Tumansky

Tumansky [Tumans’kyj]. A family line of Cossack starshyna and nobility, probably of Right-Bank Ukraine origin. The first generations lived in Left-Bank Ukraine and were clergymen. Hryhorii Tumansky was an archpriest (1730–50) in Basan, Pereiaslav regiment. His sons studied at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy: Ivan went on to the Saint Petersburg Academic University; Vasyl (b ca 1719, d 1809) was the last general chancellor of the Hetman state (from 1762), a member of the Little Russian Collegium (from 1764), and vice-governor of the Novhorod-Siverskyi vicegerency (1782–96); Osyp (b 1731, d ca 1798) was a member of the General Court (1781–2) and head of Novhorod-Siverskyi Chamber of Criminal Court (1783–95); and Ivan (b 1740, d after 1798) was senior secretary of the Senate in Saint Petersburg (until 1777), a member of the Little Russian Collegium (1777–82), and head of the Kyiv Civil Court (1791–6), as well as a translator from German and French. The sons of Vasyl, Mykhailo and Ivan, studied at Königsberg University; Mykhailo was a member of the Little Russian Collegium (1778–82), cataloged its archives, and collected Ukrainian historical material (particularly the works of Stepan Lukomsky). Osyp Tumansky's son was Fedir Tumansky. In the 19th century the family also included the Russian poets Vasyl Tumansky (b 1800, d 1860) and F. Tumansky (b 1801, d 1853, who was also imperial consul general in Belgrade) and Oleksander Tumansky (b 1861, d 1920), a scholar of the Orient, as well as a number of magnates and zemstvo activists in the Chernihiv region and the Poltava region.

Oleksander Ohloblyn

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]