Yefim Karsky was a Belarusian linguist, Slavist, ethnographer, the founder of Belarusian scientific linguistics, literary studies and paleography, folklorist and teacher. He was the first Belarusian academician and prominent researcher of culture, language and literature of Belarusian and other Slavic people.
Background
Yefim Karskiy was born on December 20, 1860 in the village of Lasha (at that time Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire) into an impoverished noble family. His father Fyodor Nikolayevich Novitskiy was a psalmist at Lasha Church and teacher in a folk school at Lasha and mother Magdalina Onufrievna Karskaya was a daughter of an Orthodox clergyman. They had 8 children. Yefim was recorded under the surname of his mother as his parents' marriage had not yet been registered (Yefim’s father wasn’t 18 at that time – the minimum marriage age in most provinces of the Russian Empire). He spent his early childhood in the village of Bytcha (Borisov district, Minsk province, Belarus) where his father served in the church.
Education
Yefim Karsky received primary education in a public school at Yatra (later Berezovets), Novogrudok district, Minsk province, where his father served in the church. Yefim didn’t have money to study at a gymnasium and following the advice of his father, he entered Minsk Theological School in August 1871 under his father's surname Novitsky. In 1877-1881, he studied in Minsk Theological Seminary. In 1881 he became interested in ethnography, and left his ecclesiastical studies to enter the Nezhin historical-philological institute (today’s Ukraine) and studied Slavonic-Russian philology under Professor Roman Brandt. His first philological research paper was published in 1883 in the Russian Philological Courier. On September 17, 1891 he successfully passed the Master's Degree examination at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Imperial University of Warsaw. In 1896, the Moscow University Council awarded Karsky the degree of the Doctor of Philology for his study "Western-Russian translations of the Psalter in the 15th-17th centuries".
Career
As a student of the Minsk Theological Seminary, Karsky gave private lessons to support the family financially. After his graduation from the Nezhin historical-philological institute in 1885, he taught Russian, Old Church Slavonic languages and Russian literature in the Gymnasium No. 2 in Vilnius, where he also served as the secretary and as elected member of the Resources Committee. At that period, he began to collect ethnographic material and publish articles in various scientific journals. In 1893, he received a Master's Degree in Russian language and literature from the University of Kiev for his papers “On the history of sounds and forms of the Belarusian talk” and “A review of sounds and forms of the Belarusian talk” (the first academic dissertation in Belarusian linguistics). Upon graduation, he was enrolled as a teacher of the Russian language at the Imperial University of Warsaw, and a year later was appointed an Associate professor at the Department of Russian, Church Slavonic languages and Russian literature. Later he became full Professor. In 1896, the Moscow University Council awarded Karsky the degree of the Doctor of Philology for his study entitled “Western-Russian translations of the Psalter in the 15th-17th centuries”. Karsky continued his studies of the Belarusian language, and in 1898 he began studying the local dialects of the Belarusian people, both by the literary artifacts and by ethnographic tours to Grodno, Vilnius, Minsk regions, and others. He published many well-known and acknowledged articles on his literary studies. Karsky was elected member of the Moscow Archaeological Society’s Archeographic Commission, a Corresponding Member of the Saint Petersburg Society of Amateurs of Old Written Texts (1898). In 1901, Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences awarded Karsky a small Lomonosov Prize for his work in the field of palaeography.
In 1902, he became Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology of the Imperial University of Warsaw. In 1903, Karsky organized an expedition to Belarus to locate the ethnographic borders of the Belarusian nation and language and to explore the characteristic features of the Belarusian speech in the area bordering the Ukrainian comparing it to Polish speech. Upon return, he published the first volume of his major work “Belarusians. Introduction to the study of the language and folk literature”. The book contains the ethnographic map of the Belarusian people. The scientist pointed out that language (Belarusian dialect) played a crucial role in building the nation and was the major distinctive feature of the Belarusians. He studied local dialects in 114 locations, as well as the material of folk and scholarly works. In 1905-1910, Karsky was Rector of the Imperial University of Warsaw (elected twice in 1905, 1908). According to unconfirmed reports, he resigned in protest of the policies of the Imperial Minister of Education Lev Kasso. During this period in Warsaw, he published the first part of the second volume of his fundamental work “Belarusians. The language of the Belarusian tribe. Historical outline of the Belarusian dialect sounds”. The second part was published in 1911 entitled “Belarusians. The language of the Belarusian tribe. Historical outline of word formation in the Belarusian dialect”.
In 1915-1916, he worked in Rostov-on-Don (Russian Empire) and taught at the Rostov University (former University of Warsaw, which was evacuated to Rostov-on-Don). In 1916, he was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences and moved to Saint Petersburg (at that time Petrograd). In 1917, Karsky became Professor of the Petrograd Imperial University, and was a founder member of the Commission for the Study of the Tribal Composition of the Population of the Borderlands of Russia. He specialized in ethnography and linguistics. In 1905-1917, he worked as a Chief Editor of the “Russian Philological Bulletin” (the major journal of philology in the pre-Revolution period).
