Hryhoriy Savich Skovoroda is a Ukrainian mystical philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on December 3, 1722 in the village of Chornukhy, in the Poltava region, in the family of a Cossack.
He received his primary education at a village school. There he studied with a local clerk, who was also a violinist. In particular, he sang in the church choir.
In 1738 he began his studies at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Career
In the period from 1742 to 1744, Skovoroda was in St. Petersburg, where he was a singer in the court chapel. There he also wrote music to the lyrics of his own poems.
In 1750, together with the Russian mission, he left the country and for three years traveled through the territory of Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. He visited a number of cities, including Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest. He visited universities, listened to speeches by famous professors, worked in libraries, and studied philosophy in depth. Due to his knowledge of many languages, he participated in scientific discussions with scientists from different European countries.
In 1753 he returned to Ukraine. He began teaching at the Pereyaslav Collegium, where he read a course of poetics, taught ancient languages, and composed fables. In the end, he quit his job due to denunciations.
During 1754 – 1759, Skovoroda lived in the village of Kovray in the Pereyaslav region, where he was a home teacher in the estate of the landowner Stepan Tomara. It was during this period that he wrote most of the poems that were later included in the collection “The Garden of Divine Songs”.
After that, he worked at the Kharkiv Collegium: at first he taught poetics, and later moved to the course of ethics. During teaching, he wrote “Aesop’s Fable”, using both Latin and Ukrainian.
In the period between 1769 and 1774, Skovoroda wrote a number of prose works, including the collection “Kharkov Fables”, the philosophical dialogue “A conversation named two, about the fact that it is easy to be blessed” and “Dialogue, or Conversation about the Ancient World”. At the same time, he wrote several more works, including “A Conversation of Five Travelers about True Happiness in Life”, “The Ring” and “A Conversation Called the Alphabet, or a Primer of the World”.
During 1775 – 1776 he wrote philosophical works “A Book Called Si-lenus Alcibiadis, Sirich Icon of Alcibiades” and “A Book on the Reading of the Holy Scriptures, Called Lotov’s Wife”.
In 1785, he collected 30 poems written in different years into one poetry collection called “The Garden of Divine Songs”.
In 1787 he wrote two new works – “Grateful Erodius” and “Poor Lark”. And in 1791 he completed work on the work “Dialogue. His name is the Flood of the Serpent.”
Starting in 1769, Skovoroda chose the life of a traveler, refusing any positions and titles. Over the years, he traveled on foot, always dressed in a simple peasant retinue. He had no permanent home and nothing superfluous, except for a canvas bag with books, manuscripts, a pipe and a stick.
Skovoroda died on November 9, 1794 in the village of Pan-Ivanivka, which is now called Skovorodynivka and is located in the Zolochiv district of the Kharkiv region.
Hryhoriy Skovoroda: interesting facts
Here are some interesting facts from Skovoroda’s life:
- He was fond of playing the flute and even knew how to make a musical instrument with his own hands. The flute was always with him – he wore it around his belt, so in many portraits Skovoroda is often depicted with her. In addition to the flute, he played the violin, flute, bandura, lyre and gusli;
- During his studies and numerous travels, he mastered eight foreign languages: Latin, Greek, Polish, German, French, Italian, Hebrew, and also knew Hungarian well. He used languages not only for communication, but also for writing essays and correspondence;
- He slept only four hours a day and woke up with the first rays of the sun. Thanks to an active lifestyle and constant travel, he lived to be almost 72 years old;
- He believed that learning should be based on a natural inclination, that is, on “affinity”, and forcing him to do science without an inner desire is a useless task. He was a strict mentor, as he sought to inspire students to self-improvement;
- while teaching at the Kharkiv Collegium, Skovoroda used his own assessment system. Instead of the usual scores, he left phrases in notebooks like: “stupid”, “very stupid”, “stupid”, “sheer stupidity” – if the student could not cope. Instead, he evaluated the best as “understood”, “very understood”, “probably understood”, “perhaps not understood” or “sharp”, “very sharp”, “sharp animal”;
- Although he is often portrayed as a wandering philosopher who lived wherever he had to, this is not entirely true. Skovoroda really loved to travel on foot, in the warm season he was in nature – among the forests and fields, and in winter he found refuge in the houses of friends or in monasteries. At the same time, he did not shy away from luxury: he appreciated expensive things and received gifts from wealthy friends.
