A hromada (, 'community') was an organization acting as part of a network of secret societies of the Ukrainian

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

that appeared soon after the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

. The societies laid a groundwork for emergence of the Ukrainian political elite and national political movement, which intensified with the

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

and issuing of the Valuev Circular. Many members of the hromadas had earlier belonged to the disbanded Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. In parallel to the development of hromada networks in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

Prosvita Prosvita (), since 1991 officially known as All-Ukrainian Prosvita Society named after Taras Shevchenko () is an enlightenment society aimed to preserve and develop Ukrainian culture, education and science, that was created in the nineteenth cen ...

(Enlightenment) societies sprang forth in the Ukrainian-populated parts of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

. Important hromadas existed in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Poltava Poltava (, ; , ) is a city located on the Vorskla, Vorskla River in Central Ukraine, Central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Poltava Oblast as well as Poltava Raion within the oblast. It also hosts the administration of Po ...

, Chernihiv,

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

Ternopil Ternopil, known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. The populatio ...

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

Chernivtsi Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...

and Stryi. The first hromada was established in

where the original members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius returned from their exile. An important publication of the Petersburg hromada was the magazine Osnova (''Basis'') that was published for a short time in 1860s. Due to student unrest and other revolutionary activity the Russian minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuev arrested several hromada leaders ( Pavlo Chubynsky, Petro Yefymenko and others) and exiled them to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

.Peter Valuev
at the

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

In 1863, after the publication of the Pylyp Morachevsky's New Testament in Ukrainian, Valuev banned most of Ukrainian publications and issued his secret Valuev circular as an instruction to the minister of education. That same year most of the western regions of the

rebelled in the

. The most important hromada was created in Kyiv and became better known as the Old Hromada. It was created sometime in 1870s and was based on a secret club of chlopomans ("lovers of commoners"). As a reaction to the hromada movement, the Russian government issued the well known Ems Ukaz in 1876 prohibiting the use of

Ukrainian language Ukrainian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language, first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of t ...

. In 1897 on initiative of Volodymyr Antonovych and Oleksandr Konysky Kyiv hosted a congress of Hromada members, which established the General Ukrainian Non-partisan Democratic Organization.
Hromadas
''. "Handbook on the History of Ukraine". The new organization involved all members of Hromada that were active in 20 cities of the Russian-ruled Ukraine. Separate Hromada societies continued to exist until the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

in 1917.

References

External links

Hromadas
at the

* Hamm, M.F.
Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917
'. Princeton University Press. 1993. {{ISBN, 0691025851 Organizations established in 1858 Ukrainian independence movement Political organizations based in the Russian Empire Populism Secret societies *

See also

References

External links