In 1918, forced by the economic ruin in Petrograd from World War I and the October Revolution, Karsky moved to Minsk, where he faced Polish occupation. In March 1919, he was appointed the Chairman of the organizing commission for the foundation of Minsk University. He went to Warsaw and took his library to Minsk on the way home. At that period he refused the pension proposed by the Polish occupation authorities. He was given tenure at Minsk Pedagogical Institute, but was dismissed from his position the following year, shortly before being arrested by the Extraordinary Commission. Since 1920, he edited “News-bulletin of the Department of Russian Language and Literature at the Russian Academy of Sciences”. In 1921, he published the second part of the third volume of his fundamental work “Belarusians. Essays on the language and literature of the Belarusian tribe. The Old West Russian language”. In 1922, Karsky refused the proposal of Nekrashevich to return to Minsk and take the position of the Director in the newly opened Institute of Belarusian Culture (Inbelkult, later the Belarusian Academy of Sciences). He told that it was difficult to do research in Belarus and he could do more for the country while staying in Petrograd and moved back. He resumed his teaching at Petrograd University, staying through its rechristening as Leningrad University in 1924. He also returned to the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (at that time the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) where he became the Head of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In the same year, Karsky became a full member of the Institute of Belarusian Culture (Inbelkult), taking part in working out the Inbelkult's Charter.
In 1922, he donated his personal library to the newly created Belarusian University (about 4,000 examples, works on ethnography and Slavic science by Russian, Belarusian, Polish, Serb, Czech, French and Slovak scholars; presently a separate collection at the National Library of the Republic of Belarus including 2,500 examples).
Since 1926, he made scientific visits to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. His reports from these visits were highly appreciated by the USSR Academy of Sciences, but they began to have political repercussions for him. He began to butt heads with the leadership of the Academy, and in 1927 he became the target of a sharp political critique in the newspapers "Zvyazda" (Minsk) and "Pravda" (Moscow). His membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences was put under question, and despite enjoying a certain amount of political patronage he wasn’t given the room in the press to defend himself. In 1929, he was elected member of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The following year, however, he was abruptly removed from the position of the Director of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Leningrad. He tried to restore his former positions, but unsuccessfully and on April 29, 1931 he died.
Belarusians. Part 3. The language of the Belarusian tribe. 2. Historical outline of word formation and word-change in the Belarusian dialect
Belarusians. Part 4. The language of the Belarusian tribe. 3. Essays on the syntax of the Belarusian dialect. Additions and amendments.
Belarusians. Part 5. Essays on the literature of the Belarusian tribe. 1. Folk poetry
Belarusians. Part 6. Essays on the literature of the Belarusian tribe. 2. Old West-Russian literature
Belarusians. Part 7. Essays on the literature of the Belarusian tribe. 3. Fiction in the folk dialect
map
Ethnographic map of the Belarusians
1903
Politics
During the Soviet period, Karsky suffered a lot because of his views. In 1919, he was dismissed from the Minsk Pedagogical Institute as a person with troubled "political face" and arrested the same year. Since 1926, he made scientific visits to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. His reports from these visits were highly appreciated by the USSR Academy of Sciences, but they began to have political repercussions for him. He began to butt heads with the leadership of the Academy, and in 1927 he became the target of a sharp political critique in the newspapers "Zvyazda" (Minsk) and "Pravda" (Moscow). His membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences was put under question, and despite enjoying a certain amount of political patronage he wasn’t given the room in the press to defend himself. In 1929, he was elected member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the following year, he was abruptly removed from the position of the Director of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Leningrad.
Membership
Saint Petersburg Academy of sciences
,
Russian Federation
1901 - 1931
Russian Academy of Sciences
,
Russian Federation
1917 - 1931
Academy of Sciences of the USSR
,
USSR
1925 - 1931
Institute of Belarusian Culture (later the Belarusian Academy of Sciences)
,
Belarus
1922 - 1931
Czech Academy of Sciences
,
Czech Republic
1929 - 1931
Archeographical Commission of the Moscow Archeological Society
,
Russia
Saint Petersburg Society of the Old Written Texts Amateurs
,
Russia
Historical-Philological Society at the University of Novorossiysk
,
Russia
Belarusian Scientific-Cultural Society in Moscow
,
Russia
Literary and scientific Society of Amateurs of Russian Language and Literature at the University of Moscow
,
Russia
Personality
Karsky was described by his contemporaries as extremely industrious, accurate, self-organized, and reserved in behavior. He was acclaimed as a scientist of the highest integrity.
Connections
In 1877, Karsky married Sophia Nikolayevna Scsepurzhinskaya, the priest’s daughter. They had 3 children (2 boys and a girl.