In 1832, at Lviv University he formed the Ruthenian Triad (Ruska Triitsia) with Markiyan Shashkevych, and Ivan Vahylevych, and played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival in Galicia.

The three published the first Halych almanac in the vernacular language, Rusalka Dnistrovaia (The Dniester Nymph, 1836), with included several of Holovatsky's poems.

In 1946–47 he published Vinok rusynam na obzhynky (A Garland for Ruthenians at the Harvest Feast), an anthology of 20 Serbian songs in Ukrainian translation.

[6][7] When Austria began to support Galician Poles in political reaction, disillusioned and influenced by Mikhail Pogodin's Pan-Slavist ideas, Holovatsky adopted a Russophile attitude in the 1850s.

The most important work among his ethnographic and literary studies was Narodnye pesni Galitskoi i Ugorskoi Rusi (Folk Songs of Galician and Hungarian Ruthenia, 4 vv, 1878).