Prague everyday life of professor Vasyl Simovych (1923 – 1933)

Abstract

Much has been written about the life and work of the «outstanding Bukovynian» Vasyl Ivanovych Simovych (1880 – 1944). However, the «other» life of Simovych, which took place outside the context of political, national, economic or cultural events, turned out to be out of the attention of Ukrainian researchers.
Attention to the everyday emigrant life of Simovych is due to several reasons. First, the professor – the bearer of national identity and education, being in the new realities of life, was involved in the development and adaptation of new life rules, norms, standards, regulations of everyday life. Secondly, the everyday realities of the emigrant Ukrainian intelligentsia, to which Simovych belonged, took place against the general social background of Czechoslovakia; they were not separated from the worlds of other social strata and categories of both the Ukrainian emigrant and the Czechoslovak communities. At the same time, the Ukrainian intelligentsia not only «absorbed the realities of Czechoslovak everyday life», but also transferred to the Czechoslovak soil the previously formed «Ukrainian pre-liberation» views and norms of everyday life.
Consideration of Professor Simovych’s everyday life in Prague is carried out with the help of diaries, remembrances, memoirs, a collection of literary anecdotes and archival documentation.
The purpose of the publication is to critically consideration the everyday life of Professor Vasyl Simovych from the standpoint of historical and anthropological approach to the past, which allows not only a deeper understanding of his inner world and needs, but also the professor’s connections with the external social and cultural environment; this approach allows to distance from ideological assessments.
Ukrainian linguist, philologist and cultural figure, full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society since 1923. Vasyl Ivanovych Simovych since 1923 to 1933 was a professor at the Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute named after M. Drahomanov in Prague, since 1925 – its vice-rector, and in 1930 – 1933 – its rector and head of the Department of Ukrainian language. The scientist took part in the work of the Spelling Commission, which worked in Kharkiv in May 1927 and was called upon to standardize the Ukrainian spelling, compiled in 1918 – 1921.
Professor Simovych’s «Prague everyday life» included renting rooms for a private house in the «Prague suburb» of Řevnice, meals in public canteens in Prague and Poděbrady, witty work and extracurricular situations, leisure issues.