Dmytro Yavornytsky
Encyclopedia
Dmytro Yavornytsky (November 6, 1855 — August 5, 1940) was a noted Ukrainian
historian
, archeologist, ethnographer
, folklorist, and lexicographer
. He was one of the most prominent researchers of the Ukrainian
Cossacks, especially the Zaporozhian Cossacks (or Zaporozhian Host), and the author of their first general history. In recognition of his many contributions to the preservation of Zaporozhian history and culture, he is widely known as "the Father of the Zaporozhians".
, Kazan
, and Warsaw
universities but his academic career was repeatedly interrupted by the Imperial Russian authorities for political reasons. Both as a student and later as a teacher, he was accused of Ukrainian "separatism" and dismissed from his position. In the 1890s, he was compelled to go to Russian Turkestan in order to find employment. In 1897, the Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky
helped him to obtain a position as lecturer on the Zaporozhian Cossacks at Moscow University. In 1902, when he was offered a position as Director of the Yekaterinoslav
Historical Museum in central Ukraine
, he gladly accepted and remained there to the end of his life.
As a historian, Yavornytsky displayed a romantic-antiquarian approach to his subject and was a conscious follower of his predecessor, the Ukrainian historian, Mykola Kostomarov. He was an enthusiast who avidly sought out documents and material artifacts, as well as stories and the songs of the elderly, concerning the Zaporozhian Cossacks, and he wrote his histories on the basis of this material. He was a pioneer of Zaporozhian history and was the first to compile an extensive archive of materials on their entire history — from their origins, to their demise. He published much of this material in various collections, often at his own expense.
Yavornytsky's major work was the History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks which was published in Russian in three volumes between 1892 and 1897. He planned, but never completed, a fourth volume. In this and in his other works, he portrayed the Zaporozhians as representatives of Ukrainian liberty. Later Ukrainian historians criticized him as being uncritical and unsystematic in his collection of source materials (Mykhailo Hrushevsky
) and lacking an appreciation for Ukrainian statehood (Dmytro Doroshenko
), but Yavornytsky wrote at a time when political circumstances and the Imperial Russian censors were extremely oppressive and any synthesis of Ukrainian history which displayed an enthusiasm for the subject, let alone political independence, was highly suspect. His History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was a pioneering work which did display such an enthusiasm.
rapids with the locations of the various Zaporozhian Siches, or fortified headquarters. He published a large collection of Ukrainian folksongs (1906; partly reprinted, 1990) as soon as the censor would permit it, contributed to Borys Hrinchenko
's great Ukrainian dictionary, and after the Russian Revolution, began publication of one of his own (1920).
He increased the holdings of the Yekaterinoslav Museum from 5,000 to 80,000 items. He commissioned the best Ukrainian and Russian artists of his time (Opanas Slastion
, Serhii Vasylkivsky
, Nikolai Samokish, and Ilya Repin) to illustrate his various books, which were, sometimes works of art in themselves. Especially notable in this regard is his From Ukrainian Antiquity (1900; reprinted in Ukrainian translation, 1991) which was lavishly illustrated in full colour and contained parallel texts in Russian and French so that it could be read abroad.
.jpg)
During the Joseph Stalin
repressions of the 1930s, Yavornytsky was prevented from publishing and had to keep a very low profile. During the Holodomor
(the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33), he felt compelled to give away artifacts from his collections to obtain food for starving local peasants and others.
His death passed unnoticed both in the USSR and in the wider world. The Yekaterinoslav (today Dnipropetrovsk
) Museum was eventually renamed in his honour and he was partially rehabilitated during the Nikita Khrushchev
and Petro Shelest
eras. Materials about him began to appear, and in the early 1970s, a four volume collection of his works was prepared for publication. Political circumstances again prevented this from happening, but with the advent of the Perestroika
reforms in the late 1980s, new materials began to appear and his major works were republished. At that time, his History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was reprinted both in Russian and in Ukrainian (1990–91). The Ukrainian edition contains numerous additional illustrations. In 2004, the first volume of his Collected Works in Twenty Volumes was published. The first ten volumes of this collection will contain his historical, geographical, and archeological works, the second ten volumes, his works on folklore, ethnography, and language.
Today, Yavornytsky is still widely revered as "the Father of the Zaporozhians".
Yavornytsky is portrayed on the painting of Ilya Repin's "The Satirical Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey
" as the secretary
penning the letter to the Sultan. Repin consulted Yavornytsky during his work on the painting and made use of several artifacts from the historian's collection to use as accurate models.
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, archeologist, ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, folklorist, and lexicographer
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
. He was one of the most prominent researchers of the Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
Cossacks, especially the Zaporozhian Cossacks (or Zaporozhian Host), and the author of their first general history. In recognition of his many contributions to the preservation of Zaporozhian history and culture, he is widely known as "the Father of the Zaporozhians".
Education and career
Yavornytsky was educated at KharkivKharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
, Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
, and Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
universities but his academic career was repeatedly interrupted by the Imperial Russian authorities for political reasons. Both as a student and later as a teacher, he was accused of Ukrainian "separatism" and dismissed from his position. In the 1890s, he was compelled to go to Russian Turkestan in order to find employment. In 1897, the Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky
Vasily Klyuchevsky
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky dominated Russian historiography at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is still regarded as one of three most reputable Russian historians, alongside Nikolay Karamzin and Sergey Solovyov.-Early life:...
helped him to obtain a position as lecturer on the Zaporozhian Cossacks at Moscow University. In 1902, when he was offered a position as Director of the Yekaterinoslav
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...
