Skalkovsky, Apolon
Skalkovsky, Apolon [Скалковський, Аполон; Skal'kovs'kyj], b 13 January 1808 in Zhytomyr, Volhynia gubernia, d 9 January 1899 in Odesa, Kherson gubernia. Economist and historian; corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1856. He studied law at the universities of Vilnius and Moscow. He was one of the founders of the Odesa Society of History and Antiquities and an active participant in the Society of Agriculture of Southern Russia. During the preparations for the peasant reforms of 1861 he defended the serfs.
Skalkovsky wrote numerous works on the history and economics of 18th- and 19th-century Southern Ukraine, including Khronologicheskoe obozrenie istorii Novorossiiskogo kraia, 1730–1823 (A Chronological Survey of the History of New Russia Land, 1730–1823, 2 vols, 1836, 1838), Opyt statisticheskogo opisaniia Novorossiiskogo kraia (An Attempt at a Statistical Description of New Russia Land, 2 vols, 1850, 1853; vol 3 remained in manuscript), and Pervoe tridtsatiletie Odessy, 1795–1825 (The First Thirty Years of Odesa, 1795–1825, 1837). He discovered and preserved the archives of the 18th-century Zaporozhian Sich (now in Kyiv) and published a number of studies based on them, particularly Istoriia Novoi Sechi ili posledniago Kosha Zaporozhskogo (History of the New Sich or the Last Zaporozhian Kish, 3 vols, 1840; 2nd edn 1846; 3rd edn 1885–6). He also published documentary studies on the history of the Zaporizhia and Right-Bank Ukraine in the 18th-century (mostly in Kievskaia starina). His historical works were written from a Romantic perspective and are imbued with an idealized view of the Zaporizhia. His interpretation of the haidamaka uprisings is from the point of view of the Polish gentry. His works are a valuable historical source because of the scope of their documentation. Skalkovsky also wrote publicistic articles and several novels. His archives, including an unpublished journal (begun in Polish during his student days and later written in Russian), are preserved in Saint Petersburg and Odesa.
Oleksander Ohloblyn, Arkadii Zhukovsky
[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]