Pavlovsky, Ivan F.

Pavlovsky, Ivan F. [Павловський, Іван; Pavlovs'kyj], b 21 January 1851 in Bobrova, Kaluga gubernia, Russia, d 27 May 1922 in Poltava. Historian and archivist. A graduate of Kyiv University (1874), he taught history at the Poltava Cadet Corps (1874–1913), was secretary of the Poltava Gubernia Learned Archival Commission (PUAK, 1903–7), and organized and directed the Museum of the Battle of Poltava (1909–18). Over 90 of Pavlovsky’s contributions were published in Trudy Poltavskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii and Kievskaia starina. He wrote pioneering works on the history and culture of the Poltava region, including a biographical dictionary of scholars and writers of Poltava gubernia from the mid-18th century on (1912) and a supplement (1913); a compilation of statistical data about Poltava gubernia 100 years earlier (1906); books about the nobility of Poltava gubernia (2 vols, 1907), the 1709 Battle of Poltava and its monuments (1908), Poltava gubernia and its environs (1910), Poltava’s hierarchs (See Church hierarchy), statesmen, and public figures (1914), A. Kurakin as governor-general of Little Russia gubernia (1914), and Poltava’s past (1918); a description of Poltava gubernia and its environs in 1810 (1917); and articles about Poltava in the 19th century (1902, 1905), the Masonic lodge in Poltava (1909), and the Decembrist movement in the Poltava region (1918). Among his many other articles are ones on the Little Russian Cossack levy en masse during the Crimean War (1910) and the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood (1911), a biography of Vasyl Kapnist (1915), and a description of the archives of Poltava gubernia (1915). Pavlovsky was one of the compilers of the systematic bibliographic guide and index to Kievskaia starina (1911) published by the PUAK.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

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