Turning the pages back... February 23, 1758 (02/23/97)

Turning the pages back...

February 23, 1758

Vasyl Kapnist was a fascinating historical figure with modern notions of Ukrainian autonomy and identity a full 60 years before they became widespread in his homeland.

He was born on February 23, 1758, on his family's Velyka Obukhivka estate near Myrhorod, into a line of Left Bank nobility whose title was granted by Venetian authorities to a Greek ancestor Stomatello Kapnissis.

In 1770-1775, Kapnist served with the Izmailov and Preobrazhensk regiments stationed near St. Petersburg, then resigned his commission in protest against the enserfment of the Ukrainian peasantry under Russian law.

He was appointed marshal of the nobility for Myrhorod County in 1782 and for the Kyiv Gubernia in 1785-1787. In 1788, while the Russian Empire fought a two-front war with Turkey and Sweden, he drafted a plan for reviving volunteer Kozak regiments in Ukraine, but was turned down.

In 1791 he secretly traveled to Berlin to enlist Prussia's support for the restitution of the Hetmanate in the event of a conflict with Russia, but could elicit no firm commitment.

In 1802 he was made general judge of the Poltava Gubernia and continued his vigorous defense of Ukrainian interests, particularly during the Napoleonic invasion of 1812-1813 when 15 Kozak regiments were re-established and Kozaks were exempted from the draft and various taxes.

In 1820 he was appointed marshal for the massive Poltava Gubernia, a post he held until his death on November 9, 1823, near Kybyntsi, in the Poltava region.

A literary figure of some note, Kapnist's first work was an ode composed on the occasion of the Russo-Turkish peace treaty of 1775. In 1782 he composed a poem, "Oda na Rabstvo" (Ode on Slavery), protesting Catherine II's abolition of Ukrainian autonomy.

His comedy, "Yabeda," (Calumny, 1798), was a harsh satire on tsarist bureaucracy (which some hailed as a precursor of Nikolai Gogol's - Mykola Hohol's - works), and was banned after four performances.

In his later period, Kapnist wrote lyrical poetry, modeling himself on classical poets such as Horace. He wrote adaptations of Hryhorii Skovoroda's works, and also translated the medieval epic "Slovo o Polku Ihorevim" (The Tale of Ihor's Campaign) into Russian. To the latter Kapnist added an interesting commentary in which he emphasized the poem's Ukrainian origin and distinctive Ukrainian qualities.

In the early 1800s, Kapnist's estate in Velyka Obukhivka was a place of intellectual ferment, attracting such political activists as the Decembrist Pavel Pestel, and literary lights such as Hohol and Gavriil Derzhavin.

Sources: "Kapnist," "Kapnist, Vasyl," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988); "Kapnist, Vasyl," Ukrainska Literaturna Entsyklopedia, Vol. 2 (Kyiv: Ukrainska Radianska Entsyklopedia, 1990).

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