Talk:Hryhorii Skovoroda

Draft of Teachings Section
Hi wiki editors,

I want to add breadth and richness to this article’s description of Skovoroda’s life and teachings. I wrote this “Teachings” Section:

One of Skovoroda's missions was teaching. Formally he taught poetics in the Pereyaslav Collegium (1750-1751) and poetics, syntax, Greek and catechism at Kharkiv Collegium (1759-1760, 1761-1764, 1768-1769). (Chopyk and, Shubin, Daniel H., and Grigori Skovoroda. Skovoroda: The World Tried to Catch Me but Could Not. Lulu. com, 2012.)

In 1751 he had a dispute with the presiding bishop who considered Skovoroda's new ways of teaching as strange and incompatible with the former traditional course. Young Skovoroda, confident in his mastery of the subject matter and in the precision, clarity and comprehensiveness of his rules of prosody, refused to comply with the bishop's order, asking for arbitration and pointing out to him that "alia res sceptrum, alia plectrum" [the pastor's scepter is one thing, but the flute is another]. The bishop considered Skovoroda's stance as arrogant and consequently he was dismissed from the Pereyaslav Collegium. (Chopyk wording, he references Kovalinsky: Григорій Сковорода, Повне зібрання творів, (М. Ковалинський, 'Жизнь Григория Сковородьі'), т. 2 В-во Наукова  Думка, Київ 1973)

The first year of teaching at Kharkiv Collegium passed brilliantly for Skovoroda. He not only excited his students with his lectures but his creative pedagogical approach also attracted the attention of his colleagues and even his superiors. (Chopyk, p 41)

Skovoroda was also a private tutor for Vasily Tomara (during 1753-175, 1755-1758) and a mentor as well as a life long friend of Michael Kovalinksky (during 1761-1769), his biographer.

In his teaching Skovoroda aimed at discovering the student's inclinations and abilities and devised talks and readings which would develop them to the fullest. (Chopyk, 42)

This approach has been described by Skovoroda's biographer Kovalinksy: "Skovoroda began [teaching young] Vasily Tomara by working more on the heart of his young disciple and, watching for his natural inclinations, he tried to help only the nature itself in developing him by engaging, light, and tender direction which the boy could not even notice, for Skovoroda paid particular attention not to overtax the young mind with [heavy] learning. In this way the boy became attached to Skovoroda with love [and trust for] him.  (Chopyk 42, and Kovalinsky reference).

His teaching was not limited to academia nor to private friends and during his later years as "holy wanderer" he taught publicly the many who were drawn to him.

Gavriil brilliantly describes Skovoroda's Socratic qualities. "Both Socrates and Skovoroda felt from above the calling to be tutors of the people, and, accepting the calling, they became public teachers in the personal and elevated meaning of that word. ... Skovoroda, also like Socrates, not being limited by time or place, taught on the crossroads, at markets, by a cemetery, under church porticoes, during holidays, when his sharp word would articulate an intoxicated will - and in the hard days of the harvest, when a rainless sweat poured upon the earth."

Skovoroda taught that one finds his true calling by self examination. “Know yourself,” advised Skovoroda using the well known maxim of the Greek philosopher Socrates. He introduced a well founded idea that a person engaged in an in-born, natural work is provided with a truly satisfying and happy life. (Chopyk, p 57). -- Shubin pg 18, Nikolai Kostomarov quote. (This could be used in an impact-influence section) "In some towns and cities fathers and grandfathers have related the places where he visited ... the good attitude that Skovoroda showed those contemporaries he visited now comprised the family pride of their grandchildren."

Danilevsky 1862 (from Shubin too). (This could be used in an impact-influence section) The extent of Skovoroda's social significance is demonstrated by the financial support of landlords who donated 618 thousand rubles in silver to found the Kharkiv University (completed in 1803), and they were for the most part either students of Skovoroda, or his friends or else brief associates that knew him during his travels. (paraphrased)

Let me know if you have edits, suggestions, additions. Happy holidays, Svyatver (talk) 14:39, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

City names, person names and English translation
Ушкуйник, Faustian, Iryna Harpy

Do you know what the Wikipedia custom is for naming cities or people going from Slavic languages to English?

