Dmitry Ivanovich Yavornytskyi (Evarnitsky) was born on November 6, 1855, in the village Sontsivka, Kharkiv province - died on August 5, 1940, Dnipropetrovsk is a Ukrainian historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, folklorist, lexicologist.
D. Yavornitsky's time at Kharkiv University (1877-1881) falls into a very sad period in the history of Ukrainian culture. The Ems decree of 1876 greatly increased the pressure on the Ukrainian printed word. At that time, it was dangerous to show sympathy for the Ukrainian language, literature, history, to popularize it. On the other hand, it was a period of folding in the Russian Empire the crisis of the ruling system. Ukrainian philologist Oleksandr Potebnja, the founder of linguistic poetry, attracted Dmitry Yavornytsky to participate in a student circle for studying the history, everyday life and customs of the people.
He researched the Trinity Cathedral in Novomoskovsk, as well as the shrine of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, his "new Jerusalem" - the Samara Desert-Nicholas Monastery. In the field of the researcher there were private collections of Zaporozhye antiquities, the largest of which, according to D. Yavornytsky, were the collections of GP Alekseev and Alexander Field in Ekaterinoslav and Vasyl Tarnovsky in the Chernihiv region. In 1887, the scientist traveled to the Solovetsky Monastery in search of documentary evidence of the last Kosh's ataman of the Zaporozhian Army, Peter Kalnyshevsky, who was imprisoned at the Solovetsky Monastery for the liquidation of Zaporizhzhya Sich, where he was 25 years old, died there and was buried there. His work included: a monograph by D. Yavornytsky "Zaporozhye in the remnants of antiquity and traditions of the people" (1888), "A collection of documents for the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" (1888), the historically popular edition "Essays on the History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and the Novorossiysk Territory" (1889) , a historical and topographical essay "The Values of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" (St. Petersburg, 1890), in which the scientist showed the role of the geographic factor in the formation of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
In 1889, Dmitry Yavornytsky together with outstanding Katerynoslav philanthropist, collector, ethnographer and public figure, Alexander Field, searched the place of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's battle with the Poles near Zhovti Vody. In the summer of 1891, Dmytro Yavornytsky carried out archaeological research in the village of Faliyivka in the Kherson region - the estate of his friend Nikolai Nikolayevich Comstadium - subsequently the general, a military lawyer who came from the Swedish family, was the descendant of Hetman Danylo Apostol and belonged to the well-known in the south of Ukraine, the Sinelnikovs, Seletsky families , Malama and others.
In 1902 he was invited to the post of Director of the Ekaterinoslav Oblast Museum named after. O.M. Poles. December 28, 1902 Katerynoslav Scientific Society elected historian as a member of the Council of the Museum. Thanks to D. Yavornytsky, the museum has become one of the leading museums in Ukraine, a true treasury of monuments of Ukrainian history and culture. The abolition of the tsarist in February 1917 gave a new impetus to the rise of the scientific and cultural-social activity of D. Yavornytsky. On May 21 - 22, 1917, he was the honorary chairman of the Katerynoslav Ukrainian Provincial Congress of the Central Rada, and in May 1917, the scientist headed the Yekaterinoslav Committee for the Protection of Antiquities and Art of Ukraine and elaborated proposals for the preservation of Zaporozhye antiquity. During the first liberation events, day and night, Dmitry Ivanovich protected the museum from robbery, even managed to obtain a "letter of intent" from Nestor Makhno. In 1917 D. Yavornitsky participated in the activity of the revived Katerynoslav "Enlightenment".
The name of D. Yavornytsky is connected with the formation of archival affairs in Ekaterinoslav region in the post-revolutionary years. In 1922-1924 he was the head of the provincial archival administration, he made many efforts and his own funds for the search, collection and storage of archives. In 1921-1930, D. Yavornytsky led the Research Department of Ukrainian Studies, where Professors M. Zlotnikov, P. Efremov, M. Brechkevich, V. Parkhomenko worked. Among postgraduate students of the department, which stood close to D. Yavornytsky, were K. Guslasty, P. Matviyevsky, P. Kozar, V. Grinchenko and others.
In 1937, another case of the so-called "Ukrainian nationalist counterrevolutionary underground", headed by the head of the Ukrainian People's Commissariat of the People's Republic of Poland P. Lyubchenko, was fabricated in Ukraine. D. Yavornytsky was also credited to the top of this organization and recognized as "inspirer" Dnipropetrovsk "counter-revolutionary underground".
In 1939, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of T. Shevchenko, D. Yavornytsky was elected to the jubilee Shevchenko Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Before this holiday the scientist prepared articles: "Shevchenko and Repin" and "I. Yu Repin about T. Shevchenko. " And in recent years, D. Yavornytsky led lively correspondence with his friends and colleagues. Academician D. Yavornytsky's life was interrupted at five o'clock in the morning on August 5, 1940. The central avenue and the historical museum of the city of Dnepr are named after him.
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