Volodymyr Antonovych

Volodymyr Antonovych
Володимир Боніфатійович Антонович
Włodzimierz Antonowicz
T. Meyerhoffer. Portrait of V. Antonovych, late 19th century.
Born (1834-01-30)January 30, 1834
Makhnovka, Berdichev uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire
Died March 21, 1908(1908-03-21) (aged 74)
Kiev, Russian Empire
Resting place Baikove Cemetery, Kiev
Occupation archeologist, paleographer, historian, ethnographer, and civil activist
Language Russian, Ukrainian, Polish
Nationality Ukrainian
Alma mater Kiev University
Notable works Archives of South-Western Russia (8 volumes)
Spouse Kateryna Melnyk-Antonovych
Children Dmytro Antonovych
Signature
Volodymyr Antonovych

Volodymyr Antonovych (Ukrainian: Володи́мир Боніфа́тійович Антоно́вич; Polish: Włodzimierz Antonowicz; Влади́мир Бонифа́тьевич Антоно́вич; January 30, 1834, – March 21, 1908, Kiev) was a prominent Ukrainian historian and one of the leaders of the Ukrainian independence awakening in the Russian Empire. As a historian, Antonovych was a longtime Professor of History at the University of Kyiv.

Biography

He was born January 18, 1834 in the village of Makhnivka (Makhnovka), Vinnytsia Oblast, then in the Imperial Russian Kiev Guberniya. His parents were two local teachers of Polish humble gentry ancestry, though Antonovych later claimed the direct predecessor of his family was a member of the mighty Lubomirski family.[1] According to amateur historian and the Antonovych's contemporary Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński, Antonovych on various occasions claimed his father was either Bolesław Antonowicz or a Hungarian wanderer named János Diday.[2] Gawroński also believed that little is known of this period in his life.[3] According to the historian specializing in history of Kiev University Viktor Korotkyi, János Diday was actually the Antonovych father.[4] Himself Diday was a son of Hungarian revolutionary who fought for separation of Hungary from Austrian Empire and implementation a republican rule.[4] The Antonovych's stepfather Bonifatiy Antonovych was a Litvin from Vilno land, a graduate of Kremenets Lyceum.[4] Mother of Antonovych, Monika Gurska (of Lubomirski family), was a governess who knew well French language and read a lot.[4] She tried to convey to her son "noble manners" even forcibly.[4]

His childhood (1834-1840) Volodymyr spent with his grandmother Karolina Gurska in Makhnivka.[4] In 1840-1844 along with children of Tsybulski noble family, he has been taught in town of Horyshkivka (today a village of Tomashpil Raion) by his own mother.[4] A repeated course of home schooling, he has been taught with the children of the Otton Abramovych family by his own father.[4] In 1844-48 Volodymyr continued his studies in the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa, and in 1848-50 in the 2nd Odessa Gymnasium.[4] According to Korotkyi, at the insistence of his mother in 1850 Antonovych enrolled into the Medical Academic Faculty of St.Vladimir Imperial University (Kiev) which he graduated in 1855.[4] According to Gawroński, about this time Antonovych joined the circles of Polish-minded students and took some part in preparations to events that entered the history as the January Uprising.[5] In 1855-56 he also conducted a medical practice in Berdychiv and Chornobyl.[4] In 1856-60 Antonovych studied at the Historic and Philological Academic Faculty of St.Vladimir Imperial University where under professor Vasily Shulgin he defended the candidate's dissertation "About the trade of Negroes" (Russian: О торговле неграми, 1860).[4]

In 1830 he graduated from the II School for Boys in Odessa and joined the Kiev University.[6][7] Initially he studied medicine, but following the death of his mother he moved to the faculty of history and philology. During his studies he joined the circles of Polish democratically-minded students and took part in the preparations for what became the January Uprising under the auspice of the London-based Polish Democratic Society.[5]

In 1857 he co-founded[8] the Związek Trojnicki ("Triple Society", named after three parts of Poland taken by Russia in 18th century: Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev area). The society was aimed at promoting the liquidation of serfdom and winning the peasants for the case of Polish independence. At the same time it prepared the members for their role in the planned all-national uprising.[9] As such, Antonowicz became one of the prominent examples of the "peasant-lovers" (Polish: chłopomani, Ukrainian: khlopomany), a loose group of young artists and political thinkers fascinated with the peasantry as the "core of the nation" and stressing the need to win the peasants for the cause.

However, when the January Uprising finally started, the society divided.[10] Antonowicz, highly critical of the szlachta, decided to "go with the people", and left its ranks, instead forming a "Ruthenian" (Ukrainian) society called Kiev Hromada.[11][12] The conflict between Antonowicz and his university colleagues was further aggravated by the conflict over the Polish language. While most democratic societies decided to appeal to the tsar and ask for the Polish language to be promoted to the status of the language of instruction, Antonowicz ultimately opposed those plans.[3][13] This conflict further strengthened Antonowicz's pro-Ukrainian stance on one side, and the animosity between him and his colleagues on the other, to the extent he was considered a "renegade" by some.[14] About that time he also changed his name to its Ruthenized form and converted to Orthodox faith, common among the peasants living around Kiev, as opposed to Catholicism confessed by the higher strata of local society.[3]

In 1861 Antonovych switched to the Russian Orthodoxy, married Varvara Ivanovna Mikhels (Russian: Варвара Ивановна Михельс), and started to teach Latin in the 1st Kiev Gymnasium.[4] During that time Antonovych comes under investigation on issue of traveling with Tadei Rylskyi (Polish: Tadeusz Rylski, father of Maksym Rylskyi) among Ukrainian villages.[4]