I saw a post above from victor falk and Interchange88 ☢ saying that "The custom was typically to translate, rather than to transliterate a name. For example: Peter I, not Pyotr I; Alexander Suvorov, not Aleksandr Suvorov; to name a couple of people from this time period."

In this way Hryhorii was written as Gregory.

I was using this convention to translate Michailo/Michail -> Michael

Would XapkiB/XapkoB -> Kharkiv?

This is a technicality but people get upset when their names are misspelled. Svyatver (talk) 15:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I would go with the spelling for the wikipedia article = Kharkiv.Faustian (talk) 16:08, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, this is a question of tradition and in case of topography - it is also a question of historical period, about which we are speaking here. For example Königsberg is now known as Kaliningrad, but historically the city was also known as Twangste. And if we write about Immanuel Kant and his time, it is not right to write, that Kant lived in Kaliningrad, he lived in Königsberg. Yuryev is now also known as Tartu, but it was also historically known as Derpt. The problem with Ukrainian/Russian/Polish-pronounce in topography is based on the similarity of Slavic languages. In fact it is clear that in 18th Century Russian Empire the city Charkov could be known only as Charkov, so I suggest to use this form in case of Charkov Collegium (Latin: Collegium Charcoviensis), because this pronounce is known from all historical documents of 18th-19th Centuries.
 * About convention to translate names of 18th Century persons. I think the best decision is to use English transliteration: Michael, Gregory etc. Ушкуйник (talk) 17:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ушкуйник, Faustian, Iryna Harpy,
 * I think that Universitas Charkoviensis is the latin name for the Kharkiv University. This was established in ~1803-1805. The Kharkiv,Kharkov Collegium was separate, this was a church institution built in ~1722 and assumed a title of “College” in 1734.
 * "With the opening of Kharkiv University in 1805, the college's role in secular education declined. In 1817 the college was again converted into a theological seminary." (-David Saunders, http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages\K\H\KharkivCollege.htm)
 * Examples of spellings in modern times and 1700s:
 * Scherer, Stephen P., The Evolution of Hryhorij Skovoroda's Biblical Thinking, 2004
 * Uses Kharkiv Collegium
 * Joseph T. Fuhrmann, Essays on Russian intellectual history, 1971
 * Uses Kharkov Collegium
 * Skovoroda’s title for his collection of fables was:
 * Басни Харьковскія/Григорій Сковорода
 * ГС Сковорода - Повна академічна збірка творів/За ред. проф. …, 2010.
 * Skovoroda gave Kharkiv/Kharkov a latin name – Zacharpolis after a biblical prophet. And this name was also used for the Collegium (Zacharpolis Collegium, from Dan Chopyk’s book).
 * “Захарій — біблійний пророк. Саме на його честь Г.С.Сковорода дав Харкову латинське ім'я — Захарполіс (лат. Zacharpolis);[15][16][17]” (Zacharii – a bibilical prophet. In his honor Skovoroda gave Kharkiv the latin name – Zacharpolis) from uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Харькo
 * We know that modernly the city is called Харків(Ukrainian), Харьков(Russian), Kharkiv(English).
 * It’s not clear what the translation of the historical name should be in English. The writing of the period was a mixed Ukrainian-Russian-Church Slavonic.
 * For the city name I think we should use a translation of the modern Ukrainian name and also mention the spelling Kharkov because this spelling could have been used at the time (~1750s). The written language of that time was a mixed language and I don’t think we can rely heavily on this to translate into English.
 * Something like “Skovoroda lived near Kharkiv (also called Kharkov)”
 * The Collegium name is difficult to deal with too. The name it was given at the time is from a mixed language and there is no modern name for it. I find it hard to use only one name. For the Collegium we could mention the three possibilities: Kharkov Collegium, Kharkiv Collegium, Zacharpolis Collegium.
 * For peoples’ names (this is a little easier than historic institutions) I agree that we can use the convention to translate into English, giving Gregory, Michael. Svyatver (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Dear Svyatver, I'm not sure that we should emphasize the role of the "mixed language" in Sloboda Ukraine. Surely there lived in 18th Century people from different regions and they had different pronunciation, but it's hard to belive that they used any another spelling of the city as Kharkov. For example in works of Bagaley there is no any speech about using the form Kharkiv before 20th Century. Potebnya, who has researched different dialects of Ukrainian and Russian in the area of Sloboda Ukraine, has not found this "transition" of "o" in "i" in the region of Kharkov. Secondly, the Collegium is another institution as Karazin-University of Kharkov. The Charkov Collegium was firstly known as Belgorod Collegium (from 1721). It was one of many collegiums in Russia, which were built at the time of Peter the Great. In 1734 this Collegium was converted in Collegium Charkoviensis. So I suggest we should use in context of 18th Century the form Kharkov. Best regards, Ушкуйник (talk) 10:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ушкуйник,
