Ivanoŭski was born into an upper middle class family on the Liabiodka estate in the Vilnius Governorate of the Russian Empire (now within the village of Halavičpolie, in Belarus' Grodno Region).

In 1898 he graduated from the 5th Warsaw Gymnasium and entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemistry, which he finished in 1904.

[1][2] In 1917 Ivanoŭski participated in the First All-Belarusian Congress in Minsk and a year later became the Minister of Education in the Government of the Belarusian Democratic Republic.

After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in the autumn of 1939 he moved to Vilnia and taught at the local university.

[4] In June 1943 German governor Wilhelm Kube set up a Council of Elders led by Ivanoŭski.