Historical Museum in central Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, he gladly accepted and remained there to the end of his life.
Historian
Yavornytsky's major work was the History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks which was published in Russian in three volumes between 1892 and 1897. He planned, but never completed, a fourth volume. In this and in his other works, he portrayed the Zaporozhians as representatives of Ukrainian liberty. Later Ukrainian historians criticized him as being uncritical and unsystematic in his collection of source materials (Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian, and statesman, one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century...
) and lacking an appreciation for Ukrainian statehood (Dmytro Doroshenko
Dmytro Doroshenko
Dmytro Doroshenko was a prominent Ukrainian political figure during the revolution of 1917-1918 and a leading Ukrainian emigre historian during the inter-war period.-Political career:...
), but Yavornytsky wrote at a time when political circumstances and the Imperial Russian censors were extremely oppressive and any synthesis of Ukrainian history which displayed an enthusiasm for the subject, let alone political independence, was highly suspect. His History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was a pioneering work which did display such an enthusiasm.
Other scholarly interests
As an ethnographer, folklorist, and lexicographer, Yavornytsky was also a pioneer. He made numerous contributions to the historical geography of the Zaporozhian lands, and mapped in detail the Dnieper RiverDnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
rapids with the locations of the various Zaporozhian Siches, or fortified headquarters. He published a large collection of Ukrainian folksongs (1906; partly reprinted, 1990) as soon as the censor would permit it, contributed to Borys Hrinchenko
Borys Hrinchenko
Borys Dmytrovych Hrinchenko was a classical Ukrainian prose writer, political activist, historian, publicist, and ethnographer. He was instrumental in the Ukrainian cultural revival of the late 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries....
's great Ukrainian dictionary, and after the Russian Revolution, began publication of one of his own (1920).
He increased the holdings of the Yekaterinoslav Museum from 5,000 to 80,000 items. He commissioned the best Ukrainian and Russian artists of his time (Opanas Slastion
Opanas Slastion
Opanas Georgievych Slastion was a Ukrainian graphic artist, painter and ethnographer.He was born in the Ukrainian port town of Berdyansk on the Berdyansk Gulf of the Sea of Azov...
, Serhii Vasylkivsky
Serhii Vasylkivsky
Serhii Vasylkivsky was one of the most prolific Ukrainian artists of the pre-revolutionary period and an expert on Ukrainian ornamentation and folk art.- Biography :...
, Nikolai Samokish, and Ilya Repin) to illustrate his various books, which were, sometimes works of art in themselves. Especially notable in this regard is his From Ukrainian Antiquity (1900; reprinted in Ukrainian translation, 1991) which was lavishly illustrated in full colour and contained parallel texts in Russian and French so that it could be read abroad.
Legacy
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
repressions of the 1930s, Yavornytsky was prevented from publishing and had to keep a very low profile. During the Holodomor
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
(the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33), he felt compelled to give away artifacts from his collections to obtain food for starving local peasants and others.
His death passed unnoticed both in the USSR and in the wider world. The Yekaterinoslav (today Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...
) Museum was eventually renamed in his honour and he was partially rehabilitated during the Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
and Petro Shelest
Petro Shelest
Petro Yukhymovych Shelest was the First Secretary of the Communist party in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Petro Yukhymovych Shelest (February 14, 1908 - January 22, 1996) was the First Secretary of the Communist party in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Petro Yukhymovych Shelest...
eras. Materials about him began to appear, and in the early 1970s, a four volume collection of his works was prepared for publication. Political circumstances again prevented this from happening, but with the advent of the Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
reforms in the late 1980s, new materials began to appear and his major works were republished. At that time, his History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was reprinted both in Russian and in Ukrainian (1990–91). The Ukrainian edition contains numerous additional illustrations. In 2004, the first volume of his Collected Works in Twenty Volumes was published. The first ten volumes of this collection will contain his historical, geographical, and archeological works, the second ten volumes, his works on folklore, ethnography, and language.
Today, Yavornytsky is still widely revered as "the Father of the Zaporozhians".
Trivia
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire, also known as Cossacks of Saporog Are Drafting a Manifesto , is a painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin. The 2.03 m by 3.58 m canvas was started in 1880 and finished in 1891. Repin recorded the years of work along the...
" as the secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
penning the letter to the Sultan. Repin consulted Yavornytsky during his work on the painting and made use of several artifacts from the historian's collection to use as accurate models.
Literature
- Dmytro DoroshenkoDmytro DoroshenkoDmytro Doroshenko was a prominent Ukrainian political figure during the revolution of 1917-1918 and a leading Ukrainian emigre historian during the inter-war period.-Political career:...
, "Survey of Ukrainian Historiography," Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US, V-VI (1957), 242–4. - Thomas M. Prymak, "Dmytro Yavornytsky and the Romance of Cossack History," Forum: A Ukrainian Review, no. 82 (Summer–Fall 1990), 17–23. This article is richly illustrated.
External links
- Artworks by Dmitry Yavornitsky
- Bibliography Dmitry Yavornitsky
- Dnepropetrovsk National Historic Museum named D.I. Yavornitsky
- Yavornytsky, Dmytro. Biography.
- Історія запорізьких козаків History of Zaporizhian Cossacks by Dmytro Yavornytsky .