Divovych

Divovych [Divovyč] (also known as Dzivovych). Cossack family of the Starodub regiment in the 18th century. Semen Divovych graduated from the Kyivan Mohyla Academy and Saint Petersburg University and served as an interpreter and translator in the General Military Chancellery in Hlukhiv and as the archivist of the Little Russian General Archives. In 1762 he wrote the long historical poem ‘Razgovor Velikorossii s Malorossiei’ (The Conversation of Great Russia with Little Russia, published in Kievskaia starina, 1882, nos 2 and 7), in which he depicted the history of Ukraine, formulated clearly the idea of Ukrainian national rights, and protested Russia's centralist policy in the Hetman state. The poem was studied by Mykola I. Petrov, Pavlo Zhytetsky, and Mykhailo Vozniak. Semen's brother, Oleksa, was captain of Pochep company (1763-9) and continued H. Pokas's Opisanie o Maloi Rossii (Description of Little Russia).

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