Jabłonowski, Aleksander

Jabłonowski, Aleksander, b 19 April 1829 in Goźlin, near Warsaw, d 22 August 1913 in Odesa. Polish historian and ethnographer. He studied at Kyiv University (1847–9) and Dorpat University (1849–52). Together with A. Pawiński, he published Źródła dziejowe (Historical Sources), an important series of documents relating to the history of the Polish Commonwealth. Several volumes were devoted to Right-Bank Ukraine and included his introductory articles. He also wrote a number of articles on Ukrainian history for such Polish scholarly journals as Ateneum and Kwartalnik Historyczny, and two monographs: Akademia Kijowsko-Mohilańska: Zarys historyczny na tle rozwoju ogólnego cywilizacyi zachodniej na Rusi (The Kyivan Mohyla Academy: A Historical Essay on the Development of Western Civilization in Rus’, 1900) and Historya Rusi południowej do upadku Rzeczypospolitej polskiej (The History of Southern Rus’ to the Fall of the Polish Commonwealth, 1912). In these works he exaggerated the influence of Polish culture on Ukrainian. He also argued that a Ukrainian state never existed and strongly criticized the role of the Cossacks. His collected works, Pisma Aleksandra Jabłonowskiego (The Writings of Aleksander Jabłonowski), were published in Warsaw in seven volumes (1910–13); the first four volumes are devoted to Ukrainian history.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]