 * This is tricky.
 * It’s true that there were people from different regions and they had different pronunciations (spoken). From the historical perspective, the spelling (written) was in the native language and it was probably ~ Харьковскія.
 * Now our job is to translate. This would be translated as Kharkovskyia in English (this is the possessive form of the word, Kharkov’s fables).
 * But this is incomplete, it doesn’t address the spoken language, the source written language was inadequate and has been modernized.
 * We have to respect the historical period and also modern times. Modernly the city in its native language is Харків, and this is translated as Kharkiv in English.
 * In an encyclopedia article it’s appropriate to briefly present broad information relating to the topic. I want to include Kharkov as well as Kharkiv.
 * Modern works written in English use both Kharkiv and Kharkov. There is reason to use both spellings.
 * English writers used the spellings Kharkiv Collegium and Kharkov Collegium.
 * Leonid Ushkalov uses “Kharkiv College” in his book “Two Centuries of Skovorodiana,” Pg 505. This is written in English as well as Ukrainian.
 * I don’t think we can use just one, we have to mention both.
 * We have to also address the college name separately from the city name. The college name is a slightly different case, there is no modern name for it (as with the city), it doesn’t function like it used to in the 1750s.
 * To render it in English there is some estimation, and English can’t reproduce the pronunciation of the name accurately. To address this there are examples we can follow from established scholars.
 * I still think that the collegium was separate from the university. It seems that way from what I've quickly read about it below.
 * “It was founded originally (1722) as an eparchial seminary in Belgorod by Bishop Yepfanii Tykhorsky, and was transferred to Kharkiv in 1726 by Prince M. Golitsyn. … Its six-grade curriculum stressed the Slavonic, Greek, and Latin languages; hence the seminary became known as the Slavonic-Greek-Latin School. In 1734 it assumed the title of college.” http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages\K\H\KharkivCollege.htm
 * “The Collegium in fact lost its importance and in 1817 was transformed into a Theological Seminary.” https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Харківський_колегіум
 * It was closed in 1817 and reestablished as a seminary. The university, which was built separately, was then the main secular education institution.
 * It is accurate to write that Skovoroda taught at the Collegium.
 * We can’t say that he taught at the university, because that was established after his death.
 * So we can’t say “Skovoroda taught at Universitas Charkoviensis."
 * The structure of a phrase like “Skovoroda taught at the Collegium (also Universitas Charkoviensis)” has an implication that he taught at the university.
 * It’s appropriate to add “Zacharpolis Collegium” since Skovoroda gave the city this latin name in his works. Ref: Grigory Savvich Skovoroda, Full collection of works, (Garden of Divine Songs), v. 2, in Teaching Thought, Kyiv 1973.
 * My goal is to be descriptive, to include information that reveals the historical period in which he lived, and respect the current scholars' methods.
 * Wording like: “Skovoroda lived near Kharkiv (also called/spelled Kharkov)” or “Skovoroda lived near Kharkov (now called Kharkiv)” is accurate and has a level of broad information.
 * For the college: “Skovoroda taught in the Kharkov Collegium (also called Kharkiv Collegium, and in latin Zacharpolis Collegium)” is accurate, informative. Svyatver (talk) 20:57, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Collegium Charkoviensis (Kharkov College) and Universitas Charkoviensis (Kharkov University) are different institutions. I agree with you that there is a difference in nomenclature between Kharkov/Kharkiv as city (which exist) and Charkov College (which existed at the time of imperial Russia), so I think we can use your variant of wording. Best regards, Ушкуйник (talk) 00:00, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Alright, I added the different names of the city and collegium. Also translated Bagaley/Bahalii's name as I saw it in Ushkalov, 2002. Svyatver (talk) 00:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

