Bezborodko, Illia

Bezborodko, Illia [Безбородько, Ілля; Bezborod'ko], b 27 February 1756 in Stolne, Chernihiv regiment, d 15 June 1815 in Saint Petersburg. Member of the Bezborodko Cossack starshyna family, military leader and senator, and founder of the Nizhyn Lyceum; brother of Prince (from 1797) Oleksander Bezborodko. At the age of 16, Bezborodko joined the military as a sergeant and served as aide-de-camp and quartermaster in the headquarters of the Russian general Petr Rumiantsev. He fought in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1769–74 and 1787–91, commanded troops on the left flank during the attack of Izmail, was wounded, and displayed exceptional bravery, for which he was awarded with a golden sword. In 1795 Bezborodko was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general for his participation in the defeat of the Polish popular rebellion led by Tadeusz Kościuszko (1794). Thereafter he was appointed bailiff to Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland, who settled in Hrodna after his abdication. During his two years there, Bezborodko kept a close watch over the king’s entourage and controlled his correspondence (Stanisław August complained to his nephew Józef: ‘All my letters are opened, and I am asked to write as little as possible’). On the day of the coronation of Tsar Paul I (5 April 1797), Bezborodko was granted the title of count and received the Order of Aleksandr Nevsky and an estate with 1,350 serfs in Lithuania. After 1798, he served as privy counselor and senator until he retired from the service in 1800.

After the death of Oleksander Bezborodko in 1799, Illia inherited his brother’s immense wealth without any official documents or testament. Respecting Oleksander’s wish expressed in a note that, after his death, ‘ten thousand rubles should be given to God-pleasing institutions for the first five years, and then twenty thousand rubles for eight years,’ Illia submitted a report to Tsar Alexander I, in which he asked for permission to open a ‘gymnasium of higher education named after Prince Bezborodko.’ Believing that Left-Bank Ukraine needed such a higher educational institution, he donated a mansion and a garden as well as 210 thousand rubles inherited from his brother (intended for charitable causes), and he pledged to pay 150 thousand rubles annually for th gymnasium’s maintenance. In 1805 Alexander I signed a decree on the opening of the gymnasium, but the institution actually opened on 17 September 1820. The pediment of the main building bears the Latin inscription ‘Labore et zelo’ (By Work and Effort), the motto of the Bezborodko family coat of arms. In 1834 the gymnasium was reorganized into the Nizhyn Lyceum.

The Nizhyn Lyceum’s graduates included writers Mykola Hohol (Nikolai Gogol), Yevhen Hrebinka, and M. Prokopovych; poets Nikolai Gerbel and Leonid Hlibov; writer and ethnographer Oleksander Afanasiev-Chuzhbynsky, and other notable figures. On the 25th anniversary of the opening of the gymnasium, honorary trustee O. Kushelev-Bezborodko presented the institution with an art gallery of 175 paintings by prominent European artists, including works from the collections of Illia and Oleksander Bezborodko. In the 1990s a bust of Illia Bezborodko was discovered in the National Art Museum of Ukraine and, after restoration, it was installed on the campus of Nizhyn State University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gimnaziia vysshykh nauk kniazya Bezborodko v Nezhyne (1820–1832) (Kyiv 1879)
Grigorovich, N. Kantsler Kniaz' Aleksandr Andreevich Bezborodko v sviazi s sobitiiami ego vremeni: v 2 t., t.1 (Saint Petersburg 1879)
Tolbyn, V. ‘Graf I. A. Bezborodko’ in Gimnaziia vysshykh nauk y litsei knyazia Bezborodko (Saint Petersburg 1881)
Ukraïns'ka diaspora v Rosiis'kii Federatsii: istoryko-kul'turna spadshchyna (Kyiv 2011)

Pavlo Mykhed

[This article was written in 2024.]