John-Paul Himka ( ua, Іван-Павло Химка; born May 18, 1949, in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
) is an
American-
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
historian and retired professor of history of the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...
in
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
.
Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
in 1971 and 1977 respectively.
The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was ''Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890''. As a historian Himka was a
Marxist in the 1970s–80s, but became influenced by
postmodernism in the 1990s. In 2012 he defined his methodology in history as "
eclectic
Eclectic may refer to:
Music
* ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014
* ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996
* Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act
* Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...
".
Life
Himka is of mixed ethnic background, Ukrainian (on father's side) and Italian (on mother's). Initially he wanted to become a Greek Catholic priest and studied at
St. Basil Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut. However, due to the radicalization of his political views to the left by the end of the 1960s he did not pursue that vocation.
Career
Since 1977, he taught at University of Alberta, Department of History and Classics. He became full Professor in 1992 and retired from the university in 2014.
Himka is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, most notably the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2006, the Philip Lawson Award for Excellence in Teaching,
[Fellow Professor John-Paul Himka.](_blank)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
. and the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence.
He served as co-editor of the ''
Encyclopedia of Ukraine
The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' ( uk, Енциклопедія українознавства, translit=Entsyklopediia ukrainoznavstva), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies.
Development
The work was creat ...
'' for three volumes devoted to history.
Himka, who traveled to Ukraine to conduct research since 1976, began to work with academics at
Lviv University
The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...
's Department of History. Initially Himka focused on
Galicia's social history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The 1988
1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus' The 1000th Anniversary of the Christianization of Rus' (1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, russian: 1000-летие крещения Руси) was an occasion marked by events held in the USSR from May – June 1988, to celebrate the introdu ...
kindled his interest in the history of
Greek Catholic Church The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually.
The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine Ca ...
and the influence of the church in terms of the development of Ukrainian nationalism.
In 2002 he researched
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
in
Habsburg Galicia, a formerly autonomous region in Western Ukraine, sacred culture of the
Eastern Slavs
The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor.John Channon & Robert Hud ...
(on
iconography in particular) and the
Holocaust in Ukraine. Since the late 1990s his contention with what he calls Ukrainian "nationalist historical myths" became subject of increasing, sometimes heated, debates both in Ukraine and
Ukrainian Diaspora
The Ukrainian diaspora comprises Ukrainians and their descendants who live outside Ukraine around the world, especially those who maintain some kind of connection, even if ephemeral, to the land of their ancestors and maintain their feeling of Uk ...
(especially in North America). Himka challenged the interpretation of
Holodomor as a
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
and the view that
Ukrainian nationalism and nationalists played no or almost no role in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
in Ukraine. He also opposed official glorification of such nationalistic heroes as
Roman Shukhevych
Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych ( uk, Рома́н-Тарас Йо́сипович Шухе́вич, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950), was a Ukrainian nationalist, one of the commanders of N ...
and
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera ( uk, Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, Stepán Andríyovych Bandéra, ; pl, Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical, terr ...
in Ukraine during the presidency of
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko ( uk, Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010.
As an informal leader of th ...
.
In his 1996 article, ''Krakivski visti and the Jews, 1943: A Contribution to the History of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Second World War'', published in the ''
Journal of Ukrainian Studies
''East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering Ukrainian studies published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAl ...
'', based on earlier Ukrainian-language versions presented in 1991 in Kyiv and 1993 in Jerusalem at
Ukrainian-Jewish relations conferences, Himka wrote that the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations during WWII remained surprisingly underinvestigated. Himka cited
Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding fath ...
's "monumental study", ''
The Destruction of the European Jews
''The Destruction of the European Jews'' is a 1961 book by historian Raul Hilberg. Hilberg revised his work in 1985, and it appeared in a new three-volume edition. It is largely held to be the first comprehensive historical study of the Holocau ...
'' as the source used by historians.
In response to this lacuna, Himka presented his detailed study of the publishing of a series of antisemitic articles in 1943 in the "flagship of Ukrainian journalism under Nazi occupation," Krakov's daily newspaper ''
Krakivs'ki Visti''.
The primary sources for his study included the articles as well as the records of the ''
Krakivs'ki Visti'' maintained by
Ukrainian-Canadian Michael Chomiak, who was born in Ukraine in the 1910s as Mykhailo Khomiak and changed his name to Michael Chomiak when he emigrated to Canada at the end of WWII. The
Provincial Archives of Alberta
The Provincial Archives of Alberta is the official archives of the Canadian Province of Alberta. It preserves and makes available for research both private and government records of all media related to Alberta. The Provincial Archives of Alberta ...
acquired Chomiak's records in 1985 following Chomiak's death. He was the chief editor of ''Krakivs'ki Visti'' from 1940 to 1945. Himka is his son-in-law.
Himka described how ''Krakivs'ki Visti'' "played an important and, generally, positive role in Ukrainian life,"
"serving as a buffer between the German occupation authorities and the population of the
Generalgouvernement."
In response to a May 1943 order by the German press chief, the newspaper published antisemitic articles from May 25 through July
which were received negatively by the Ukrainian intelligentsia in general.
Himka completed a series of three major studies on the history of Ukrainian Galicia in the 19th century. The first, ''Socialism in Galicia: the emergence of Polish social democracy and Ukrainian radicalism (1860–1890)'' was published in 1983. The second, ''Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century'' was published in 1988. The third, ''Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900'', which is "devoted to the interrelations between church and state", was published in 1999.
