ODESA TRAJECTORY OF THE FORMATION OF D. CHYZHEVSKYI’S SCHOLARLY INTERESTS

The article presents, for the first time, documentary materials that shed light on the little-known Odesa period in the life of Dmytro Ivanovych Chyzhevskyi (1894–1977) — an outstanding scholar whose intellectual abilities manifested themselves across various fields of the humanities. Chyzhevskyi was a prominent figure among Ukrainian émigré intellectuals, within whose milieu the diverse facets of his creative nature as an encyclopaedic researcher were most fully revealed. In reconstructing Chyzhevskyi’s Odesa period, the article introduces previously unpublished historical sources preserved in one of the collections of the State Archive of the Odesa Region. The documents in Chyzhevskyi’s personal file include: a petition addressed to the rector of Novorossiysk University dated 20 October 1915 requesting admission to the third-year cohort of the Faculty of History and Philology; receipts for tuition and attendance of lectures; lecture registrations for the autumn and spring semesters of the 1915/1916 academic year; a petition dated 13 May 1916 requesting permission to transfer to Kyiv University; correspondence between the administrations of Kyiv and Novorossiysk universities concerning his transfer; a personal photograph from that period; and other materials. These diverse historical documents enable a detailed reconstruction of Chyzhevskyi’s Odesa years and help clarify or refine facts that had previously been insufficiently covered or interpreted differently by researchers. The newly discovered sources also provide insight into the themes of the lectures he selected, offering a better understanding of the young scholar’s academic preferences. His interest in the lectures of renowned professors and their students may testify to his awareness and well-considered scholarly choices.