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Clarification on Language
Requesting counsel from Skovoroda editors Ушкуйник, Faustian, Iryna Harpy, Lute88 on the wording of Skovoroda's written language.

primarily in the Sloboda Ukraine dialect of the Russian language (currently in the first paragraph)

This is confusing, I'm looking for some clear ideas.

From the Language section of the article I see:

After an in depth study of Skovoroda's written works the Slavic linguist George Shevelov was able to deduce that apart from Ukrainian it contained 7.8% Russian, 7.7% non-Slavic, and 27.6% Church Slavonic vocabulary, and that the variant of Church Slavonic he used was the variety used in the Synodinal Bible of 1751.[2] Skovoroda's prose however had a higher content of non-Ukrainian vocabulary: 36.7% Church Slavonic, 4.7% other non-Slavonic European languages, and 9.7% Russian.[2]

Judging from this I believe that he used mainly the Church Slavonic language, with a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Svyatver (talk) 01:10, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't even know how this particular construct of the sentence came about. Considering that Shevelov argued that Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian developed independently of each other, why would he conceive of Sloboda Ukraine's Ruthenian/Ukrainian as a dialect of the Russian language? Personally, I think it's WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE for the lead. The eclectic linguistic style he developed is elaborated on in the body of the article, and the use of this summary in the lead, as it currently stands, is more proprietorial than edifying for the reader.
 * As an aside, does anyone have direct access to the text in question? I find the evaluation clumsy, and would like to have the opportunity to read and assess Shevelov's essay afresh. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 18:32, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Iryna Harpy Good point. Here is a part of the referenced work: https://books.google.com/books?id=eTbckZO9MJAC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=George+Y.+Shevelov.+Skovoroda%27s+Language+and+Style&source=bl&ots=rl6LuGq9Cp&sig=Lgm7TfRWsw-O9wRP7wrTduhN7VI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW8b3WptHXAhXM6oMKHfelBnYQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=George%20Y.%20Shevelov.%20Skovoroda's%20Language%20and%20Style&f=false
 * But page 131 is not in the preview.
 * Svyatver (talk) 04:08, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Doing a search for 'language' gives this result on page 131: One can assume a priori that the local standard of the colloquial language was Russian, though with quite a few Ukrainianisms still present, just as it may be assumed, on the other hand, that even settlers from Russia switched to the local... 
 * This shows some assumptions about the colloquial (spoken) language, but doesn't gives evidence of Skovoroda's written language.
 * Svyatver (talk) 04:24, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I got page 131 preview by searching for "131" (maybe google randomly determined which pages are allowed to be previewed?). Shevelov writes, "One can assume a priori that the local standard of the colloquial language was Russian, though with quite a few Ukrainianisms still present, just as it may be assumed, on the other hand, that even settlers from Russia switched to the local variety of Russian with its many Ukrainianisms." He then writes that Skovboroda's works can be used as a source for what Russian was like in late 18th century Slobozanscyna. Next paragraph, in full:
 * "In summary, the language of Skovboroda, minus its many Biblical, ecclestiastical, political, and personal features is, in its foundation, the Slobazanscyna variety of standard Russian as used by the educated. Skovoroda constantly communicated with these circles, and the readers he had and followed belonged there.  Skovorda was materially dependent on them.  This was his milieu, not that of peasants. Unless we understand that, we shall be forever puzzled by his language and consider it a wild perversion."
 * So - he wrote in "Slobozanscyna Russian" - a Russian that included many Ukrainianisms.Faustian (talk) 05:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Faustian, nice you got the page. To me that sais that his base, foundation was the 'Slobazanscyna variety of standard Russian as used by the educated'.
 * I found another article talking about the same Shevelov reference.
