Markovych, Yakiv A.

Markovych, Yakiv A. [Markovyč, Jakiv], b 17 October 1696 in Pryluky, d 20 November 1770 in Svarkove, Hlukhiv company, Nizhyn regiment. Cossack starshyna in the Hetman state and writer; son of Andrii Markovych. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, where he was a prize pupil of Teofan Prokopovych. He became a Cossack fellow of the standard in 1721 and served as acting colonel of Lubny regiment (1723–5) and general judge (1739) and general treasurer (1740, 1762) of the Hetman state. In 1714 he married Olena, the daughter of Hetman Pavlo Polubotok. One of the more learned men of his time, he wrote prose and religious verse, composed valuable genealogical notes, and translated Latin writings. His most outstanding work was his diary of the years 1717–67, which contains a wealth of information about political, socioeconomic, cultural, and daily life in the Hetman state. Until the 1930s the manuscript was preserved in Kyiv in the library of the Historical Museum of the Ukrainian SSR (vols 2–10) and the State Public Library (vol 1) of the Ukrainian SSR. An abridged version of the diary was published in Russian translation in two vols in 1859 by Oleksander Markovych, Yakiv's grandson. A fuller, though incomplete, version for the years 1717–34, edited by Oleksander Lazarevsky, was published in the original language as appendixes to Kievskaia starina from April 1891 to December 1896 and reprinted in three vol (1893, 1895, 1897). A similar version of the diary for the years 1735–40 was edited by Vadym Modzalevsky and published by the Archeographic Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society as vol 22 of Zherela do istoriï Ukraïny-Rusy (1913).

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]