Hulak, Mykola

Hulak, Mykola [Гулак, Микола], b 25 May 1822, Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, d 8 June 1899 in Yelisavetpol, Azerbaijan. Scholar, educator, and civic activist. A graduate of Dorpat University (1843), he became a candidate of law in 1844. In 1845–7 he worked as a translator for the Kyiv Archeographic Commission. At the turn of 1845–6, together with Mykola Kostomarov and Vasyl Bilozersky, he cofounded the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and was involved in drafting its programmatic documents, in particular Ustav Slov’ians'koho tovarystva sv Kyryla i Metodiia: Holovni ideï (The Statute of the Slavic Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius: Its Main Ideas). He was a republican, an opponent of the Russian autocratic monarchy and of serfdom; he advocated for the equal opportunities for all Slavic nations and for the ducation for the common people. Hulak was arrested and severely punished for his involvement in the brotherhood; he was imprisoned in Schlisselburg Fortress (1847–50) and then exiled in Perm (1850–5). Subsequently, he worked as a secondary school teacher in Odesa, Kerch, and Stavropol. From 1863 he lived in Georgia, where he taught at gymnasiums in Kutaisi and then Tbilisi, where Mykhailo Hrushevsky was among his students.

Hulak was a polyglot, known for his encyclopedic knowledge. He wrote Russian-language studies in history, philology, mathematics, and literature, including O gruzinskoi poeme ‘Barsova kozha’ Rustaveli (On the Georgian Poem ‘Panther’s Skin’ by Rustaveli, 1884), O znamenitom persidskom poete Nizami i ego poeme ‘Pohod rusov protiv Berdaa’ (On the Famous Persian Poet Nizami and His Poem ‘The Rus' Campaign Against Barda'a,’1899), and O meste, zanimaemom gruzinskim iazykom v seme indoevropeiskih iazykov (On the Place Occupied by the Georgian Language in the Indo-European Language Family, 1899). He wrote reviews of books on Georgian literature, and his study of Shota Rustaveli’s poem ‘The Knight in the Panther’s Skin’ was one of the first major scholarly works in the field of Rustaveli studies; it retains its significance to this day. In it, Hulak stressed the fact that it were specifically Georgian, and not Iranian, traditions that underpinned the customs, rituals, way of life, and social ideals depicted in this poem.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Porakishvili, N. ‘M. I. Hulak i hruzyns'ka kul'tura,’ in Raiduzhnymy mostamy (Kyiv 1968)
‘Sprava M. I. Hulaka,’ in Kyrylo-Mefodiivs'ke tovarystvo: u 3 t. vol 1 (Kyiv 1990)
Hrushevs'kyi, M. ‘Mykola Hulak: Posmertni zhadky,’ in Hrushevs'kyi, M. Tvory u 50-ty t. vol 6 (Lviv 2004)
Bilous, V. ‘Etnohrafichna ta natsional'no-osvitnia diialnist' M. Hulaka ta V. Navrots'koho na Zakavkazzi,’ Narodoznavchi zoshyty no 5–6 (Lviv 2010)
Kratko, I., Kratko, M. Vin piznav istynu: Biohrafichnyi narys pro Mykolu Hulaka (Lutsk 2010)
Borzenko, O. ‘Konteksty kyïvs'koho romantyzmu: Ukraïns'kyi nimets' Mykola Hulak,’ Slovo i chas no 3 (2022)

Roksana Kharchuk

[This article was updated in 2026.]