Frederick Jackson Turner, a 32-year-old Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin delivered his views at a meeting of the American Historical Association in 1893 during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He stressed that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development,” and that this frontier accounted for American democracy and state of mind.
Since 1910, when Turner assumed the presidency of the American Historical Association as well as a chair at Harvard, the frontier thesis occupied a dominant place in American historiography. At first sight it might seem incredible, but actually Turner's modest heritage had inspired such a long and heated discussion that he has remained one of the most influential American historians. Besides historians, also archeologists, anthropologists, climatologists, demographers, ecologists, ethnologists, ethnographers, geologists, geographers, philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists have dealt with his “frontier thesis,”
Responding to the request to display information under the heading “Frederick Jackson Turner,” the world's largest online library Questia is proposing to review 897 books and 101 articles. Until the sixties, almost every college and university had offered courses in this field, and, in the words of Richard Hofstadter, at that time the American historical workshop had been transformed into “one large Turner-verein.” However, simultaneously other American historians began to question Turner's idea, until almost nothing was accepted in its original form. Nevertheless, despite strong criticism, the idea of “the frontier” has remained a cornerstone of American national mythology to this day and has gained many adherents throughout the world.
The subject of my research is a comparative approach to the “frontier thesis,” in other words, how American historians applied it to the history of other countries (Australia, China, Latin America, New Zealand, late Roman Empire, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, medieval history, etc.). My time at Columbia University, has given me an excellent opportunity to review rich collections of Turner studies in its libraries (Butler and Lehman).
As a visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, I have also attended its round tables, open lectures, and presentations. Participating in various programs of “Metro International,” I have made acquaintances with other Fulbright scholars from different countries.
Also my roots pull me to New York's Ukrainian community. Usually on weekends, I go to Shevchenko Scientific Society meetings, Ukrainian Museum exhibits, or other community events.
During the Moscow International Congress of Historical Sciences in 1970 its Soviet organizers permitted just one topic at its plenary meeting, namely, “Lenin and History.” In organizing the program of the following International Congress which was held in San Francisco in 1975 their American colleagues chose to feature a presentation on the influence of American frontier culture on the “Old World,” which also included last, but not least, the U.S.S.R.
In American historiography discussing Frederick Jackson Turner is somewhat comparable to Soviet historians' attention to Vladimir Lenin. The historiography of the Turnerian approach is so extensive that it is not possible for one person to study this problem in all its aspects. Therefore, I have chosen only one aspect -- a comparative approach to Turner's “frontier thesis.”
I began this research during my fellowship at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in 2004, continued it during the following year at the Central European University in Budapest and am currently doing it at Columbia University. At the moment I am studying the historiography of the Latin American frontiers, which seems to me exclusively appropriate for a discourse of the Ukrainian frontier.
I joined the Ukrainian community in New York in November to commemorate the anniversary of the 1933 Genocide Famine in Ukraine. My report about this event was published in Lvivs'ka hazeta (“Àìåðèö³ ðîçïîâ³ëè ïðî Ãîëîäîìîð” // Ëüâ³âñüêà ãàçåòà, 21 ëèñòîïàäà 2007).
My friend Professor Dan Wikler, Harvard University, invited me to spend a couple of days in his hospitable home in Cambridge, MA. I used this opportunity to find some sources in Harvard's Widener Library that were not available at Columbia. I also attended a seminar with David Kramer, Deputy Assistant of Secretary of State, held at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Again Lvivs'ka hazeta published my report on the seminar (“Óêðà¿íà - ìàÿê ðåã³îíó” // Ëüâ³âñüêà ãàçåòà, 13 ãðóäíÿ 2007). Thanks to the hospitality of another Fulbrighter, Vitaliy Zhuhay who is placed at the Kennan Institute, I also became a tourist for a few days in the capital city of Washington, DC.
