Dmytro Yavornytskyi: something interesting about surname
For many years the surname had been written as Evarnytskyi or Yavornitskyi. And it may be a detective story.
Many printed works are signed with the surname Evarnitskyi. Than appears double surname Yavornitskiy-Evarnitskiy. Variation Yavornitskyi appeared in articles in “Ekaterinoslavskiye gubernskiye vedomosti” (Ekaterinoslav (old name of Dnipro) regional news) 1890 year.
In letters to relatives he started using “Yavornytskyi” well before than in printed works, in 1884.
Was it because of self-identification as Ukrainian or because of other reasons? We can`t tell for sure. Historians are still arguing.
Biography
Dmytro Yavornytskyi is a native of the village of Sontsivka (now part of the village of Borysivka, Kharkiv district, Kharkiv region).
The exact date of his birth was not known until the beginning of the twenty-first century, when in 2009 Andrii Paramonov (director of the Kharkiv Museum of the City Manor, local historian, journalist) found an extract from the metric in the Kharkiv archive, which states that Dmytro was born on October 25 (old style), and on October 29 he was baptized (more here in Ukrainian).
His father Ivan Yakymovych was the descendant of the Cossacks officers family. According to Dmytro Yavornytsky, he was a member of the lord's family. The scholar traced his family tree to the Galician gentry. In his book “In the Footsteps of the Cossacks,” Dmytro Ivanovych explained that according to the armorial book of the noble families of the Kingdom of Poland issued in 1853 in Warsaw, there are eight known Yavornytskyy nobles (more here).
Dmytro Ivanovych's grandfather, Yakym Fedorovych Yavornytskyi, was a member of the clergy and owned a small farm called Yavornytskyi in the Zmiiv district of the Kharkiv province. Later, the scientist inherited this farm.
Yavornytskyi received his primary education in his native village, and in 1867 he began studying at the Kharkiv District School, where he got there by chance, thanks to his friendship with the son of the owner of a savings bank in Sontsivka.
At the school, Dmytro Yavornytskyi studied Russian and Latin, geography, history, the law of God, and other subjects. Students were introduced to chronicles, ancient epics, and philosophical treatises. Dmytro was most successful in the field of literature.
After graduation, he returned home and some time later, in 1874, according to family tradition, he entered the Kharkiv Theological Seminary. This happened at the insistence of his father. However, the priesthood did not appeal to Yavornytsky, especially because of the stiffness and scholasticism that prevailed in the seminary. He was fascinated by the history of his native land, folk customs, and folklore. After studying for three years, Dmytro Yavornytskyi left the seminary and in 1877 entered the Faculty of History and Philology at Kharkiv University, which was once considered the “Slobozhan Athens” and was famous for its ideas of the Slavic revival, the flowering of romanticism, and the rise of interest in ethnology and folklore.
In Kharkiv university
Yavornytsky's time at Kharkiv University (1877-1881) came at a time in history when student unrest led to the temporary closure of universities and the suspension of classes. Such events occurred at Kharkiv University as well.
Dmytro Yavornytskyi tried to spend his forced vacations at home to help his parents and rest, as he had been in poor health since childhood and was often ill. In his native Sontsivka, he wasted no time collecting folklore material and recording songs sung by his mother and fellow villagers. Several of the songs he recorded as a student were later published by his student friend, future professor at Kharkiv University Mykhailo Halansky (1857-1910), with whom Dmytro shared a room during his studies.
During his student years, Dmytro Yavornytskyi decided to return to the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks again. In his 2nd year, he decided on a research topic: “The Emergence and Structure of the Zaporozhian Cossacks,” he began to study literature and search for sources that covered the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Yavornitskiy was under influence of professors Olexandr Potebnya (lingusticks) and Mykola Sumtsov (ethnography, literature).
Olexander Potebnya - Ukrainian linguist
Mykola Sumtsov - Ukrainian literature professor
Ukrainian philologist and creator of linguistic poetics Oleksandr Potebnia invited Dmytro Yavornytsky to participate in a student group studying the history, life, and customs of the people. A good relationship was established between the teacher and the student.
First expeditions
Since 1882 Yavornytskyi started a 50 years period of archeological and ethnography expeditions in Kherson in Ekaterinoslav (modern Dnipro) region. Dmytro Yavornitskiy deeply explored Zaporizhzhia region (which wasn`t equal to modern Zaporizhzhia oblast of Ukraine).
From the very first works of his scientific activity, Dmytro Yavornytskyi involved a wide range of amateurs in his research, primarily teachers, doctors, priests, estate managers, statisticians, local officials, collectors etc.
