Ploshchansky, Venedykt

Ploshchansky, Venedykt [Площанський, Венедикт; Ploščans'kyj], b 23 March 1834 in Kaluch, Galicia, d 21 February 1902 in Vilnius. Galician historian and publicist; corresponding member of the Moscow Archeological Society from 1874. He was the last editor of the Russophile newspaper Slovo (Lviv) (1871–87). In 1882 he was a codefendant in the Lviv trial of Russophile leaders accused of treason. In 1887 he emigrated to the Russian Empire and worked in the Vilnius Commission for the Analysis of Ancient Documents and as a government censor. He wrote articles about towns and villages in Galicia (published mostly in the collections of the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia society), books about several Galician villages (1872) and the history of the Kholm region according to archival documents and other sources (2 vols, 1899, 1901), an account of the 1882 trial (1892), and a study of the acts of the 16th- and 17th-century Kholm courts (1895).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]