The Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius (Ukrainian: Кирило-Мефодіївське братство) was a short-lived secret political society that existed in Kiev, Ukraine, at the time a part of the Russian Empire. Founded in December, 1845 or in January, 1846, the society sought to revive the ideals of the traditional Ukrainian brotherhoods. It was quickly suppressed by the government in March 1847 with most of the members punished by exile or imprisonment.
The goals of the society were liberalisation of the political and social system of the Imperial Russia in accordance with the members Christian principles and the Slavophile views that gained popularity among the country's liberal intelligentsia. Created under the initiative of Nikolay Kostomarov, a famous historian of Russia and Ukraine, the society was named after Saints Cyril and Methodius, widely regarded as heroes for the Slavic nations celebrated for spreading Christianity and inventing the alphabet used in several Slavic languages.
The society goals included the abolition of serfdom, broad access to public education, transformation of the empire into a federation of free Slavic people with Russians being one of the equal rather than the dominant nation and, according to Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, the implementation of the liberal democratic principles of freedom of speech, thought and religion.
Members included Taras Shevchenko, Panteleimon Kulish, Yurii Andruzky, Vasyl Bilozersky, Mykola Hulak, Opanas Markovych, Oleksander Navrotsky, O. Petrov, Ivan Posiada, Dmytro Pylchykov, and M. Savych.
Famous quotes containing the words brotherhood of, brotherhood and/or saints:
“Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism—that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“There is no brotherhood between love and dignity,
Nor can they share the same abode.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“How marvellous it all is! Built not by saints and angels, but the work of men’s hands; cemented with men’s honest blood and with a world of tears, welded by the best brains of centuries past; not without the taint and reproach incidental to all human work, but constructed on the whole with pure and splendid purpose. Human, and yet not wholly human—for the most heedless and the most cynical must see the finger of the Divine.”
—Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl Rosebery (1847–1929)