 * Shevelov indicates that poetic experimentation led Skovoroda to create a language that incorporates “much from Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, standard Russian, and certain elements from Latin, Greek [...], but which was not identical with any of these. This was a linguistic revolution, which “was carried out not in favour of colloquial Ukrainian or standard [i.e., St. Petersburg and Moscow] Russian”, but in favour of the Russian spoken by educated landowners and the upper classes of Slobidska Ukraine (p. 128). Shevelov concludes by warning the post-Romantic reader that Skovoroda did not record the language of his social milieu, but erected his own personal edifice in a baroque style “that never accepted the reality of life and the reality of the [spoken] language in a literary work” (p. 129). 
 * http://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/13741/file.pdf  (pg 135)
 * Looks like it's not easy to describe Skovoroda's language and categorize it. His foundation was the Russian spoken by educated landowners in Slobidska Ukraine. And he built upon it to create his own style.
 * Svyatver (talk) 07:46, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Correct. And this version of Russian had many Ukrainianisms.Faustian (talk) 15:44, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * , it is pure speculations to identify ethnicity of such people like Hryhoriy Skovoroda, Mykola Hohol, Taras Shevchenko, and many other Little Russians by the language they used to write. Anti-Ukrainian sentiments particularly well exposed in the story about the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. One should be aware of the status of Ukrainian language during that period when it was not simply prohibited to use, but one could be criminally prosecuted. There was ethnical genocide policy implemented by the Russian Empire on territory of modern Ukraine. Similar political speculations being revived by the Russian Federation in relation to the Ukrainian East (East Ukraine). The clear distinction between Russians and Ukrainians was well disclosed by the Russian explorer and scientist Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay when on 27 March 1882 he gave an interview to Mr. Thomassen of the Australian daily newspaper The Argus stating the following "My ancestors came originally from the Ukraine, and were Zaporogg-cossacks of the Dnieper. After the annexation of the Ukraine, Stepan, one of the family, served as sotnik (a superior Cossack officer) under General Count Rumianzoff, and having distinguished himself at the storming of the Turkish fortress of Otshakoff, was by ukase of Catherine II created a noble..." It clearly shows that the idea of sovereign Ukraine existed long before 1991. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 19:12, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Aleksandr Grigoryev, interesting knowledge. Faustian, Iryna Harpy, from the Shevlov source I came up with this sentence that describes Skovoroda's written language:
 * ″The written language of Skovboroda, minus its many Biblical, ecclestiastical, political, and personal features is, in its foundation, the Slobazanscyna variety of standard Russian as used by the educated, with quite a few Ukrainianisms still present (Shevlov, p. 131).″
 * This adds more information to the current sentence: ″... who wrote primarily in the Sloboda Ukraine dialect of the Russian language.[2]″.
 * I'm proposing updating the current sentence to something more informative and accurate. Please let me know your thoughts on the above new sentence.
 * This info would also be nice to add to the Language Section:
 * Poetic experimentation led Skovoroda to create a language that incorporates much from Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, standard Russian, and elements from Latin, Greek, but which was not identical with any of these (Shevlov, p. 128). This was a linguistic revolution, which was carried out not in favor of colloquial Ukrainian or standard [i.e., St. Petersburg and Moscow] Russian, but in favor of the Russian spoken by educated landowners and the upper classes of Slobidska Ukraine (Shevlov, p. 128). Skovoroda did not record the language of his social milieu, but erected his own personal edifice in a baroque style (Pylypiuk, p. 135) “that never accepted the reality of life and the reality of the [spoken] language in a literary work” (Shevlov, p. 129). (I would like to add this because it shows that Skovoroda created his own style. He was a scholar, an artist, a musician, he was creative and his qualities should be exposed in this wiki article.)
