Dmytro Ivanovych Yavornytsky ( uk, Дмитро́ Іва́нович Яворни́цький), or Dmitry Ivanovich Yavornitsky (also known as ''Dmitry Evarnitsky'', russian: Дмитрий Иванович Яворницкий; November 6, 1855,
Kharkov Governorate
The Kharkov Governorate ( pre-reform Russian: , tr. ''Khárkovskaya gubérniya'', IPA: xarʲkəfskəjə ɡʊˈbʲernʲɪjə ) was a governorate of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. Fro ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
– August 5, 1940,
Dnipropetrovsk,
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
Imperial and
Ukrainian Soviet academician,
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 st ...
,
archeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
,
ethnographer
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
,
folklorist, and
lexicographer
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretica ...
. Yavornytsky was a member of (from 1885), of
All-Russian Archaeological Society (from 1886) and an academician of
Ukrainian Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU; uk, Національна академія наук України, ''Natsional’na akademiya nauk Ukrayiny'', abbr: NAN Ukraine) is a self-governing state-funded organization in Ukraine th ...
(from 1929).
He was recognised as one of the most prominent researchers of the
Zaporozhian Cossacks
The Zaporozhian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossack Army, Zaporozhian Host, (, or uk, Військо Запорізьке, translit=Viisko Zaporizke, translit-std=ungegn, label=none) or simply Zaporozhians ( uk, Запорожці, translit=Zaporoz ...
from the time of the
Cossack Hetmanate
The Cossack Hetmanate ( uk, Гетьманщина, Hetmanshchyna; or ''Cossack state''), officially the Zaporizhian Host or Army of Zaporizhia ( uk, Військо Запорозьке, Viisko Zaporozke, links=no; la, Exercitus Zaporoviensis) ...
, and the author of their first general history. In recognition of his many contributions to the preservation of Zaporozhian Host history and culture, he is widely known in historiography as "the father of the Zaporozhians".
Education and career
Yavornitsky was born as ''Dmitry Evarnitsky''. His father Ivan Yakimovich Evarnitsky (1827–1885) belonged to Russian Imperial nobility. Dmitry was educated at
Kharkov University
The Kharkiv University or Karazin University ( uk, Каразінський університет), or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University ( uk, Харківський національний університет імені ...
,
Kazan
Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering an ...
, and
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
universities but his academic career was repeatedly interrupted for political reasons. Both as a student and later as a teacher, he was wrongly 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 Osipovich Klyuchevsky (russian: Василий Осипович Ключевский; in Voskresnskoye Village, Penza Governorate, Russia – , Moscow) was a leading Russian Imperial historian of the late imperial period. Also, he addres ...
helped him to obtain a position as lecturer on the
Zaporozhian Cossacks
The Zaporozhian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossack Army, Zaporozhian Host, (, or uk, Військо Запорізьке, translit=Viisko Zaporizke, translit-std=ungegn, label=none) or simply Zaporozhians ( uk, Запорожці, translit=Zaporoz ...
at Moscow University. In 1902, when he was offered a position as Director of the
Yekaterinoslav
Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...
Historical Museum in modern-day central
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, he gladly accepted and remained there to the end of his life.
Historian
As a historian, Yavornytsky displayed a romantic-antiquarian approach to his subject and was a conscious follower of his predecessor
Mykola Kostomarov
Mykola Ivanovych Kostomarov or Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Костома́ров, ; uk, Микола Іванович Костомаров, ; May 16, 1817, vil. Yurasovka, Voronezh Governorate, R ...
. 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
Mykhailo Serhiiovych Hrushevsky ( uk, Михайло Сергійович Грушевський, Chełm, – Kislovodsk, 24 November 1934) was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian and statesman who was one of the most important figure ...
) and lacking an appreciation for Ukrainian statehood (
Dmytro Doroshenko
Dmytro Doroshenko ( uk, Дмитро Іванович Дорошенко, ''Dmytro Ivanovych Doroshenko'', russian: Дми́трий Ива́нович Дороше́нко; 8 April 1882 – 19 March 1951) was a prominent Ukrainian political figu ...
