Yuzefovich, Mikhail

Yuzefovich, Mikhail [Юзефович, Михаил; Juzefovič, Mixail], b 29 June 1802, d 2 June 1889. Russian administrator and cultural activist in Kyiv. He was a trustee of the Kyiv school district (1842–58) and head of the Kyiv Archeographic Commission (1857–89). As one of the founders of the Southwestern Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society he presided over the commission in charge of building the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kyiv. He was fiercely opposed to the Ukrainophilism of many of the branch's members, and in May 1875 he submitted a memorandum to the tsarist authorities in Saint Petersburg denouncing the group and its work as subversive. His action resulted in the establishment of an imperial commission (of which he was a key member), whose recommendations lay the groundwork for the repressive Ems Ukase of 1876, also commonly known as Yuzefovich's Law.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]