Tymkovsky

Tymkovsky or Tymkivsky [Тимковський or Тимківський; Tymkovs'kyj or Tymkivs'kyj]. A family line of Cossack starshyna, established by Vasyl Tymchenko, a Cossack in Pereiaslav regiment (1740), and his grandson, Fedir Tymkovsky (1739, 1790), a regimental osaul and postmaster of Pereiaslav regiment. Fedir’s sons were cultural activists in Ukraine and Russia: the eldest was Illia Tymkovsky, a scholar of classical literature; Roman Tymkovsky (1785, 1820) was a philologist who taught at Moscow University, researched chronicles, and compiled and edited the notable Letopis' Nestorova po drevneishomu spisku mnikha Lavrentiia (The Chronicle of Nestor According to the Oldest Laurentian Manuscript, 1824); and Yegor Tymkovsky (4 May 1790, 21 February 1875) was a sinologist and diplomat. Yegor's 1820–1 travelog (3 vols, 1824) was translated into French, German, and English (Travels of the Russian Mission, through Mongolia to China, and Residence in Peking ... by E. Timkovskii, 2 vols, 1827). His memoirs appeared in Kievskaia starina (1894). Their sister, Hlikeriia Tymkovska (1788, 1829), was the mother of the historian Mykhailo Maksymovych.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]