Hromada (secret society)

Hromada was a network of secret societies of Ukrainian intelligentsia that appeared soon after the Crimean War. The societies laid a groundwork for appearance of the Ukrainian political elite and national political movement. The Ukrainian national and anti-oppressive movement intensified with the January Uprising and issuing of the Valuev Circular. Many former members of the disbanded Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Parallel to hromoda network in the Russian Empire, in the Austria-Hungary sprang out Prosvita (Enlightenment) societies.

Important hromadas existed in Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Poltava, Chernihiv, Odessa, Ternopil, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Stryi.

The first hromada was established in Saint Petersburg when the first members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius returned from their exile. Important publication of the Petersburg hromada was magazine Osnova (Basis) that was published for a short time in 1860s.

Due to student unrest and other revolutionary activity the Russian minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuev had arrested several hromada leaders (Pavlo Chubynsky, Petro Yefymenko and others) and exiled them to Siberia. After the publication of the Pylyp Morachevsky's New Testament in Ukrainian, Valuev banned most of publications and issued his secret Valuev circular as an instruction to the minister of education.

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