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Hryhorii Skovoroda

Hryhorii Skovoroda
Native name
Григорій Сковорода
Born3 December 1722
Chernukhi, Lubny Regiment, Cossack Hetmanate, Russian Empire
(now Chornukhy, Poltava Oblast, Ukraine)
Died9 November 1794 (age 71)
Pan-Ivanovka, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire
(now Skovorodynivka, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine)
OccupationWriter, composer, teacher
LanguageLatin, Greek, Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, Russian[1][2]

Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda[a] (Ukrainian: Григорій Савич Сковорода; 3 December 1722 – 9 November 1794) was a philosopher of Ukrainian Cossack origin who lived and worked in the Russian Empire. He was a poet, a teacher and a composer of liturgical music. His significant influence on his contemporaries and succeeding generations and his way of life were universally regarded as Socratic, and he was often called a "Socrates".[3][4] Skovoroda's work contributed to the cultural heritage both of modern-day Ukraine and of Russia, both countries claiming him as a native son.[5][6][7][8]

Skovoroda wrote his texts in a mixture of three languages: Church Slavic, Ukrainian, and Russian, with a large number of Western-Europeanisms, and quotations in Latin and Greek.[9] Most of his surviving letters were written in Latin or Greek, but a small fraction used the variety of Russian of the educated class in Sloboda Ukraine, a result of long Russification but with many Ukrainianisms still evident.[9]

He received his education at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv. Haunted by worldly and spiritual powers, the philosopher led the life of an itinerant thinker-beggar. In his tracts and dialogs, biblical problems overlap with those examined earlier by Plato and the Stoics. Skovoroda's first book was issued after his death in 1798 in Saint Petersburg. Skovoroda's complete works were published for the first time in Saint Petersburg in 1861. Before this edition many of his works existed only in manuscript form.

  1. ^ "It was a peculiar Russian that grew up on the Ukrainian substrat". Shevelyov G.: "Skovoroda's Language and Style" // Hryhorij Savyč Skovoroda. An Anthology of Critical Articles. Edmonton — Toronto 1994. P. 129.
  2. ^ "In Summary, the language of Skovoroda, minus its many biblical and ecclesiastical, political and personal features is, in its foundation, the Slobozhanshchina variety of standard Russian as used by the educated". Shevelyov G.: "Skovoroda's Language and Style" // Hryhorij Savyč Skovoroda. An Anthology of Critical Articles. Edmonton — Toronto 1994. P. 131.
  3. ^ "Ukrainskii Sokrat" (The Ukrainian Socrates). Obrazovanie. Vol. 9, 1897: 129–34.
  4. ^ Raeff, Marc. "Joseph T. Fuhrmann et al. Essays on Russian Intellectual History. Foreword by James P. Hart. Introduction by Sidney Monas. Edited by Leon Borden Blair. (The Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, Number 5.) Austin: University of Texas Press for the University of Texas at Arlington. 1971. Pp. 123." The American Historical Review 78.2 (1973): 464-465
  5. ^ Лосев А. Г. С. Сковорода в истории русской культуры (in Russian). Gumer.info. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
  6. ^ (in Russian) Article in the online encyclopedia Krugosvet
  7. ^ СКОВОРОДА, ГРИГОРИЙ САВВИЧ / (1722–1794), русский и украинский философ, поэт, педагог. (in Russian). Diclib.com. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
  8. ^ Ушкалов, Леонід. 2 століття сковородіяни (Two centuries of Skovorodiana). "Acta" publishers, 2002.
  9. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference George Y. Shevelov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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