Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapol'skiy
Encyclopedia
Rechytsa
Rechytsa is a town in the Homiel Province of Belarus. It is center of Rechytsa Raion. The city is situated at the mouth of Rechitsa river, flowing into Dnieper. The population is 65,532 as of 2005.-History:...
—30 September 1934, Moscow) was a historian, ethnographer, and diplomat of Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
ian origin. He hailed from the family of land-less smaller nobility and was the son of Collegiate Secretary.
He was the author of more than 150 works on the history of Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
, Muscovy, 19th-century Russia, Lithuania
History of Lithuania
The history of Lithuania dates back to at least 1009, the first recorded written use of the term. Lithuanians, a branch of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands, establishing the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the 13th century the short-lived Kingdom of Lithuania. The Grand Duchy...
and Belarus
History of Belarus
This article describes the history of Belarus. The Belarusian ethnos is traced at least as far in time as other East Slavs.After an initial period of independent feudal consolidation, Belarusian lands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later in the...
, on the social-political movement, peasants' question and the ethnography of Belarus. Notably, the majority of his works were of a scientific-analytical nature. He extensively sourced his works on the materials from more than 20 archives in Moscow, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Vilna, 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...
, Cracow, Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, Kostroma
Kostroma
Kostroma is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian towns, it is located at the confluence of the Volga and Kostroma Rivers...
, Yaroslavl', Novgorod, Nyasvizh etc. Many of his works remain unpublished. He was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir 4th grade (April 1916) for his scientific work.
Biography
An alumnus of the historical-philological faculty of Kiev UniversityKiev University
Taras Shevchenko University or officially the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv , colloquially known in Ukrainian as KNU is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is the third oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and Kharkiv University. Currently, its structure...
(1893), he wrote a magister dissertation on history in Fall 1901 and a doctoral dissertation on history in 1906. He became Professor at Moscow University (1899) and professor of Russian history at Kiev University in 1902. He was the organiser and director of the Higher Commercial Courses (Kiev, 1906), one of the organizers and the first head of the South-Western Branch of the Russian Exports Chamber (1912), and head of several popular-scientific circles and societies in Kiev.
After a conflict with students of Kiev Commercial Institute (1917) and the "Case of Stashevskiy" (1917), Dovnar-Zapol'skiy resigned from almost all professorial work. He then became professor at the Kharkiv Institute of People's Economy in December 1919 and at Kharkiv University
Kharkiv University
The University of Kharkiv or officially the Vasyl Karazin Kharkiv National University is one of the major universities in Ukraine, and earlier in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union...
in 1920, remaining there until 1921. He was also pro-rector of Azerbaijan University and professor of the Baku Polytechnical Institute from 1922 to 1925. Following that he was professor of Belarusian history at the Belarusian State University
Belarusian State University
Belarusian State University , Minsk, Belarus, was founded on October 30, 1921. The BSU is a higher education establishment in the Republic of Belarus.-History:...
from October 1925 to Fall 1926, creating the Archeographical Commission of Inbelkult together with Dovgyallo in 1925. After the forced move to Moscow in the fall of 1926, he frequently had to seek occupation outside the field of science. He was professor at Timiryazev Academy in the 1930s. In the 1920s and 1930s, he occupied several management positions in the system of management of the economy in Soviet Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia.
In politics
He participated in then-illegal movements of the 1880s and was temporary banned to settle in Kiev. Later, he sympathised with left movements.Dovnar-Zapol'skiy actively supported the Belarusian People's Republic (BPR), headed the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce in Kiev in 1918 (confirmed by the Belarus People's Secretariat on 24 April 1918), and prepared the project of the creation of the Belarusian University in Minsk at the end of March 1918. From May to October 1918, he participated in the work of the BPR's diplomatic mission in Kiev, which sought the recognition of the BPR from representatives of Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Don, Germany and Austro-Hungary.
