Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky
Mitrofan Viktorovich Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (Belarusian: Мітрафан Віктаравіч Доўнар-Запольскі, Russian: Митрофан Викторович Довнар-Запольский; 14 June [O.S.
2 June] 1867, Rechytsa, Minsk Governorate – 30 September 1934, Moscow[1]) was a historian, ethnographer, and diplomat of Belarusian origin.
He extensively sourced his works on the materials from more than 20 archives in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, Vilna, Warsaw, Kraków, Lviv, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Nyasvizh etc.
After a conflict with students of Kyiv Commercial Institute (1917) and the "Case of Stashevskiy" (1917),[5] Dovnar-Zapol'skiy resigned from almost all professorial work.
At the request of the BPR's authorities, he prepared the notable informational "Memorandum" ("Foundations of statehood of Belarus"), published in Grodno and Vilna in 1919 in Belarusian, Russian, Polish, German and French languages; also translated to English by P. Clark.
This Memorandum contained the historical ground for the necessity of creation of independent Belarusian state and was presented at the Versailles conference by the BPR's delegation, albeit without positive outcome.
His printed but unpublished book "History of Belarus" caused uprage among the Belarusian political authorities (beg.
From 1930 to 1934, he was heavily criticised for the alleged "Neo-Narodnichestvo", attributed the authorship of the ideological basis of "National Democratism", equated to the "agents of fascism" by acad.
Antonovich, he sought to emulate the combination of scientific and educational activities, as manifested by P. Shafarik, V. Karajic, and N.I.
Dovnar-Zapol'skiy greeted the emergence of the "strictly objective and scientific" trend in Belarusian historical and ethnographical research.
Dovnar-Zapol'skiy also postulated the absence of ethnographical unity in Ancient Rus' state, with external political and military affairs being the only binding factors in it.
Generally, he considered "two evils" to have influenced Belarusian history negatively: the Polish "szlachta aristocratical republic" and the Russian "boyar oligarchy".
He disapproved of both, as these excluded demos, being therefore perilous to the Belarusian people who are "highly democratic in their historical and folk traditions".
In the 1940s—1970s, comparatively "safe to touch" parts of his works (ethnographical, archeological, archeographical) were being explored and built upon by V.K.
John Leslie Howard Keep and Alter L. Litvin refer to both Dovnar-Zapol'ski and Picheta as "moderate (Belarusian) nationalists.
