Bahalii, Dmytro

Bahalii, Dmytro [Багалій, Дмитро; Bahalij], b 7 November 1857 in Kyiv, d 9 February 1932 in Kharkiv. Ukrainian historian; full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1919, lecturer, professor (from 1887), and rector (1906–10) at Kharkiv University. He made an important contribution to the university’s development and to the Ukrainian content of its research. Bahalii was a representative of the universities at the State Duma in Saint Petersburg in 1906 and 1910–14. He was active in public affairs in Slobidska Ukraine and headed the city council of Kharkiv in 1914–17. He helped establish the Kharkiv public library and the Kharkiv Literacy Society. He was one of the most important associates of the Kharkiv Historical-Philological Society and the organizer of the Kharkiv historical archives. In 1918 Bahalii was a member of the founding committee of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and became the first chairman of the academy’s historical-philological division. In the 1920s he presided over the Kharkiv Scientific Society, affiliated with the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, directed the Scientific Research Institute of the History of Ukrainian Culture and the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Research Institute, held the Research Chair of the History of Ukraine at Kharkiv University, and served as the director of the Central State Historical Archive. The most important of Bahalii’s numerous (over 200) works are devoted to the history of Slobidska Ukraine, Left-Bank Ukraine, and southern Ukraine: Istoriia Severskoi zemli do poloviny XIV v. (A History of the Siversk Land to the Mid–14th Century, 1882); Ocherki iz istorii kolonizatsii i byta stepnoi okrainy Moskovskogo gosudarstva (Outline of the History of the Colonization and Daily Life of the Steppe Frontier of the Muscovite State, 1887); Kolonizatsiia Novorossiiskogo kraia i ego pervye shagi po puti kul'tury (The Colonization of the New Russia Territory and Its First Steps on the Path of Culture, 1889); Magdeburskoe pravo v Levoberezhnoi Malorossii (The Magdeburg law in Left-Bank Little Russia, 1892, Ukrainian translation in Rus’ka istorychna biblioteka, XXIV); Ukrainskaia starina (Ukrainian Antiquity, 1896); Opyt istorii Khar'kovskogo universiteta (A Study of the History of Kharkiv University, 2 vols, 1893, 1904); Istoriia goroda Khar'kova (A History of the City of Kharkiv, co-authored with Dmytro Miller, 1905–12); Istoriia Slobids'koï Ukraïny (A History of Slobidska Ukraine, 1918); Narys ukraïns'koï istoriohrafiï (An Outline of Ukrainian Historiography, 2 vols, 1923–5); an important monograph on Hryhorii Skovoroda Ukraïns'kyi mandrovanyi filosof H.S. Skovoroda (The Ukrainian Wandering Philosopher H.S. Skovoroda, 1926); and the officially criticized Narys istoriï Ukraïny na sotsiial'no-ekonomichnomu grunti (An Outline of the History of Ukraine from a Socioeconomic Standpoint, 1928).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bahalii, D. Avtobiohrafiia (Kyiv 1927)
Iuvileinyi zbirnyk na poshanu akademika Dmytra Ivanovycha Bahaliia (Kyiv 1927)
Iuvilei akademika Dmytra Ivanovycha Bahaliia 1857–1927 (Kyiv 1929)
Ohloblyn, O. ‘Pam'iati akad. D.I. Bahaliia (1857–1932),’ Ukraïna, no.1-2
Boiko, I. ‘Do storichchia z dnia narodzhennia vydatnoho ukraïns'koho istoryka D.I. Bahaliia,’ UIZh, 1957, no. 2
Hurzhii, I., Petrenko, V. Vydatni radians'ki istoryky (Kyiv 1969)

Oleksander Ohloblyn

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