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Oleksandr Dabizha

Ukrainian historian, publicist, heraldist, diplomat, and watercolor artist of princely descent (1860–1899), a researcher of the history of Cossack-Hetmanate Ukraine and of the Horlenko family, who, according to his own will, was buried in Yalta.

Overview

Prince Oleksandr Vasylevych Dabizha was born on 13 September 1860 in the village of Ivanytsia, Pryluky county, Poltava Governorate. His mother Anastasiia came from the ancient Cossack-starshyna Horlenko family. The Dabizha family traced its origin to the Balkan noble house of the Kotromanić-Bosnian rulers (known since the 12th century), yet Oleksandr himself clearly recognized and proclaimed his Ukrainian identity.

Having received his education at the Imperial Alexander Lyceum in Saint Petersburg, he served in the diplomatic service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (junior secretary of the mission in Madrid, secretary of the embassy in Cairo). Despite a short life overshadowed by a serious illness (consumption), Oleksandr Dabizha made a significant contribution to the study of the history of Left-bank Ukraine, publishing research in the journal "Kyivska Starovyna" (Kyiv Antiquity), seeking out Cossack relics on Mount Athos and in Jerusalem, and painting landscapes of Ukraine. Suffering from tuberculosis, he expressed a wish to rest in Yalta, where he was buried after his death on 16 (29) June 1899 at the age of 38.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Origin and family background: His mother Anastasiia Horlenko belonged to the famous Horlenko family (from which came the Pryluky colonels and the hierarch Joasaph of Belgorod / Yakym Horlenko). His father was also a passionate lover of history and created in his estate at the khutor of Romanivshchyna near Ichnia a home museum with thousands of volumes of library, the universals of the hetmans Danylo Apostol, Ivan Skoropadsky, and Kyrylo Rozumovsky, an ethnographic collection, and the weapons of the Horlenkos.
  • Historical and heraldic works: Author of the study "The Genealogy of the Horlenko Family" (dedicated to his mother), an essay on the Pryluky colonel Lazar Horlenko (materials for which he sought in the repositories of Moscow), a manuscript work on the "Mazepist" colonel Dmytro Horlenko, as well as the heraldic study "Mazepa the Prince and his Noble and Princely Coats of Arms" with his own colored illustrations.
  • Search for Ukrainian relics abroad: During his stay on Mount Athos he studied and described the Holy Iliinsky Skete ("a spiritual child of the Zaporozhian Cossacks", founded by Paisii Velichkovsky). In Jerusalem he found a silver engraved antimension donated by Hetman Ivan Mazepa for the Holy Sepulchre (which he photographed with the permission of the Patriarch of Jerusalem).
  • Artistic activity: A student of Professor Premacci, a watercolor artist, elected an "honorary free associate" of the Imperial Academy of Arts; he created landscapes and genre scenes of Ukraine.
  • The Yalta testament: Having lost hope of recovery from tuberculosis while undergoing treatment in Germany and Switzerland, he returned to his homeland and willed that he be buried in Yalta. The testament was fulfilled in June 1899 (the grave has not survived).