Platon Lukashevich

Platon Lukashevich (Russian: Плато́н Аки́мович Лукаше́вич; died 1887) was a Ukrainian ethnographer and linguocrank.

Biography
Platon Lukashevich was born in the early 19th century and received his education at the Nezhin Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, where he was a classmate and close friend of. Lukashevich later completed his studies at the Richelieu Lyceum and embarked on a journey abroad during his youth. In Prague, he became acquainted with renowned Czech folk epic researcher Hanke and the prominent advocate of Pan-Slavism, Kollar. Influenced by their ideas, Lukashevich began collecting local folk songs upon his return to his homeland.

During this time, he served in the Kozeltsy District Court and, from 1834 onwards, settled almost exclusively in the village of Berezani, Pereyaslavsky Uyezd, Poltava Governorate, where he owned a sizable estate. In 1836, Lukashevich published his collection of Ukrainian folk poetry titled "Malorussian and Chervonorusian Dumy and Songs." This small book was the third anthology of its kind to be published (following the collections by Sreznevsky and Maksimovich) and was compiled at a time when traditional songwriting thrived within the people. The collection's main value lies in its section on "dumy" (epic ballads), among which the majestic ancient list of dumy about Samoil Kishka stands out. The book does not specify where or from whom this particular dumy was recorded. Lukashevich himself mentioned that he transcribed it in 1832 from the words of the bandurist Strichka, a native of the village of Berezovka in the Poltava Governorate.

In essence, Lukashevich's literary significance is encompassed by the publication of the collection of Ukrainian songs. His public activities were also of short duration, as he served as the leader of the gentry in the Pereyaslavsky Uyezd for only three years (1862-1865). For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to quasi-philological works that held no scientific value. His works, such as "Greek Etymology," "Latin Etymology," "Explanation of Assyrian Names," "Imaginary Indo-Germanic World, or the True Origin of the Formation of German, English, French, and other Western European Languages," "Magic Language of Magi, Volkhvs, and Priests," "Microscopic Astronomy," and others in the same vein, "had nothing in common not only with sound philology but also with common sense." Lukashevich spent significant funds on publishing these works, and his estate barns and bookstores in Kyiv were filled with his books, although they failed to find readers.

Signs of Lukashevich's mental abnormality were also evident in his domestic environment. Living as an improbable original, he surrounded himself with mystery, leading one to assume that he possessed numerous historical documents and ethnographic records. However, eventually, only two notebooks of Old East Slavic chronicle notes, a small yet valuable excerpt from the autobiographical notes of the priest Turchynovsky (mid-18th century), and a notebook where Lukashevich recorded what he could gather from the realm of Ukrainian poetry after the publication of his collection of dumy and songs were discovered. The contents of this handwritten collection were meager, and while recorded conscientiously, it holds less value than the first one. Lukashevich passed away in Berezani at the end of 1887.