Zavadovsky, Petro

Zavadovsky, Petro [Завадовський, Петро; Zavadovs’kyj], b 21 November 1738 in Krasnovychi, Starodub regiment (now in Briansk oblast, Russian Federation), d 22 January 1812 in Saint Petersburg. Ukrainian official in the imperial government, who descended from a Cossack starshyna Zavadovsky family in the Starodub region. A graduate of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1760), he was secretary of the Little Russian Collegium (1767) and later worked for the governor-general of Little Russia, Petr Rumiantsev. In 1768–74 he was director of the secret chancellery and (according to one biographer) editor of the Peace Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774). From 1774 he was secretary to and a favorite of Catherine II. He was given large estates in Ukraine and Belarus (his favorite being Lialychi, near the original family estate), and served as a senator, minister of education (1802–10), and honorary head of the State Council's Department of Laws (1810). He introduced a number of reforms, including the granting of autonomy to universities, and was instrumental in establishing Kharkiv University (1805) and a number of other educational institutions in Ukraine.

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