 * ref here: Natalia Pylypiuk. In Search of Hryhorii Skovoroda: A Review Article. Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Vol 22, Numbers, 1-2 Summer-Winter 1997. (http://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/13741/file.pdf)
 * Happy Holidays to you as well!
 * Svyatver (talk) 18:35, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
 * , wonderful holidays to you as well. I just wanted to pointed out that many Ukrainians during that period were forced to use Russian language or some form of it not because it was their native language. The use of any other languages even if allowed was limited. From what we have, I guess, it certainly could be summarized as you putted a form of Russian language, but to affirm that it really was a his only written language wont be accurate. It is known that works written in Ukrainian language at time were simply not allowed to be published. Skovoroda was in same position as Hohol who also wrote in Russian language and many others such as Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Hrebinka, etc. Not long ago it was discovered that beside the Russian-language version of the Hohol's Taras Bulba, there also was a Ukrainian as well which was left as a manuscript due to censorship policies. The Skovoroda's contribution to development of the Russian language is certainly remarkable as well as his flow of thought. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 19:03, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Svyatver's version sounds good to me. Aleksandr Grigoryev, do you have a link to the description of Hohol's Ukrainian-language Taras Bulba?Faustian (talk) 05:25, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Why was his museum targeted by Russia?
As someone who never heard of Gregory Skovoroda before, I try to wrap my head around why a Russian missile strike, specifically targeted his museum in the village of Skovorodynivka. Did he write, or do, something that Putin dislike? Or is there some kind of contest between Russia and Ukraine which nation should claim him as their own? I have found some decades old posts on Internet that seem to indicate the latter, but I don't read Russian or Ukrainian, so my Internet snooping capabilities is limited, when it come to this subject. 188.148.209.170 (talk) 05:54, 14 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Many months have passed since your post but here are my thoughts.
 * The starting point of your curiosity were the real events:
 * - Russian missile strike, specifically targeted his museum in the village of Skovorodynivka
 * There really is no *deep* logical explanation for these Russian Federation missile attacks. Blind rage, hate are illogical. The aim of the attacks is "to destroy". R.Fed targets anything cultural, educational, medical, civilian on Ukrainian soil. This is a genocidal war. Svyatver (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * A report by 35 legal and genocide experts has referred to “destruction of cultural and sacred sites” as evidence of genocidal intent by Russia, and said that “according to the jurisprudence, attacks against cultural and religious sites ‘may legitimately be considered as evidence of an intent to physically destroy the group’” (citing the ICJ judgment over the Bosnian genocide).
 * See also, for example:
 * Pen America, Ukrainian Culture Under Attack: Erasure of Ukrainian Culture in Russia's War Against Ukraine
 * ARTnews: A Continually Updated List of Ukraine’s Most Significant Cultural Sites Damaged Amid Russia’s Invasion
 * Artnet: Museum Professionals Accuse Russia of Cultural ‘Genocide’ and Ethics Violations in Ukraine at a Major Industry Conference in Prague
 * Human Rights Watch: Ukraine: Russians Pillage Kherson Cultural Institutions: Art and Artifacts Stolen
 * —Michael Z. 20:09, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 24 May 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Common name status of the proposed title is well-supported. (non-admin closure) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 22:23, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Gregory Skovoroda → Hryhorii Skovoroda – Per WP:COMMONNAME, use the most common spelling from WP:reliable sources. The spelling also corresponds to the romanization according to WP:UKR and the Ukrainian system, and is used by the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. It differs only by a diacritical ĭ from that of the ALA-LC system used in library cataloguing (Hryhoriĭ Skovoroda).

