Fedir Kindratovych Vovk (, 1847–1918) also known as Khvedir Vovk () was a Ukrainian

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, the curator of the Alexander III Museum in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

... Vovk graduated from Kyiv University in 1871. He was an active member of the Kyiv

Hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

. From 1887 to 1905 he lived in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to escape

tsarist Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...

persecution; he earned a Ph.D. in 1900, and won the Godard Prize for his dissertation. In 1905 he returned to Russia, where, along with his position at the Alexander III Museum, he held a lecturership at Saint Petersburg University. He was granted a professorship at Kiev University in 1917 but died before he could take it up. Vovk's research concerned the anthropological study of the

Ukrainian people Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the second largest ethno-linguistic community. At around 46 million worldwide, Ukr ...

; in it he argued that the Ukrainians constituted a separate group of

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

most closely related to the Southern Slavs ( Dinaric race).

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