Mychajlo Maxymovych

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Josef Mukarowskij, Portrait by M. Maxymowytsch (1882)
Cyrillic ( Ukrainian )
Михайло Олександрович Максимович
Transl. : Myhajlo Maksymovyč
Transcr. : Mychajlo Olexandrowytsch Maxymowytsch
Cyrillic ( Russian )
Михаил Александрович Максимович
Transl .: Mihail Maksimovič
Transcr .: Mikhail Alexandrovich Maximovich

Mychajlo Olexandrowytsch Maxymowytsch (* September 3 July / September 15,  1804 greg. In Tymkivshchyna near Solotonoscha , Poltava Governorate , Russian Empire ; † November 10 July / November 22,  1873 greg. In Michajlova Gora near Kaniw , Poltava governorate, Russian Empire ) was a Ukrainian - Russian botanist, writer and scientist, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg , the first rector of Kiev University .

Maxymowytsch has made a contribution in the natural sciences and humanities , especially in botany and zoology , and in linguistics , folklore , ethnography , history , literary studies and archeology . He was a well-known Slavist . His folklore writings played a major role in the Ukrainophilic movement in the nineteenth century. The scientific library of Kiev University was named after his name.

Life

Maximowitsch was born into an old Cossack family (staršina kazackaja) who owned a small estate in the Poltav governorate in left-bank Ukraine . His father Alexander Ivanovich Maximovich was a colonel in the Russian Army. His mother, Glikerija Fjodorowna Timkowskaja , belonged to the old noble Polish house of Tymkowski. After graduating from the Novgorod-Seversky high school , he studied botany and philology at Moscow University , where he received his first academic degree in 1823. In 1827, also in Moscow , he received his second degree and in 1832 his third. After graduation, he stayed at Moscow University and engaged in academic work. He taught biology and was director of the university's botanical garden. During this period of time he published mainly on botany, but also on folklore and literature. He got to know many of the main actors of the intellectual life in Russia at the time, such as B. the writers Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol , with whom he shared an interest in East Slavic history and culture.

In 1834 he was appointed professor of Russian literature at the newly founded St. Vladimir University in Kiev . He also became the first rector of the university. Maximowitsch is working out extensive plans for an expansion of the university in order to give important contemporaries such as Nikolai Gogol , Taras Shevchenko , and Nikolai Kostomarow an opportunity to teach. A short time later, due to his poor health and the pressure of the reactionary government of the Russian Empire , which feared the political conspiracies among the Polish student body, he had to leave his post as rector and professor. Maximovich tried to defend Polish students from political repression, but had little success. Tsar Nicholas I closed the institution for a whole year. Maximowitsch then lived in peace on his property in Mikhailova Gora in the Central Nepr region and published most of the time on Common East Slavic folklore, literature and history. He did a lot to return to university, but the Ministry of Education of the Russian Empire prevented this for fear of his Ukrainophile views.

In 1847 he was deeply impressed by the arrest, imprisonment and exile of members of the Ukrainophile and Pan-Slavist Cyril and Methodist brotherhood , many of whom, such as B. the poet Taras Shevchenko, his friends or students. After that he mainly dealt with studies and publications.

In 1853 he married. In 1857 he went to Moscow to find work, hoping to improve his financial situation. In 1858 Shevchenko returned from exile and visited him in Moscow. Shevchenko visited him again when he returned to Mikhailova Gora (today the abandoned hamlet of Mychajlowa Hora ( Михайлова Гора ) in the area of ​​the village of Prokhorivka ). During this time, Shevchenko painted portraits of him and his wife Maria.

In his last years Maximovich devoted himself more and more to history and took part in heated debates with the Russian historians Mikhail Pogodin and Nikolai Kostomarow .

Despite his isolation, he took part in many scientific circles, and shortly before his death was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . Around the time of his death, the historian Volodymyr Antonowytsch and the literary critic Alexander Kotlyarevsky were preparing a large three-volume edition of all of his works.

Work and ideas

language

In 1827 Maximovich published "Little Russian Songs". Another compilation entitled "Ukrainian Folk Songs" was published by Maximowitsch in 1834. He also wrote “Voices of Ukrainian Songs”. In Kiev in 1849 he began to prepare a more extensive edition entitled “Compilation of Ukrainian Songs”.

He dealt with the study of the Russian, and especially the South Russian language and published the "Critical-Historical Research of the Russian Language" and "The Beginnings of Russian Philology". In these works he compared the Russian language with the West Slavic languages. He was a great defender of the existence of the “South Russian” or “Ukrainian” language and opposed his colleague Pogodin on the question of the age of the Ukrainian language.

Maximowitsch published his “Philological Letters to MP Pogodin” from 1856 and “Return letters to him” from 1857.

history

In the course of his life he wrote and published over 260 works. His research on the subject of Cossackism is of particular importance . He was one of the first among contemporary Ukrainian-Russian historians to point out the historical significance of the Khmelnytskyi uprising. Most of his works on Bohdan Khmelnitsky are of a critical nature. So are his two extensive reviews of the essays by NI Kostomarow (" Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj ") and WB Antonowitsch (files on Cossacks). He published "Letters about Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj" (1861) in the magazine "Osnowa" ("the reason"). His studies “About Hetman Sahajdachnyj”, “Rundschau der Stadtregimenten und-Hundertschaft”, “About the Bubnowskaya Hundred”, “About Kolyivschchina” and many other smaller publications are of particular importance . He studied a lot of archival documents and gathered rare facts about the history of the cities and villages of present-day Ukraine. As for the works he wrote on archeology, the article on arrows found on the banks of the Dnieper is important.

Selected publications

literature

  • «Малороссийские песни», [ Little Russian songs ],
  • «История древней русской словесности» [ History of Old Russian Literature ],
  • «О народной исторической поэзии в Древней Руси» [ On historical folk poetry in Ancient Russia ],
  • "Песнь о Полку Игореве" [ Igor's ]
  • «К объяснению и истории Слова о Полку Игореве» [ On the explanation and history of the Igore song ],
  • «Книжная старина южно-русская» [ South Russian literary antiquity ],
  • «О начале книгопечатания в Киеве» [ About the beginning of printing in Kiev ]
  • «Филологические письма к М. П. Погодину »[ Philological letters to MP Pogodin ]

Natural sciences

  • «О системах растительного царства» [ About the Systems of the Plant Kingdom ],
  • «Основания ботаники» [ Basics of botany ],
  • «Главные основания зоологии» [ main principles of zoology ],
  • «Размышления о природе» [ thinking about nature ],
  • «Книга Наума о великом Божием мире» [ Naum's book about the great world of God ]

Mentions

  • Mikhail Maximowitsch, Киев явился градом великим, (Kiev jawilsja gradom welikim), (Kiev: Lybid, 1994).
  • Mykhailo Hruschevskyj, "Малороссийские песни" Максимовича й століття українькскої наукової працi, ( 'Malorossijskie pesni' Maksymovycha j stolittja ukrainskoji naukovoji prazi) Ukrajina, №.6 (1927)
  • Dovidnyk z istorji Ukrajiny, (Довiдник з iсторii України), Ed. I. Pidkowa and R. Schust (Kyiw: Heneza, 2002), pages 443-444

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Maxymowytsch, Mychajlo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maxymowytsch, Mychajlo Olexandrowytsch (full name); Максимович, Михайло Олександрович (Ukrainian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian writer and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Tymkivshchyna near Solotonosha , Poltava Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1873
Place of death Michajlova Gora near Kaniw , Poltava Governorate , Russian Empire