At the request of the BPR's authorities, he prepared the notable informational "Memorandum" ("Foundations of statehood of Belarus"), published in Grodno and Vilna in 1919 in Belarusian, Russian, Polish, German and French languages; also translated to English by P. Clark. This Memorandum contained the historical ground for the necessity of creation of independent Belarusian state and was presented at the Versailles conference by the BPR's delegation, albeit without positive outcome.
His two sons perished in the ranks of Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
.
His printed but unpublished book "History of Belarus" caused uprage among the Belarusian political authorities (beg. 1926), was denounced as a "Cathechism of Belarusian National Democratism", and was subsequently banned; the manuscript was confiscated. Consequently, Dovnar-Zapol'skiy was forced to move to Moscow, effectively exiled (Fall 1926), and never after returned to Belarus.
From 1930 to 1934, he was heavily criticised for the alleged "Neo-Narodnichestvo", attributed the authorship of the ideological basis of "National Democratism", equated to the "agents of fascism" by acad. V.K. Shcherbakov, politically denounced together with his scientific school by his former pupil prof. A.P. Ogloblin (Kiev, 1934).
In science
Pupil of professors Golubovskiy, Ikonnikov, and especially V.B. Antonovich, he sought to emulate the combination of scientific and educational activities, as manifested by P. ShafarikPavel Jozef Šafárik
Pavol Jozef Šafárik Pavol Jozef Šafárik (Safáry / Schaffáry/ Schafary/ Saf(f)arik / Šafarík/ Szafarzik, Czech Pavel Josef Šafařík, German Paul Joseph Schaffarik, Serbian Павле Јосиф Шафарик, Latin Paulus Josephus Schaffarik, Hungarian Pál József Saf(f)arik) Pavol Jozef Šafárik (Safáry /...
, V. Karajic
Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian philolog and linguist, the major reformer of the Serbian language, and deserves, perhaps, for his collections of songs, fairy tales, and riddles to be called the father of the study of Serbian folklore. He was the author of the first Serbian dictionary...
, and N.I. Kostomarov
Nikolay Kostomarov
Nikolay Ivanovich Kostomarov , of mixed Russian and Ukrainian origin, is one of the most distinguished Russian and Ukrainian historians, a Professor of History at the Kiev University and later at the St...
.
He denounced the view of Belarusians as being devoid of nationality, and was a decided promoter and supporter of Belarusian national revival in the beginning of the 20th century. Dovnar-Zapol'skiy greeted the emergence of the "strictly objective and scientific" trend in Belarusian historical and ethnographical research. He showed general sympathy with Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
theory but wasn't awed by it.
Historical concepts
Dovnar-Zapol'skiy promoted the concept of primacy of the history of people over the history of states and considered ethnographyEthnography
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...
and economics to be highly important, if not chief factors, in studying the history of society.
As part of his research into Belarusian history, he postulated the existence of Belarusian nationality with its own history, distinct ethnographical features, rich folk culture, with Belarusian language being heir of the speech of the Krivichi and the Dregovichs
Dregovichs
The Dregoviches were one of the tribal unions of Early East Slavs, and inhabited the territories down the stream of the Pripyat River and northern parts of the right bank of the Dnieper river...
. He supported "colonisational theory" of emergence of state in Belarus, and considered Krivichi and Dregovichs largely to be isolated from Ancient Rus' state and therefore evolving differently. Dovnar-Zapol'skiy also postulated the absence of ethnographical unity in Ancient Rus' state, with external political and military affairs being the only binding factors in it.
He viewed the creation of Great Duchy of Lithuania and Rus' in the 13th century as partially peacefully created and mutually beneficial union between the princes of weakened Rus' and militant Lithuanian princes.