Google Books Ngram shows this is the most common spelling in WP:RS over the years, although the spelling Hryhory was highest in the last two years of the corpus, 2018 and 2019 (reduce smoothing to zero and hover over the chart for clarity on individual years).

Google Advanced Book search, per WP:SET, restricted to results since 2010. The number of pages appears to correspond more closely to the number of results than does the estimated total.
 * Hryhorii Skovoroda “Page 12 of about 1,340 results”
 * Hryhory Skovoroda “Page 7 of about 1,850 results”
 * Grigory Skovoroda “Page 7 of about 448 results”
 * Gregory Skovoroda “Page 4 of about 948 results”
 * Grigorii Skovoroda “Page 4 of about 170 results”
 * Grigoriy Skovoroda “Page 2 of about 101 results”

Google Scholar Search, restricted to results since 2010.
 * Hryhorii Skovoroda Page 99 of 5,880 results
 * Gregory Skovoroda Page 59 of 593 results
 * Grigory Skovoroda Page 35 of 352 results
 * Grigoriy Skovoroda Page 13 of 130 results
 * Hryhory Skovoroda Page 12 of 122 results
 * Grigorii Skovoroda Page 5 of 42 results

—Michael Z. 15:42, 24 May 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him &#124; talk) 17:29, 31 May 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per detailed, well-researched and strongly-sourced nomination. The form which depicts the indicated Ukrainian transliteration of his given name — Hryhorii — is certainly the most intuitive one for use in the main title header of Skovoroda's English Wikipedia entry. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:40, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * SupportJaguarnik (talk) 09:53, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Just a comment. I'm not sure it's a good idea. Three reasons:
 * 1) The spelling Gregory Skovoroda is commonly used in modern studies by specialists in Slavic studies such as William E. Harkins (Professor of the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University), Theresa Obolevich (Professor of the Pontifical University of John Paul II), Artur Mrówczyński (Professor at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient in Granada), Oleg Marchenko (Professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities).
 * 2) The spelling "Gregory Skovoroda" is the only one on the list that is unique to English-language literature. Compare in this respect the case of Leo Tolstoy (in Russian literature he is commonly known as Lev or even Lyov).
 * 3) First name forms such as Grigory/Grigorij/Hryhorij/Hryhory/Hrihory etc. belong to different transliterations from Russian and from Ukrainian, which are usable in different studies in different languages. In this regard, the question remains to what extent the statistics do not take into account the specific English-language literature on Skovoroda, but the writings of general authors who wrote their studies in different time on different topics with ​​using of Latin-based alphabets. Ушкуйник (talk) 11:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) The proposed spelling is commonly used in more modern studies by specialists. Pulling three names out of a hat without any sources for evidence doesn’t change that. 2) What? That’s not a pronunciation; it’s a spelling, and pronunciation has nothing to do with our naming guidelines. But wouldn’t the most common pronunciation correspond more closely to the most common spelling? 3) No, my Google Advanced Book Searches above were restricted to English-language sources. Hryhorii is used in English, corresponding to the commonly used English language romanizations of Ukrainian that I mentioned above. —Michael Z. 16:12, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I just want to say, that it would be sufficient to mention various transliterations from Russian and Ukrainian in a commentary. As long as the English spelling exists and is present in modern literature, it seems reasonable to use it on the English-language Wikipedia. Ушкуйник (talk) 16:16, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Gregory is an anglicized name, not merely a different romanized spelling of either Russian Grigorii or Ukrainian Hryhorii. Whether we use one depends on the application of COMMONNAME and the WP:criteria —Michael Z. 03:00, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * "Pulling three names out of a hat without any sources for evidence doesn’t change that". — I can easily give the exact details of sources. The names of these authors are well known to those who specialize in East Slavic Studies. I have only mentioned the most relevant names. Best regards, Ушкуйник (talk) 16:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the tone. I have sometimes seen acceptance for specialized sources, and I do think they are important myself (for example, sources on Ukraine should be preferred for Ukrainian subjects. But I have also see consensusresist that idea and WP:COMMONNAME seems to imply that wide usage trumps subject-specificity. —Michael Z. 02:58, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

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 * Monument dedicated to Grigoriy Skovoroda.jpg