Sikorsky, Ivan

Sikorsky, Ivan [Сікорський, Іван; Sikors'kyj], b 7 June 1842 in Antoniv, Skvyra county, Kyiv gubernia, d 14 February 1919 in Kyiv. Psychiatrist and psychologist; father of Ihor Sikorsky. A graduate of Kyiv University (1869), he worked there and (from 1873) at I. Balinsky’s clinic in Saint Petersburg. In 1885 he became head of the department of psychiatry and nervous diseases at Kyiv University. He founded and edited the journal Voprosy nervno-psikhicheskoi meditsiny (1896–1905). He was the founder of the Medical-Pedagogical Institute for Pediatric Anomalies in Kyiv and president of the Scientific Society of Psychiatrists and the Kyiv Froebel Society. One of the founders of child psychology, he set up the world’s first institute of child psychology, in Kyiv (1912). He wrote numerous works (approximately 20 in child psychology), including Vseobshchaia psikhologiia s fiziognomikoi v illiustrirovannom izlozhenii (General Psychology with Physiognomy in an Illustrated Presentation, 1912). He also published a collection of his scholarly articles (5 volumes, 1899–1900).

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