Антон Семенович – ученик и корреспондент Франца Миклошича: украинский славист из Галиции между Австро-Венгрией и Российской империей

Semenovych’s biography reveals the particular significance of Slavic studies in the political and cultural life of Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century. This discipline, while serving as an instrument of both internal and external policy for European powers, developed also as a form of national and confessional identities of the Slavic peoples. This is especially true for the Ukrainian nation, which was divided between two empires and two Christian confessions of the same Byzantine rite (Greek Catholic and Orthodox), and was in close contact with neighbouring national and religious traditions – Polish (Catholic) and Russian (Orthodox). This contact involved both exchange and confrontation, which is reflected in Semenovych’s biography and correspondence.