Antonovsky, Mykhailo

Antonovsky, Mykhailo [Антоновський, Михайло; Antonovs'kyj, Myxajlo], b 11 October 1759 in Borzna, Chernihiv gubernia, d 24 June 1816 in Saint Petersburg. Antonovsky completed his studies at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1772) and the University of Moscow (1779–83). He worked as a librarian at the public library in Saint Petersburg and wrote Istoriia o Maloi Rossii (History of Little Russia, 1799) on the basis of Ukrainian chronicles and manuscripts of the 17th–18th century. He was an active Freemason and, within the context of Masonic movement, he published Hryhorii Skovoroda’s ‘Narkiss’ (Narcissus) in the book Biblioteka dukhovnaia (Spiritual Library, 1798). Antonovsky’s memoirs were published in the journal Russkii arkhiv in 1885.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]