In July 1863 Antonovych was appointed a chancellery official to chancellery of the Governor General of Kiev, Podolie, and Volhynia (so called Southwestern Krai) with an official departure to the Provisional commission for review of ancient acts (see Kiev Archaeographic Commission, part of the Russian Archaeographic Commission) and in April 1864 (1864-1880) he became its chief editor.[4] During his work in the commission, Antonovych edited and published 9[4] volumes of the "Archives of South-Western Russia"[4] that relates to history of the 16-18th centuries of Right-bank Ukraine.[4] Introductory articles of Antonovych to those volumes dedicated to Cossack history ("Contents of acts on Cossacks" (Russian: "Содержание актов о козаках (1500–1648)"), 1863; Last days of Cossackdom on the right bank of the Dnieper according to the acts from 1679 to 1716 (Russian: "Последние времена козачества на правом берегу Днепра по актам с 1679 по 1716 г."), 1868); haidamaka movement; peasantry; szlachta; cities and their residents; church.[4]

Throughout his career, the imperial censors and oppressive political atmosphere prevented Antonovych from openly expressing his political views which tended to be egalitarian and somewhat anarchistic. In addition to being a populist, he was a pioneer of positivist methodology in history, the founder of the so-called "Kiev Documentalist School" of Ukrainian historians, and mentor of the most famous of these, Mykhailo Hrushevsky.

In 1870 Antonovych was awarded the Order of St.Stanislav, 2nd degree.[4] In February 1870 the Kiev University stewardship council confirmed him as a magister of Russian history for dissertation "Last days of Cossackdom on the right bank of the Dnieper".[4] In spring of 1870 he was elected to the position of staff docent of Kiev University at the Russian history department.[4] Following that, in 1871 the Senate on department of heraldry confirmed Antonovych as a Court councilor (Russian: Надворный советник, Nadvornyi sovetnik; the 7th rank in Table of Ranks) with seniority.[4] In 1871 he participated in the 2nd Archaeological Congress in Saint Petersburg, also took active role in preparation and conducting the 3rd (1874) and the 9th (1899) archeological congresses in Kiev where he made 36 reports.[4] In 1880 Antonovych participated in the Archaeological Congress in Lisbon[4] (so called the 9th International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology, predecessor of IUAES).

Among the Antonovych's students were Pyotr Golubovsky,[15] Dmytro Bahaliy,[16] Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Mytrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky, Ivan Lynnychenko, and others.[17]

In 1897 together with the Ukrainian nobleman Oleksandr Konysky organized the All-Ukrainian Public Organization.

Family

Volodymyr Antonovych is the father of the former Ukrainian minister Dmytro Antonovych and the grandfather of Maryna Rudnytska, the Canadian professor in the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Maryna Rudnytska was the wife of Jaroslav Rudnyckyj.

His wife was Kateryna Mykolaivna Antonovych-Melnyk (Dec. 2, 1859 – Jan. 12, 1942) who was a Ukrainian historian and archeologist from the city of Khorol (today – Poltava Oblast). In 1880s she participated in the archeological excavations near Shumsk (today – Ternopil Oblast) and in 1885 visited Ternopil during her travel around the region. Since 1919 Kateryna worked in the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Notes and references

In-line:
  1. ↑ Franciszek Gawroński (1912). Włodzimierz Antonowicz : zarys jego działalności społeczno-politycznej i historycznej (in Polish). Lwów: Gebethner i Ska. pp. 11–12.
  2. ↑ One of Antonovych's letters supports the earlier version, while his memoirs support the latter. See: Gawroński, op.cit., pp. 14-18
  3. 1 2 3 Gawroński, op.cit., p.22
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Korotkyi, V.A. Antonovych Volodymyr Bonifatiyovych (АНТОНОВИЧ Володимир Боніфатійович). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine
  5. 1 2 Gawroński, op.cit., pp.54-56
  6. ↑ Gawroński, op.cit., p.23
  7. ↑ Born and raised as a Catholic, during his studies at the Kiev University he converted to the Orthodox faith; see: Gawroński, p.22,
  8. ↑ Together with Leon Głowacki, Włodzimierz Milowicz, Władysław Henszel, Stefan Bobrowski and others
  9. ↑ Jan Tabiś (1974). Polacy na Uniwersytecie Kijowskim, 1834-1863 (in Polish). Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Literackie. pp. 90–121.
  10. ↑ Paweł Jasienica (1992). Dwie drogi: o powstaniu styczniowym (in Polish). Warsaw: Czytelnik. pp. 124, 172–177. ISBN 8307022991.
  11. ↑ Initially Antonowicz's Hromada was composed mostly of Poles, much like other student societies named after various regions of former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as there were few Ukrainians at the university at the time; see for instance Jan Tabiś, op.cit.
  12. ↑ Andrzej Walicki (January 2003). "Ideologia narodowa powstania styczniowego (2)". Przegląd (in Polish) (4/2003).
  13. ↑ Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński (1902). "Włodzimierz Antonowicz". Rok 1863 na Rusi (in Polish). Lwów: H. Altenberg. pp. 143–153.
  14. ↑ Franciszek Rawita-Gawroński, op.cit., p.142
  15. ↑ Petr Golubovsky. [Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Volume II: G-K].
  16. ↑ Bahaliy Dmytro I. (07.11.1857-09.02.1932 ). National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
  17. ↑ Oleksander Ohloblyn. Antonovych, Volodymyr. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984)
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