Poznansky, Borys

Poznansky, Borys [Познанський, Борис; Poznans'kyj], b 7 May 1841 in Starodub, Chernihiv gubernia, d 27 September 1906 in Northern Caucasia. Ethnographer and civic figure. As a student at Kyiv University (1859–61) he belonged to a khlopoman circle. Later he was a member of the Hromada of Kyiv. For several years he worked among the peasants of the Kaniv and Katerynoslav regions to raise their educational level and studied their traditions and folklore. In 1865 he was arrested and exiled to the Voronezh region, where he continued his ethnographic research among the Ukrainian inhabitants. He contributed ethnographic and historical materials and fiction to Ukrainian journals, such as Osnova (Saint Petersburg), Kievskaia starina, and Zoria (Lviv). His major contribution was a study of Ukrainian dress (1905).

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