye Vedomosti" (Kyiv Diocesan Gazette) in Kyiv played a significant role in the creation of historical and statistical descriptions of Orthodox dioceses. The journals were published systematically until the beginning of the 20th century and included formal and informal parts. The formal part contained the decrees of church and state authorities, a chronicle of events in the Russian Orthodox Church and dioceses, theological materials, personnel transfers of the clergy, etc.; essays about cities, towns, villages, churches, and parishes, were provided in the appendices to each issue of the journal (informal part) which were to become part of the diocese's summary description. Folklore and ethnographic collections, scientific monographs, poetry, novels, and other publications on religious and secular life were also published there.
Vedomosti published annual binders with up to 1,200 pages. They came to each parish, with an average circulation of 1500-2000 copies per publication, considerably contributing to the popularization of local lore materials as well as the development of national science and culture.
From 1862 to 1906, "Podolskie Eparchialnye Vedomosti" journal was published at the Theological Seminary in Kamianets-Podilskyi. This journal became the basis for the activities of scientific and local lore centres, the way to publish numerous works by scholars and local lore specialists on regional history and culture. Seminary teachers and representatives of urban and rural clergy mainly were the authors of historical and local lore articles. Some of them published their monographs and books in the journal. Thus, Mytrofan Simashkevych published in the journal a series of articles and two monographs: "Roman Catholicism and its hierarchy in Podillia" (1872) and "Historical and ethnographic essay of Podillia" (1875-1876). The informal part of the "Podolskie Eparchialnye Vedomosti" published about 110 historical and statistical descripttions of cities, towns, villages, churches, and parishes of the Podillia province during all its existence. 16 Archpriest Mykhailo Orlovsky was the most popular author of settlements' descriptions. He was an ethnographer, writer, and an honorary member of the Russian Geographical Society (since 1860) and the Russian Free Economic Society (since 1863). During 1862-1882 he published 42 historical and statistical descriptions and essays about all major towns of Podillia in the Podillia Diocesan Gazette 17 . His works were the foundation for further research on the history of settlements in the region to this day. In 2007 a collection of works by Mykhailo Orlovsky was published in Khmelnytsky, and the Mykhailo Orlovsky Prize for the best scientific and local lore research was introduced 18 .
The scale of ethnographic activity of Mykhailo Orlovsky is evidenced by the fact that he collected and passed on 2000 folk proverbs and sayings to Panteleimon Kulish in 1861. He passed another 1300 Podillia proverbs and legends on to the editorial board of the famous pro-Ukrainian journal "Kievskaia starina" (Kyiv Antiquities).
The "Volynskie eparkhialnye vedomosti" journal was one of the organizers of the local lore movement in Volyn in the second half of the 19th -early 20th centuries. During 1860-1880, teachers of the theological seminary in Kremenets and village priests actively published materials in the informal part of the periodical on the historical and statistical description of the diocese. Archpriest Apolonii Sendulsky, a public figure, published the largest number of works in the journal. During 1868-1882 he published 40 historical descriptions and essays about the region's settlements in the "Vedomosti" 19 . In 1882, the journal "Kievskaia starina" which, at that time, was a stronghold of the Ukrainian national and cultural revival, praised his scientific achievements, pointing out that "the Father Apolonii Sendulsky is a wonderful person, an educated priest -a pastor, an outstanding figure-administrator and the most prominent local scholar" 20 .
