Quarantine conditions of education and life of Osyp Bodiansky in 1830–1831 (according to the letters of the Bodіansky brothers)

Abstract

The chronological boundaries of this study cover one academic year. That was the last year of Osyp Bodiansky’s studies at the Poltava (Pereiaslav) Seminary. The main source base consists of Osyp and Fedir Bodiansky’s letters from Pereiaslav addressed to their parents. The article aims to study the quarantine period of Osyp Bodiansky’s life in Pereiaslav during the second cholera pandemic. It is an attempt to recreate one year of Osyp Bodiansky’s life from the moment he arrived to study before leaving for Moscow. The sequence of events helps to answer the question: where did O. Bodiansky live, how did he earn from the conditions, what was distance education in 1830–1831 like, how did he manage to avoid cholera? This year began with finding a good apartment and a trip to Kyiv to buy some books. O. Bodiansky planned to re- ceive 660 rubles from the conditions. In October, the seminary was quarantined and all the students were sent home. There were two attempts to resume the study, but cholera reached Pereiaslav and the study did not take place. O. Bodiansky completed a full seminar course in Pereiaslav only in September 1831 and went to continue his studies at Moscow University. The main focus of the article is the quarantine conditions of study in the seminary and the life in the city. This study has a prosopographic context, which contributes to the retrospective of the social portrait of O. Bodiansky and the city of that time. Osyp Bodyansky was one of those who studied in this city and kept in touch with the locals throughout his life. His character was formed here together with the desire to know the truth, love for the Ukrainian way of life.The relevance of the study of such a historical figure as O. Bodiansky, who made a significant contribution to the preservation and development of Ukrainian history and culture in the Moscow ideology, is dictated by the socio-political realities of today when Ukrainian culture once again needs protection and promotion. This is a human-dimensional vision of both the history of a particular region (in this case, Pereiaslav in the early nineteenth century) and the understanding of a person of a particular era and region as a person, not a known historical figure without any ideological involvement.