All of them “supplied” him with the necessary information, reported on archaeological findings, searched for monuments, and recorded songs, dumas, and legends from the people. In the summer of 1884 Dmytro Yavornytskyi addressed the population of Katerynoslav region through the newspaper Dnipro with a request to send him all materials related to the history of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks. The scholar's scientific travels covered a wide area, including the Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, Tavria, Poltava, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv provinces.
Kharkiv period
After graduating from the university in 1881, Dmytro Yavornytskyi remained at the Department of Russian History as a freelance scholar to prepare for the professorship. At the same time, he taught history at various secondary schools in Kharkiv. In the spring of 1885, he gave a series of public lectures on the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks, for which he was harassed and accused by the local authorities, who made efforts to have the young Ukrainian historian deprived of his scholarship and then dismissed from the university. Between 1885 and 1881, Yavornytskyi worked as a history teacher at several educational institutions in St. Petersburg, including the Mykolaiv Orphanage for Noble Girls, the Second Cadet Corps, and the Stoyunina Private Women's Gymnasium (Funds of national Vernadskiy library. I, No. 22093, 22094). In addition to teaching, Yavornytskyi was actively engaged in research in the archives of St. Petersburg, studying sources on the history of the Cossacks. Every summer he went on archaeological expeditions to places associated with the Cossack past, in particular, in 1887 he and his colleague Volodymyr Tarnovskyi traveled along the Dnipro rapids, collecting materials for their research (Funds of national Vernadskiy library. I, no. 22095).
In 1892, the first volume of Dmytro Yavornytskyi's fundamental work “History of the Cossacks of Zaporizhzhia” was published (Funds of national Vernadskiy library. I, no. 22034). The next two volumes were published in 1895 and 1897. This publication was the result of many years of painstaking research work by the scholar, which began in his student years.
In Katerynoslav (Dnipro)
In 1902, Dmytro Yavornytskyi, already a well-known researcher of Zaporizhzhia antiquities, was invited to head the A.M. Pol Regional Museum in Katerynoslav. Under Yavornytskyi's leadership, the museum acquired many new valuable exhibits, and its collections included many archaeological finds, historical documents, old prints, and cartographic materials, making it one of the leading museums in Ukraine. Katerynoslav became Dmytro Yavornytskyi's place of residence and work for all the following years. His love and respect for this Cossack land was reflected in his scientific research on the history of Katerynoslav.
In 1910, Yavornytskyi traveled to Turkey, Greece, and Egypt. During his visit to Istanbul, the scholar had the opportunity to see memorial sites related to Ukrainian history.
Historical museum in Dnipro
Dmytro Yavornytsky's circle of acquaintances included such well-known individuals as Dmytro Bahaliy, Yevhen Chykalenko, Mykola Lysenko, and Agatangel Krymsky, whose correspondence is exhibited at the exhibition. Also on display is a photograph of Yavornytskyi with art historian Stefan Taranushenko in Dnipropetrovs'k.
During the first liberation struggle, Dmytro Ivanovych guarded the museum from robbery day and night, and even obtained a “security certificate” from Nestor Makhno. In 1917, Yavornytsky participated in the activities of the revived Katerynoslav Enlightenment. He did not stop his scholarly and lecturing activities. Yavornytsky lectured at provincial zemstvo courses for teachers in the province; at Ukrainian courses for
teachers of zemstvo and parochial schools and representatives of the parishes of Pavlohrad district; at courses of Ukrainian studies for teachers of zemstvo and parochial schools in Oleksandrivsk district. The formation of higher education in the Katerynoslav region is associated with Yavornytskyi's name. He became one of the first professors of the Yekaterinoslav University. On July 29, 1918, he was elected professor of the Department of Ukrainian History at this institution, where on September 20 of the same year he delivered a lecture entitled “Ukrainian-Russian Cossacks before the Court of History.” He developed a course on the history of the local region.
After the 1918 revolution, Dmytro Yavornytskyi was elected a professor at the University of Katerynoslav, where he headed the Department of Ukrainian Studies he created in 1924-1929. However, the main concern of the researcher continued to be his museum.
Yavornytskyi`s house-museum in Dnipro
The scientific community, highly appreciating Yavornytsky's contribution to the development of historical science in Ukraine, elected him a corresponding scientist (1924) and later an academician (1929) of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. At the same time, the Soviet authorities did not treat Dmytro Yavornytskyi with much favor, accusing him of “bourgeois nationalism” and collaboration with counterrevolutionary organizations (the SVU case). In 1934, Yavornytsky was fired from the museum, and he remained unemployed until the end of his life. The prominent historian of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks died on August 5, 1940.
One of the last photos of Dmytro Yavornytskyi
Mini-sculpture Yavornytskyi in Dnipro
History of Zaporizhzhia cossacks (vol. 1). The most famous Yavornytskyi`s work
