unsystematic in his collection of source materials (Mykhailo Hrushevsky) and lacking an appreciation for Ukrainian statehood (Dmytro Doroshenko), but Yavornytsky wrote at a time when political circumstances and the Imperial Russian censors were extremely oppressive and any synthesis of Ukrainian history which displayed an enthusiasm for the subject, let alone political independence, was highly suspect. His History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks was a pioneering work which did display such an enthusiasm. Other scholarly interests Yavornytsky was a pioneer in the fields of ethnography, folkloristics, and lexicography. He made numerous contributions to the historical geography of the Zaporozhian lands, and mapped in detail the Dnieper River rapids with the locations of the various Zaporozhian Siches, or fortified headquarters. He published a large collection of Ukrainian folksongs (1906; partly reprinted, 1990) as soon as the censor would permit it, contributed to Borys Hrinchenko's great Ukrainian dictionary, and after the Russian Revolution began publication of one of his own (1920). He increased the holdings of the Yekaterinoslav Museum from 5,000 to 80,000 items. Yavornytsky commissioned the best Ukrainian and Russian artists of his time (Opanas Slastion, Serhii Vasylkivsky, Nikolai Samokish, and Ilya Repin) to illustrate his various books, which were sometimes works of art in themselves. Especially notable in this regard is his From Ukrainian Antiquity (1900; reprinted in Ukrainian translation, 1991) which was lavishly illustrated in full colour and contained parallel texts in Russian and French so that it could be read abroad. Legacy During the repressions of the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, Yavornytsky was prevented from publishing and had to keep a very low profile. During the Holodomor (the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33), he felt compelled to give away artifacts from his collections to obtain food for starving local peasants and others. His death passed unnoticed both in the USSR and in the wider world. The Yekaterinoslav Museum was eventually renamed in his honour, as the Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro. He was partially rehabilitated during the Nikita Khrushchev and Petro Shelest eras. Materials about him began to appear, and in the early 1970s a four volume collection of his works was prepared for publication, supported by museum director Horpyna Vatchenko. Political circumstances again prevented this from happening, but with the advent of the Perestroika reforms in the late 1980s, new materials began to appear and his major works were republished. At that time, his History of the Zaporozhian