Mykola Teodorovich, a teacher of the theological seminary in Kremenets, was the most active author in terms of the number of publications in this journal. He published 1,500 articles about cities, towns, villages, churches, and parishes in the diocesan journal in 1887-1899. These materials made up a unique 5-volume work, consisting of historical and statistical descriptions of the churches and parishes of the Volyn diocese 21 . This fundamental work was then the greatest achievement in the historiography of the study of the Volyn region and has remained relevant to this day. It was republished in 2011 for further use 22  The editorial board of the "Kievskie Eparchialnye Vedomosti" journal was one of the initiators to create a historical and statistical description of the Kyiv Orthodox Diocese in the second half of the 19th -early 20th centuries. Articles and materials were published there mainly by teachers of the local theological seminary and the Kyiv Theological Academy. Leontii Pokhylevych, a servant of the Kyiv Spiritual Consistory, was one of the most active authors of the journal 23 . During ten years of research, he prepared a summary book Legends of the settlements of the Kyiv province, or statistical, historical, and ecclesiastical notes on the villages, settlements, towns, and cities that belong to the province . 24 This was the first successful attempt to create a description of the Kyiv diocese and its inhabited parts, but as noted in a review of the "Kievskaia starina" journal, the publication did not have a sufficiently serious source base for the study. 25 Active research in the 50s -mid-60s of the 19th century provided by the clergy to create historical and statistical descriptions of Orthodox dioceses revealed that many authors were professionally unprepared. To solve this problem, the efforts of the clergy should have been united in organized scientific and public societies, which would take on scientific and methodological guidance and training to complete the creation of descriptions of dioceses. The official authorities were also interested in this process, as they sought to control the local lore movement. 26

DIOCESAN COMMITTEES AS CENTERS OF LOCAL LORE MOVEMENT
In 1865, on the initiative of local lore activists and with the approval of the Holy Synod, a "Committee for Church-Historical and Statistical Description of the Podillia Diocese" was established at the Podillia Theological Seminary". Later it became a representative scientific and local lore organization, which existed for 55 years, and fulfilled the primary mission of developing and publishing the generalized works on the history of Podillia and a description of the Podillia diocese.
During the society's existence, clergy representatives made up approximately 85-90 per cent of the overall membership, making the association mostly ecclesiastical. In the 60s and 80s of the 19th century, the committee had 30-40 members and resembled a scientific and public club. However, in 1890 it already had 54 members 27 , 148 members in 1901 28 , and 186 in 1914. 29 From the 90s of the 19th -early 20th centuries, the society began to grow thanks to the secular scholars and local historians, indicating the recognition of its activities and authority among the general public.
The leading journals of the society were "Podillia Diocesan Gazette" from 1865 to 1906, "Orthodox Podillia" from 1906 to 1914, "Research Papers of the Podillia Diocesan Historical and Statistical Committee" (1876-1903), and "Research Papers of the Podillia Church Historical Archaeological Society" (1904)(1905)(1906)(1907)(1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916). In total, they included more than 700 monographs, books, essays, articles, documents on history, which are the "golden" fund of Ukrainian historical science and national local lore study until today. A significant milestone in the activities of the committee was the participation in a comprehensive ethnographic expedition of the province in 1869-1870, led by Pavlo Chubynsky 30 ; materials of this expedition are fully covered in "Research Papers of the ethnographic and statistical expedition to the West Russian territory" (1872-1878).
By the scale of collected ethnographic material, this profound seven-volume edition is a valuable source of information for modern ethnologists, folklorists, historians, and local historians.
A positive moment in the society's activities was also the coordination with scientists from the Kyiv University (Volodymyr Antonovych), Kyiv Theological Academy (Мykola Petrov), the Moscow Archaeological Society, the South-Western Department of the Geographical Society in Kyiv in 1872-1876, the editorial board of the "Kievskaia starina" journal, etc. 31 Members of the society provided significant assistance to Mykhailo Hrushevsky in 1891-1894 during his work with documents and literature of the Antiquities Storehouse in Kamianets and the collection of ancient documents, to create a monograph "Barskoje Starostwo" (1894). 32 An important activity of the Podillia Diocesan Historical and Statistical Committee was the founding of the official historical museum -the diocesan Antiquities Storehouse in 1890.
The Kyiv Theological Academy has been the leading scientific centre in the Ukrainian territory's system of theological training institutions since the 1870s. This happened due to highly qualified teaching staff, including a team of famous scientists, defences of master's and doctoral theses and awarding scientific degrees and titles, publication of annual scientific collections of "Research Papers" and scientific monographs, textbooks, etc. 33 The scientific role of the Kyiv Theological Academy was significantly strengthened when the Church-Archaeological Society was founded at this institution in 1872, as well as the Church-Archaeological Museum. The above-mentioned Society was reorganized into the Church-Historical and Archaeological Society in 1901 and worked until 1919.
