Evarnitskii, D. I.

From an Orthodox noble family that had fled the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth to Sloboda Ukraine and registered with the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Evarnitskii became their most committed historian. After studying with Sumtsov at Kharkov University, he began excavating in the region of the Dnepr rapids when he wasn’t traveling to lecture on Cossacks. He taught briefly at Kharkov University where in 1885 he stood accused of advocating south Russian separatism. Moving to St. Petersburg to teach at the pedagogical institute, he made friends with renowned artist Ilya Repin, who used Evarnitskii as the model for the scribe in his painting “Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan” (pictured here). He landed a position at St. Petersburg University, from which he was expelled in 1891 for his Ukrainophilism, sent to Central Asia where he excavated for three years. In 1895 he began lecturing at the University of Warsaw, moving quickly to Moscow University. In 1902 the Ekaterinoslav zemstvo invited him to curate the archeological museum left to them by philanthropist-merchant A. N. Pol’, the driving force behind the iron industry in the area. Following the Bolshevik Revolution he organized a Department of Ukrainian Studies at the newly opened university in Ekaterinoslav. Today the museum is named for him. NB: He changed the spelling of his name to Iavor- when he discovered that his family had fled from that region.