In a book review in the ''
Harvard Ukrainian Studies
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher ...
'', Larry Wolff described ''Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine'' as a subtle, sophisticated and insightful account of an "important and profoundly complex historical problem." Wolff writes that Himka's research "makes the case for a contingent and evolutionary perspective on nationality in which several different forms and inflections of national identity jostle one another in cultural competition, enhanced or diminished by various historical forces, including religion, without any predetermined outcome." Himka, "engaged with the all-important issue of national identity, makes a brilliant contribution, not just to the history of Ukrainian nationality, but also to the general theoretical understanding of modern nationalism."
Himka employs "concepts of nationality and nationalism developed by
Ernest Gellner
Ernest André Gellner FRAI (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British- Czech philosopher and social anthropologist described by ''The Daily Telegraph'', when he died, as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals, and by ''The ...
,
E.J. Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. ...
, and
Miroslav Hroch
Prof. Miroslav Hroch (born 14 June 1932 in Prague) is a Czech historian and political theorist and a professor at the Charles University in Prague.
Hroch earned his PhD at the Charles University in 1962. On
May 30, 1997 Hroch received an honorar ...
. Himka observed that the "Greek Catholic case in Galicia" is "a stunningly transparent instance of how much agency and choice can be involved in the construction of nationality."
In his 2005 article, ''War Criminality: A Blank Spot in the Collective Memory of the Ukrainian Diaspora War Criminality''
he examined material that emerged from an important Ukrainian-Jewish relations conference held in 1983, that happened to be held on the 50th anniversary of the
Soviet famine of 1932–33
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
as well as "current electronic media and recent years of ''
The Ukrainian Weekly
''The Ukrainian Weekly'' is the oldest English-language newspaper of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, and North America.
Founded by the Ukrainian National Association, and published continuously since October 6, 1933, archived copies ...
'', supplemented with a retrospective sampling of articles from Svoboda."
At the 1983 conference, Professor Yaroslav Bilinsky denied "a causal connection between alleged collaboration of Jewish-born Communists in the collectivization of agriculture and the Great Famine and any proven collaboration of Ukrainian-born extremists in the Holocaust."'
His 2009 book, ''Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians'', was the result of ten years of research "throughout the region of the
Carpathian Mountains, where he "found a distinctive and transnational blending of Gothic, Byzantine, and Novgorodian art."
In his chapter ''Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs′ki visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation'',
Himka examined how the ''Krakivs'ki Visti'', an "important
krainiannationalist newspaper" "reported on two cases of mass violence by the
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in ...
, the 1941
NKVD prisoner massacres
The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions of political prisoners carried out by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, across Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, a ...
and the 1943
Vinnytsia massacre
The Vinnytsia massacre was the mass execution of between 9,000 and 11,000 people in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD during the Great Purge in 1937–1938, which Nazi Germany discovered during its occupation of Ukr ...
. Himka wrote that ''Krakivs'ki Visti'' "ethnicized both perpetrators and victims, ascribing primarily Jewish identity to the former and depicting the latter as almost exclusively Ukrainian."
Personal life
John-Paul Himka is married to Chrystia Chomiak,
the daughter of Michael Chomiak's (1905 – 1984),
who was an editor of the Ukrainian antisemitic newspaper ''
Krakivs'ki Visti''. Himka learned of this only after Chomiak died in 1984.
They have two children.
Awards
He was awarded the 2001-2002 Killam Annual Professorship
*
Antonovych prize
The Antonovych Prize is an annual award of US$10,000 given by the Omelian and Tetiana Antonovych Foundation since 1981 for literary works written in Ukrainian and for research in Ukrainian studies. Institutions, individuals, and members of the pr ...
(1988)
* Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2006)
* Philip Lawson Award for Excellence in Teaching
* J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence
Bibliography
;Books
* ''Socialism in Galicia: The Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian Radicalism (1860–1890)'' (1983)
* ''Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century'', Palgrave Macmillan (1988)
* ''Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900'' (1999)
* ''Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians'' (2009)
* ''Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust: OUN and UPA’s Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941–1944'' (2021)
;Edited and co-edited volumes
*(Assistant editor.) ''Rethinking Ukrainian History'' (1981)
* (Editor, translator and author of introduction.) Rosdolsky, Roman. ''Engels and the "Nonhistoric" Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848'' (1986)
* ''Galicia and Bukovina: A Research Handbook about Western Ukraine, Late 19th and 20th Centuries'' (1990)
* Co-editor (with Hans-Joachim Torke). ''German-Ukrainian Relations in Historical Perspective'' (1994)
* Co-editor (with Andriy Zayarnyuk). ''Letters from Heaven: Popular Religion in Russia and Ukraine'' (2006)
* Co-editor (with Joanna Beata Michlic). ''Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe'' (2013)
References
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20160127032426/http://www.historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/People/EmeritiRetired/HimkaJohnPaul.aspx
Іван-Павло Химка: «Я пережив багато методологічних мод»Historians.in.ua, 2 April 2012.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Himka, John-Paul
20th-century Canadian historians
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Living people
University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni
1949 births
American emigrants to Canada
Historians of Ukraine
University of Alberta faculty
21st-century Canadian historians
Historians from Alberta
Ukrainianists
Cultural historians
Historians of the Holocaust
Historians of Eastern Europe
Canadian Marxist historians
Postmodern writers
Historians of Austria
Scholars of nationalism
Historians of Hungary