Mykola Petrov, a Ukrainian literary scholar, historian, and local lore expert, was one of the founding members of the Church Archaeological Society at the Kyiv Theological Academy and its archaeological museum; he was its permanent scientific secretary. In general, the Society included, on average, 180-190 full members annually, except candidates and correspondents. The Society's core members were professors and associate professors of the academy, including scientists such as Mykola Petrov, Archpriest Fedir Titov, Stepan Golubev, Ivan Malyshevsky, and church archaeologist Petro Lashkarev. 34 Important achievements of the Church Archaeological Society, which extended beyond the church topics, included active participation in the organization and conduct of two all-Russian archaeological congresses in Kyiv: the third congress in 1874 and the eleventh congress in 1899, as well as the publication of works such as "Kyiv Academy in the second half of the 17th century" by Mykola Petrov, and a two-volume "Kyiv Metropolitan Petro Mohyla" by Stepan Golubev, etc.
Since its establishment, the Society has become a centre of regional research and an organizer of the local lore movement in Ukraine. It actively cooperated with the Podillia Diocesan Historical and Local Lore Committee and from1893 with the Volyn Church and Archaeological Society, other local lore centers, and provided practical and methodological assistance to local authors. 35 Modest, Archbishop of the Volyn and Zhytomyr Dioceses, played a positive role in establishing local lore centres and supporting their systematic work in Volyn. He was the founder and curator of the diocesan Antiquities Storehouse (museum) and its library, which were established in 1893.
In 1894 the Volyn Church and Archaeological Society were officially opened in Zhytomyr. 36 The first professional and social-scientific historical and local lore 34 K. K. Krajnij In the mid-1890s, the idea of establishing single, extensive research and educational organization of a secular nature, which would unite local historians, emerged among the intellectuals of Volyn. Mykola Korobka, an ethnologist and literary scholar, expressed and developed this idea. The Society of Researchers of Volyn was opened in 1900, many members of the Volyn Church-Archaeological Society joined it, including Orest Fotynsky, who became its leader.
Having studied the charter of the Society of Researchers of Volyn, historian Orest Levitsky noted in "Kievskaia starina" journal that this organization "has been granted such rights and powers that none of the existing scientific societies, for example, in Kyiv has". 37 Indeed, the authors of this charter took the constituent documents and action program of Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv as an example. The Society of Researchers of Volyn committed to studying flora, fauna, mineralogy, geology, palaeontology, anthropology, geography, demography, customary law, agriculture, crafts, trade, statistics, archaeology, history, topography, numismatology, and other fields. 38 During 1901-1920 this Society published 15 volumes of its scientific "Works" devoted to the study of nature, ethnography, and history of the Volyn land. The Volyn Research Society, of which 20 per cent were representatives of the local Orthodox clergy, became a major research institute in the first decades of the twentieth century and made a significant contribution to the development of the local lore study, thanks to the extent of the regional study and the results of its work.

CONCLUSIONS
During the mid-19th -early 20th century, the Orthodox clergy of Kyiv, Volyn, and Podilia was actively involved in local lore studying activities to make historical descriptions of their dioceses, parishes, churches, and settlements. They n'omu davn'oskhovyscha starozhytnostej (26. established diocesan historical and statistical committees, ecclesiastical, historical, archaeological societies, antiquities storehouses (museums), which laid the foundation for developing the local lore movement in Ukraine. These institutions actively worked on creating general historical descriptions of dioceses and often went beyond the official limits set by Synod's decisions. The result of their activity was not only the descriptions of churches, parishes, and dioceses but also the works on the history of provinces, cities, towns, villages, archaeological maps, historical monographs, books, collections of documents and materials, and other local lore literature.
The establishment and development of the local lore movement took place in the second half of the 19th -early 20th century due to the influence of these processes. Many clergy and graduates of theological institutions rose to prominence as both outstanding scientists (Mykhailo Orlovsky, Mykola Teodorovich, Leontii Pokhilevich, Mykola Petrov, Yukhym Sitsinsky, and others) and spiritual revival figures. They were involved in the foundation of scientific subdivisions of national local lore in Right-Bank Ukraine, such as Podillia, Volyn, and Kyiv studies. Their fundamental works in modern independent Ukraine were organized, republished, and recognized in historiography and are actively in scientific circulation since 1993. In Ukraine, the annual Khmelnytsky Regional Prize named after Yukhym Sitsinsky in the field of historical and local lore is highly respected.