Mikhail Osipovich Koialovich

Born Sept. 20 (Oct. 2), 1828, in the small town of Kuznitsa, Sokolka District, Grodno Province; died Aug. 23 (Sept. 4), 1891, in St. Petersburg. Russian Historian. Son of a priest.

In 1862, Koialovich became a professor at the St. Petersburg Religious Academy. His main works, devoted to the history of the church and the political history of the Western Russian lands, Byelorussia, and partly the Ukraine, are The Lithuanian Church Union (vols. 1–2,1859–61), TheHistory of the Reunification of the Western Russian Uniates in Ancient Times (1873), and Lectures on the History of Western Russia (1864). In these works, Koialovich sought to substantiate the Slavophile thesis of the unity of the Russian people (in which were included the Ukrainians and Byelorussians) and the Russian aristocracy, which was supposedly founded on a national community. In his historigraphic work The History of Russian Self-consciousness Based on Historical Relics and Scholarly Works (1884), he developed national-monarchical ideas. Beginning in the late 1860’s, Koialovich contributed to many periodical publications.