Lashchevsky, Varlaam

Lashchevsky, Varlaam [Лащевський, Варлаам; Laščevs’kyj; secular name: Василь; Vasyl], b ca 1710 in Kobylnytsi, Peremyshl county, Rus’ voivodeship, d 28 July 1774 in Moscow. Classical philologist, churchman, and dramatist. After completing his studies at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1726–37) and the University of Halle, he took monastic vows and was appointed a lecturer at the academy (1739–47). He taught courses in Greek, for which he wrote a grammar in Latin (1746) that was later revised by Heorhii Shcherbatsky and republished several times in Leipzig and Moscow. It was used for most of the 19th century in Orthodox theological seminaries. In 1747 Lashchevsky was recalled to Saint Petersburg to work on the Church Slavonic translation of the Bible; he revised the translation of and wrote the preface to the Old Testament (1751). In 1752 he was appointed rector of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and archimandrite of the Donskoi Monastery in Moscow. In 1754 he was appointed to the Holy Synod. Lashchevsky’s morality play Tragedokomediia ... (Tragicomedy ...) was published by N. Tikhonravov in his Letopisi russkoi literatury i drevnostei (Chronicles of Russian Literature and Antiquities, vol 1, 1859) and by Volodymyr Riezanov in his anthology of Ukrainian drama. Hryhorii Skovoroda, who was Lashchevsky’s student at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, quoted from Lashchevsky’s tragicomedy Peresliduvana tserkva (Persecuted Church).

[This article was updated in 2017.]