Obolonsky

Obolonsky [Obolons’kyj]. A family of Cossack starshyna and Russian nobility in Left-Bank Ukraine. It was established by the Cossack Ivan at the end of the 17th century. His son, Vasyl, was captain of Sosnytsia company in 1715–16. Vasyl's son, Demian, (d 1758), was general standard-bearer of the Hetman state in 1741–58. At the Hlukhiv Council of 1750 that elected Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky Demian was chosen to head the Cossack delegation that thanked Empress Elizabeth I for allowing the election of a hetman. Demian received many landed estates from Elizabeth, and his son, also named Demian, owned 7,330 serfs in the late 18th century. The younger Demian's son was Oleksander Obolonsky, whose son, Mykola (1856–?), was a professor of forensic medicine at Kyiv University from 1889.

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