Klymenko, Pylyp

Klymenko, Pylyp [Клименко, Пилип], b 5 July 1887 in Kozelets, Chernihiv gubernia, d 8 July 1955, in Kozelets. Historian. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical and Kyiv University, where he studied under Mytrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky. After teaching for a short time at the Kamianets-Podilskyi Ukrainian State University, he worked at the Archeographic Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) and lectured at the Kyiv Archeological Institute. From 1925 he was associated with several institutes of VUAN, including the Institute of History. A prolific writer, in his research Klymenko focused on the economic and social history of 17th–19th-century Ukraine. His most important works include Tsekhy na Ukraïni (Guilds in Ukraine, 1929), ‘Misto i terytoriia na Ukraïni za Het'manshchyny, 1654–1764’ (The City and Territory in Ukraine during the Hetmanate, 1654–1764, Zapysky Istorychno-filolohichnoho viddilu VUAN, 1926, and separately), ‘Komputy ta reviziï XVIII st.’ (Registers and Revisions of the 18th Century, Ukraïns’kyi arkheohrafichnyi zbirnyk, 1930), and works on the history of Nizhyn, Dubno, and trade and industry in Podilia gubernia in Visnyk tsukrovoï promyslovosti and elsewhere. Klymenko also published several important historical documents with his own annotations and a number of articles on the history of Ukrainian culture. Arrested during the Stalinist terror in 1938, he was exiled to a GULAG labor camp. He was released in 1943. He ended his life by committing suicide. He was ‘rehabilitated’ in 1959.

Boris Balan

[This article was updated in 2021.]