Myloradovych, Yelysaveta

Myloradovych, Yelysaveta [Милорадович, Єлисавета; Myloradovyč, Jelysaveta], b 12 January 1832 in Trostianets, Pryluky county, Poltava gubernia [now Trostianets (Sumy oblast)], d 27 March 1890 in Poltava. Community leader and benefactor; aunt of Pavlo Skoropadsky. The daughter of Ivan Skoropadsky, a marshal of Poltava gubernia's nobility, she married Hryhorii Myloradovych's son, Lev, in 1856. In the 1860s she was active in the Poltava Hromada and contributed generously to Ukrainian publishing ventures and to local Sunday schools and the Poltava women's gymnasium. She personally funded the village school in Rybtsi, near Poltava. She also supported the Ukrainian movement in Galicia, by giving generously to the Prosvita society and the journal Pravda. She donated 20,000 Austrian kronen for the founding of the Lviv Shevchenko Society in 1873; it became the Shevchenko Scientific Society in 1893. From 1878 Myloradovych headed the Poltava Philanthropic Society. Her activities were investigated by the tsarist authorities, who suspected her of heading an organization whose aim was the restoration of the Hetman state.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]