Bodiansky, Osyp

Bodiansky, Osyp [Бодянський, Осип; Bodjans'kyj], b 12 November 1808 in Varva, Chernihiv gubernia, d 18 September 1877 in Moscow. (Photo: Osyp Bodiansky.) A Slavist, historian, ethnographer, and one of the originators of Slavic studies in the Russian Empire. Bodiansky graduated from Moscow University in 1834, and from 1837 to 1842 traveled on scholarly research missions to various Slavic countries (he spent some time in Prague). From 1842 to 1868 he was a professor at Moscow University. In 1846–8 and 1858–77 Bodiansky was the editor of the journal Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiskikh, in which he published many materials valuable to Ukrainian historiography, including Istoriia Rusov; the Samovydets Chronicle; the works of Petro Symonovsky, Aleksandr Rigelman, and Stanislav Zarulsky; and Mykola Khanenko's diary. As a result of Bodiansky's efforts a collections of Yakiv Holovatsky's ethnographic materials entitled Narodnye pesni Galitskoi i Ugorskoi Rusi (Folk Songs of Galician and Hungarian Rus') was published in Moscow in 1878. Bodiansky unfailingly defended the independence of the Ukrainian language and literature. Under the pseudonym Zaporozhets Isko Matyrynka he published Nas'ki ukraïns'ki kazky (Our Own Ukrainian Fairy Tales, 1835); under the pseudonym M. Boda-Varvynets he published his Ukrainian poems in Russian journals; and under the pseudonym I. Mastak he published a survey of Ukrainian literature entitled Malorossiiskie povesti, rasskazyvaemye Grits'kom Osnovianenkom (Little Russian Stories, as Told by Hryhorii Osnovianenko, 1834). Bodiansky was a friend of Taras Shevchenko, with whom he carried on a correspondence. In 1848, and again in 1868, Bodiansky was censured because of his liberal views.

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