Vikentiy Khvoyka

Vikentiy Viacheslavovych Khvoyka
Born	(1850-02-21)February 21, 1850 Semín, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austrian Empire
Died	Kyiv, Russian Empire
Fields	Archaeology
Known for	Discovery of the Trypillian culture

Vikentiy Viacheslavovych Khvoyka (Ukrainian: Вікентій В'ячеславович Хвойка; Russian: Викентий Вячеславович Хвойка; Czech: Vincenc Častoslav Chvojka; born Čeněk Chvojka; 1850–1914) was a Russian archaeologist from Bohemia, who discovered the Neolithic Trypillian sites in Ukraine. He also researched the Scythian, Zarubintsy, Chernyakhov and early Slavic archaeological cultures.

Biography

Commemorative coin issued on the 150th anniversary of Khvoyka's birth

Khvoyka was born in the village of Semín, Kingdom of Bohemia – then part of the Austrian Empire – on 21 February 1850. After graduating from the Academy of Commerce in Chrudim he lived in Prague for a time, before emigrating to the Russian Empire. From 1876 he lived in Kyiv and worked as a teacher. He turned his attention to archaeology in the 1890s and excavated around Kyiv and the Dnieper region. He was one of the founders of Kyiv's Museum of Antiquities and Art, now the National Historical Museum, and the first curator of its archaeological collection.

Khvoyka discovered the Trypillian culture in Ukraine. The exact year of his discovery is uncertain: 1893, 1896 or 1887. He presented his findings at the 11th Congress of Archaeologists in 1897. The same culture was discovered in Romania around the same time, where it was called the Cucuteni culture.

Khvoyka died in Kyiv on 20 October 1914. He is buried in the Baikove Cemetery.

Legacy

In 1962 Novokirillovskaya Street in Kyiv, where Khvoyka lived from 1898 to his death in 1914, was renamed in his honour, and a memorial plaque was installed there.

In 2000 the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative two hrivna coin two mark the 150th anniversary of Khvoyka's birth.