From the History of the 1920s Academic Projects: Kateryna Hrushevska's Collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

Author

Shevchuk Tetiana

a Ph.D. in Philology, a senior research fellow at Ukrainian and Foreign Folk Studies Department of the M. Rylskyi IASFE of the NAS of Ukraine

From the History of the 1920s Academic Projects: Kateryna Hrushevska’s Collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Kateryna Hrushevska collaboration with London Anthropological Institute in the person of the British anthropologist Charles Gabriel Seligman. The vast project connected with the studying of folk dreaminterpreatations has been realized partly in the1920s. It isinitiated by K. Hrushevska. In 1923 the researcher has become interested in Charles Seligman address to the British colonial officials and missionaries. He has asked to send him the reports about the aborigines dreams, requisite to check up the Freud theory of dreams. The materials in Ukraine have been collected in Zhytomyr region according to The Programme of Materials Acquisition to Ukrainian Folk Book of Dream Interpretations, developed by K. Hrushevska. It is mentioned in The Programme text that the acquisition has been initiated by the London Anthropological Institute and the questions have been formed according to the London anthropologists desires. That’s why the article authoress has been worried for a long time with a thought whether K. Hrushevska has managed to send Ukrainian field records of dreams to London and where they are kept as the archival materials. K. Hrushevska review on Charles Gabriel Seligman published work has become a peculiar prompting. He has realized a comparative investigation of dreams, basing on Ukrainian material also, especially from Zhytomyr region. The review is published in the Primordial Community and Its Hangovers in Ukraine periodical (1928, issue 2–3). The authoress has studied Charles Gabriel Seligman biography. He has been interested in dreams and intended to examine Z. Freud hypotheses after the traditional cultures materials. The article authoress has supposed that the field records from Ukraine can get into his archive. T. Shevchuk is not mistaken. On July 10, 2016 she has found K. Hrushevska letter, written on November17,1924, whereshe notifiesabout the decision to send Ukrainian dream interpretations field records to London. It has been found among the lists of Charles Gabriel Seligman archival materials, kept in the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Collection MS 262).

Keywords

folk book of dream interpretations, Anthropological Institute, the Dreams Anthropology, Freudism.

References

1. Hrushevska K. (1925) A Programme of Collecting Materials for a Ukrainian Folk Dream Book. Ukraine, no.1–2, pp. 237–238.
2. Hrushevska K. (1928) Review on C. G. Seligman’s “The Unconscious in Relation to Anthropology” (in The British Journal of Psychology, v. XVII, April 1928). Primitive Society and Its Remnantsin Ukraine, Iss.2/3, pp. 169–171.
3. Lurie M. (2002) Prophetic Dreams and Their Interpretation (On the Material Taken from Modern Russian Peasant Tradition). Dreams and Visions in Folk Culture. Moscow, pp. 26–43.
4. Moldanova T. (2006) Dreams in the Khanty Culture. The Ethnographic Review, no6, pp. 38–47.
5. Pikren U. (2016) The Psychology Book: From Shamanismto Cutting-Edge Neuroscience. 250 Milestonesin the History of Psychology (transl. from English by V. Yegorova). Moscow: Laboratoriya znaniy, 536 pp.
6. Reshetov A. (2010) M. Czaplicka and Her Paper The Life and Workof N. N. Mikluho-Macklay. The Maclay Collection. Issue 3:Australia. Oceania. Indonesia in the Context of Timeand History. Papers after the Maclay Lectures’ Materials. Saint Petersburg, pp. 22–31.
7. Tokarev S. (1978) The History of Foreign Ethnography. Moscow: Vyshchaya shkola, 352 pp.
8. Funk D. (2015) Review on Donner Joakim & Juha Janhunen (eds.), Peter Sandberg (photo ed.) (2014)’s “Kai Donner: Linguist, Ethnographer, Photographer” (in Travaux ethnographiques de la SocieteFinno-Ougrienne 21 (Helsinki: Societe Finno-Ougrienne, National Board of Antiquities, 2014, 175 pp.)). TheSiberian Historical Studies, no 1, pp. 110–115.

https://doi.org/10.17223/2312461X/7/7

9. Khristoforova O. (2006) Preservation and Promotion of Cultural Heritage: A Great Britain’s Experience. The Observatory of Culture, no.2, pp. 71–75. URL: http://ifapcom.ru/files/Monitoring/khristoforova_ sohr_popular.pdf (accessed 12 December 2018).
10. Shevchuk T. (2017) A Scientific Face of the 1920s Ukrainian Folklore Studies: A Drama of Ideas and Moral Guidelines. Shevchuk T. Folkloristic Essays. Bila Tserkva. P. 12–20.
11. Evans-Pritchard E. (2004) Theories of Primitive Religion. URL: http://litresp.ru/kniga/ru/Э/evans-pritchard-edvar (accessed 12 December 2018).
12. Bulkeley K. (2016) Big Dreams: The Scienceof Dreaming and the Origins of Religion. New York, 352 pp.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199351534.001.0001

13. Seligman Ch. G. (1923) Type Dreams: A Request. Folklore, vol. 34, pp. 376–378.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1923.9719273

14. Seligman, Charles Gabriel (no date) Collection (MS 262) (The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland). URL: https://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/manuscript- contents/0262-selig man-charlesgabriel-qcollectionq-ms-262 (accessed 12 December 2018).
15. Tedlock B. (2005) Dreams. Encyclopedia of Religion. New York, vol. 4, 483 pp.