Nashchynsky, Davyd

Nashchynsky, Davyd or Danylo [Нащинський, Давид or Данило; Naščyns’kyj], b ca 1721 in the Poltava region, d 1793 in Kyiv. Scholar and churchman. A graduate of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, he served as professor of philosophy and theology, prefect (1752–8), and rector (1758–61) there. He revised the academy’s philosophy curriculum, replacing its Aristotelian textbooks with Friedrich Christian Baumeister’s textbook based on Christian Wolff’s system, and collected and published works by Teofan Prokopovych (1743, 1745). Later he served as archimandrite of several monasteries in Ukraine and Belarus. He was a friend of Opanas Lobysevych and had close contacts with the Novhorod-Siverskyi patriotic circle. Influenced by Wolff’s views, he defended the use of the vernacular in literature and always stressed his national origin. He spent the last years of his life at the Kyivan Cave Monastery.

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