He also considered both the Lublin Union and Church Union
Church union
Church union is the name given to a merger of two or more Christian denominations. Such unions may occur in one of two ways.- United churches :Some churches have formed as a result of a merger of churches of different denominations...
to have been negative factors in Belarusian history, claiming they promote religious intolerance. He also disapproved of the incorporation of Belarusian land into Russia after the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
partitions
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
. Generally, he considered "two evils" to have influenced Belarusian history negatively: the Polish "szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
aristocratical republic" and the Russian "boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
oligarchy". He disapproved of both, as these excluded demos, being therefore perilous to the Belarusian people who are "highly democratic in their historical and folk traditions".
Later in the 1920s, the historian further emphasised the economical factor in history and the significance of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
in the history of the Great Duchy.
Viewed by others
His person and works attracted all sorts of polarized opinions. Up to the 1930s, he was regarded generally positively by M.K. Lyubavskiy, V.I. Picheto, F.F. Turuk, D.I. Dovgyallo and others. Beginning in the 1930s, he fell under stigmatizing critique and denunciation as a scientist by S.Ya. Vol'fson, V.M. Pertsev, V.K. Shcherbakov and others. In the 1940s—1970s, comparatively "safe to touch" parts of his works (ethnographical, archeological, archeographical) were being explored and built upon by V.K. Bandarchyk, M.F. Pilipyenka, I.U. Chakvin, M.M. Ulashchyk, L.V. Alyaksyeyew). Historical part of his work remained visible as scarce references up to the mid-1980s. Attempts at estimating him as a historian were made in monographies of U.M. Mikhnyuk, Z.Yu. Kapyski, V.U. Chapko. In the 1990s, there appeared works researching the generalised scientific position of Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (S.I. Mikhal'chanka), the evolution of historical concept (Dz.U. Karaw, M.F. Shumyeyka).John Leslie Howard Keep and Alter L. Litvin refer to both Dovnar-Zapol'ski and Picheta as "moderate (Belarusian) nationalists."
History, economy and statistics of Belarus
- Sketch of history of lands of Krivichi and Dregovichi up to the end of 12th century, Kiev, 1891.
- West Russian rural commune in 16th century, Saint-Petersburg, 1897.
- State economy of Great Duchy of Lithuania under Jagellons. Magister dissertation, Kiev, 1901.
- Sketches on organisation of West Russian peasantry in 16th century. Doctor dissertation, Kiev, 1906.
- History of Russian people's economy, Kiev, 1911.
- History of Belarus, preliminary completion in 1919, expanded and printed in 1925, banned, re-published from incomplete manuscript in 1994 and 2005.
- Sketch on social-economical structure of Belarus in XVI—XVIII cent., Myensk, 1925.
- People's economy of Belarus in 1861—1914, Myensk, 1926.
- USSR by region. Western region (Belarusian SSR and Western part of RSFSR), Moscow—Leningrad, 1928.
Ethnography and folklore of Belarus
- Belarusian marriage and marriage songs, Kiev, 1888.
- Belarusian marriage in cultural-religious survivals, Kiev, 1893.
- Belarusian Polesie. Collection of ethnographical materials by M.V.Dovnar-Zapol'skiy. Songs of Pinchuki, Kiev, 1895.
- Research and articles. Collection in 2 vol., Kiev, 1909.
Political history of Rus' and Russia
- Political setup of Ancient Rus', Moscow, 1906.
- Political ideals of M. M. Speranskiy, Moscow, 1906.
- Emerging of Ministries in Russia, Moscow, 1906.
- From history of social movements in Russia. Articles, Kiev, 1905.
Works on Decembrists movement
- Secret society of Decembrists, Moscow, 1906.
- Memoirs of Decembrists, Kiev, 1906.
- Ideals of Decembrists, Moscow, 1907.
Documental works
- Documents of Moscow archive of Ministry of Justice, Moscow, 1897.
- Barkulab Charter, 1897.
- Acts of Lithuanian-Russian State. Issue 1, 1390—1529, Moscow, 1898.
- Lithuanian Memorabilia to Tartar Hordes, Simferopol', 1898.
- Collection of materials on the history of people of Volyn voidvodship in 17—18 cent., 1914 (unpublished).
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