Rethinking Ukrainian History by Ivan L. Rudnytsky

There he was awarded his masters degree in international relations in 1943 from the Friedrich Wilhelm University. After the Soviet annexation of Galicia, his mother believed it was only a matter of time before the NKVD would arrest her and so she fled with her son to Krakow, and then in 1940 to Berlin. Rudnytsky began his academic career at the University of Lviv in interwar Poland where he studied law in the years 1937–1939. After his parents divorced when Ivan was 2 years old he lived with his mother, but his material needs to support his intellectual pursuits were taken care of up to 1953 in large part due to his father and mother’s financial help. In his youth, Ivan grew to become an intellectual gourmet growing up within the intensely stimulating environment of the extended Rudnytsky family of luminaries: Ivan Kedryn-Rudnytsky (prominent political leader and publicist of Ukrainian identity), Myhailo Rudnytsky (literary scholar, literary critic, translator), Antin Rudnytsky (conductor and composer) and Volodymyr Rudnytsky (lawyer and social activist). Both were well-known social and political activists from well connected families. His father Pavlo Lysiak was a lawyer and his mother Milena Rudnytska was a professor and politician. Ivan Rudnytsky was born in Vienna, Austria where his parents were residing as political refugees from Galicia, which had been invaded by Poland in the aftermath of its successful war against the West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918 – 1919).

He is sometimes referred to as Ivan Łysiak-Rudnytsky, but the surname he used was his mother’s name Rudnytsky.

He has been praised one of the most influential Ukrainian historians of the twentieth century.

He significantly influenced Ukrainian historical and political thought by writing over 200 historical essays, commentaries and reviews, and also serving as editor of several book publications. Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky ( Ukrainian: Іван Лисяк Рудницький, 27 October 1919 – 25 April 1984) was a historian of Ukrainian socio-political thought, political scientist and scholar publicist.

Rethinking Ukrainian History by Ivan L. Rudnytsky