Do you know anything about the first Ukrainian ethnographers? The name of one of them was Hryhoriy Novytsky. He was a well-known Cossack officer, supporter of Hetman Mazepa. Hryhoriy Novytsky was also one of the captives held by the Russians in the Pechersk Fortress after the Battle of Poltava.

In the autumn of 1709, Hryhoriy Novytsky was imprisoned together with the disgraced Korsun colonel Andriy Kandyba. They signed a petition to Prince Dmytro Golitsyn, the Governor-General of Kyiv, with a request to improve at least a little the conditions of prisoners suffering from mass illnesses.

Later Hryhoriy Novytsky was exiled to Tobolsk, where he became one of the first ethnographers who depicted the realities of life of the indigenous people of Siberia, especially Khanty (Ostyaky) and Mansy (Voguly) core nations.

Between 1711 and 1715 he participated in the expeditions along the Ob River. Those purposeful journeys were aimed at Christianization of local pagans. Hryhoriy Novytsky served as an associate of Metropolitan Philotheus (Leszczynski) during that mission.

In 1715, Hryhoriy Novytsky completed his book about the Ostyaky nation. It was devoted to the life and customs of those people, their former harmful idol service, and their conversion to righteous Orthodox Christian faith. The work was based on the results of his travels. For the first time he gave extensive description of shamanic rituals in that book. However, in 1726, Novitsky’s manuscript was partially published by Dragoon Captain Johann Müller, claiming the work to be his own. During the 18^th century, the fragments of the book were published without any specification of the author. The name of the real author of the book became known only in 1884, and in 1941 the edition of the book appeared with a comment to it.

Captions to the illustrations:

1. Title page of the manuscript of Novitsky’s book.

2. Title page of the edition of 1726, with the name of Captain Johann Mueller as its author.

Hanna Filipova