), but Yavornytsky wrote at a time when political circumstances and the Imperial Russian censors were extremely oppressive
[''"Літописець Запорозької Січі - Минуло 150 років від дня народження Дмитра Яворницького", Ukraina Moloda, November 2011'', ] 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
Yavornytsky was a pioneer in the fields of
ethnography,
folkloristics
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
, and
lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoreti ...
. He made numerous contributions to the historical geography of the Zaporozhian lands, and mapped in detail the
Dnieper River
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...
rapids with the locations of the various
Zaporozhian Sich
The Zaporozhian Sich ( ua, Запорозька Січ, ; also uk, Вольностi Вiйська Запорозького Низового, ; Free lands of the Zaporozhian Host the Lower) was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Co ...
es, or fortified headquarters. He published a large collection of Ukrainian
folksong
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
s (1906; partly reprinted, 1990) as soon as the censor would permit it, contributed to
Borys Hrinchenko
Borys Dmytrovych Hrinchenko ( uk, Борис Дмитрович Грінченко, December 9, 1863 – May 6, 1910) was a classical Ukrainian prose writer, political activist, historian, publicist, and ethnographer. He was instrumental in the ...
'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. Yavornytsky commissioned the best Ukrainian and Russian artists of his time (
Opanas Slastion
Opanas Heorhiiovych Slastion ( uk, Опанас Георгійович Сластіон, – September 24, 1933) was a Ukrainian graphic artist, painter, and ethnographer.
He was born in the port town of Berdiansk (now Ukraine) on the Berdya ...
,
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.
Legacy
During the
repressions of the 1930s under
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, 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
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and in the wider world. The Yekaterinoslav Museum was eventually renamed in his honour, as the
Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro
Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro () is a museum, established in Dnipro (Ukraine) in 1848 by Andriy Fabr, local governor. Its permanent collection consists of 283 thousand objects from ancient Paleolithic implements to disp ...
. He was partially
rehabilitated during the
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
and
Petro Shelest
Petro Yukhymovych Shelestrussian: Пётр Ефи́мович Ше́лест, translit=Pyotr Yefimovich Shelest (14 February 190822 January 1996) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician. First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Sovi ...
eras. Materials about him began to appear, and in the early 1970s a four volume collection of his works was prepared for publication, supported by museum director
Horpyna Vatchenko. 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 be dedicated to his historical, geographical, and archaeological works, while the second ten volumes will contain his works on folklore, ethnography, and language.
Today, Yavornytsky is still widely revered as "the father of the Zaporozhians".
In order to comply with
decommunization laws the city of
Dnipropetrovsk renamed its main street from
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
Avenue to Yavornytskyi Avenue in February 2016.
[In Dnipropetrovsk renamed Central Avenue and several streets]
Interfax-Ukraine (22 February 2016)
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
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a ...
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.
References
Literature
*
Dmytro Doroshenko
Dmytro Doroshenko ( uk, Дмитро Іванович Дорошенко, ''Dmytro Ivanovych Doroshenko'', russian: Дми́трий Ива́нович Дороше́нко; 8 April 1882 – 19 March 1951) was a prominent Ukrainian political figu ...
, "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
Dnipro National Historic Museum named D.I. YavornitskyBiography.
''History of Zaporizhian Cossacks'' by Dmytro Yavornytsky .
Interactive biography of Dmytro Yavornytsky (ukr.)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yavornytsky, Dmytro
1855 births
1940 deaths
20th-century Ukrainian historians
People from Kharkiv Oblast
People from Kharkov Governorate
National University of Kharkiv alumni
Ukrainian Cossacks
Ukrainian ethnographers
Ukrainian lexicographers
Members of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Ukrainian people in the Russian Empire
19th-century Ukrainian historians