Dubrovsky, Vasyl

Dubrovsky, Vasyl [Дубровський, Василь; Dubrovs'kyj, Vasyl'], b 19 May 1897 in Chernihiv, d 23 April 1966 in Richmond, Virginia. Ukrainian historian and Turkologist, journalist, and civic leader. In the 1920s Dubrovsky lectured at the Chernihiv Institute of People's Education and the Kharkiv Institute of People's Education. He was an associate of the Chair of the History of Ukrainian Culture in Kharkiv and of the Institute of Eastern Studies until 1933 and an inspector of cultural monuments in Ukraine. During the Stalinist terror he was imprisoned in a GULAG labor camp in 1934–9. In 1941–3 he was a professor at Kharkiv University and headed the Kharkiv Prosvita society. In 1943 Dubrovsky moved to Lviv, and after the Second World War he settled first in Germany and then in the United States of America, where he moved in 1956. Dubrovsky was the author of many articles on Left-Bank Ukraine’s social and economic history, museology, and Turkish affairs, as well as of translations of Turkish literature, journalistic sketches, and stories. His major works are Selians'ki rukhy na Ukraïni pislia 1861 r.: Chernihivs'ka hub. (1861–1866) (Peasant Movements in Ukraine after 1861: Chernihiv Gubernia [1861–1866], 1928); Narysy z istoriï Chernihivs'koï Troïts'ko-Illins'koï drukarni v pershii polovyni XIX st. (Essays on the History of the Chernihiv Holy Trinity-Saint Elijah [Monastery] Printing House in the First Half of the 19th Century; 1928); Zhyttia i dila Feodosiia Uhlyts'koho (Polonyts'koho) (The Life and Deeds of Feodosii Uhlytsky [Polonytsky], 1930); Istoryko-derzhavni zapovidnyky ta pam’iatky Ukraïny (State Historical Preserves and Monuments of Ukraine, 1921, 1929); Muzeï na Ukraïni (Museums in Ukraine, 1929); Ukraïna i Krym v istorychnykh vzaiemynakh (Ukraine and the Crimea in Historical Relations, 1946).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]