There are three graves in the shadows of trees at Velyka Obukhivka, a village in Poltava oblast. These graves belong to the Kapnists, an ancient noble Ukrainian family. Almost two centuries separate the dates curved in the tombstones of Colonel Vasyl Kapnist and Mariya Kapnist, a Soviet actress. This year marks Vasyl Kapnist’s 240th birthday. He made his name as the author of the then well-known burlesque Yabeda (literally “The Tattler,” but generally known as “Pettifoggery”). It was first staged 205 years and first appeared in print 200 years ago.
The family’s history dates from Peter Kapnissi, born on Zakinthos Island in Greece. His son Stomatello fought the Turks (1679), blowing up the three biggest Turkish ships, making the enemy retreat. For this feat of arms he was conferred the title of Count of the Venetian Republic, to be inherited ad infinitum. With time family tree branches reached Russia, Ukraine, Italy, and France.
Vasyl Petrovych Kapnist (1700-1757) settled in Velyka Obukhivka, then in the Poltava gubernia, and continued the family’s glorious combat tradition as a subject of the Russian Empire. His was a truly dramatic life story: laurels followed by a fall from grace, then back in favor. Posthumously. In 1737, Colonel Vasyl Kapnist of Myrhorod stormed Ochakov and fought in the battle of the Dnipro and Khotyn. And then he was arrested on charges of treason and locked in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. In 1757, he was back in the army, reinstated as Myrhorod Regiment Commander. On August 19, his regiment played a decisive role in the Battle of Gross Egersdorf (Prussia), but the victory was gained at a very dear price. The count’s two older sons were killed and all that was found of the colonel in the bloodbath was his right hand gripping a broken saber. It was buried at the family graveyard in Velyka Obukhivka.
Vasyl Vasyliovych Kapnist (1758-1823) was born after his father’s death and brought the family literary recognition. He worked as a school principal, was eventually appointed Judge General of the Poltava guberniya, but was mostly known as a public figure, poet, and playwright. Ivan Franko wrote: “The Ukrainian Kapnist’s play Yabeda was an example of bold political satire and the author was the predecessor of the genius, Gogol.”
The Kapnists were friends with, and even related to, rather influential people, such as Polubotko, Kochubei, Leontovych, Derzhavin, Kotliarevsky, Gogol, Hnedych, and the brothers Muraviev-Apostol. Vasyl Vasyliovych’s son Andriy was friends with Taras Shevchenko for a long time. Many a distinguished personality frequented Obukhivka where everyone was made welcome and which was a cultural venue for the Ukrainian intelligentsia.
Count Giovanni Kapnist in Venice has long planned to visit the land of his forefathers. He belongs to the family by the line of his great grandfather Petro Mykolayovych Kapnist, Colonel of the Russian Imperial Guard, and his wife Catherine d’Allonville. Their son Mykhailo Petrovych was Russian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Venice. He died in a road accident in 1908. His son, Count Giovanni’s grandfather, was a bank manager in Rio de Janeiro and returned to Venice in the 1920s.
Giovanni Kapnist is 50 and a professional hematologist. He has a daughter, Lavinia, and two sons, Michele and Grigorio. The Count maintains contacts with the Greek Kapnists and Serge, a banker in Paris. Count Giovanni has long taken an interest in his family roots and is well read in Ukrainian history (he teaches in the University of Venice and the Ukrainian language is planned to be made part of the curriculum).
In 1991, Count Kapnist was excited by an article in the magazine Giardini (The Gardens). He wrote to the author, Natalia Abessinova, President of the Society of Landscape Architects of Ukraine in Kyiv (unfortunately, the woman passed away recently). And then began corresponding with her husband Yuri Pedan. As fate would have it he turned out to be a literary critic specializing in Italy. Mr. Pedan was intrigued by the Kapnist family tree and decided to study it at greater length and depth. When Giovanni and his wife Marina arrived in Kyiv a pleasant surprise was waiting. They learned a lot of interesting things about another celebrated Kapnist, Mariya the actress, and met her direct relative Valeriya Andriyevska and sister-in-law Olena Voronina.
That evening at a modest Kyiv apartment quickly became a soiree in memory of the actress known to Ukrainian old-timers from movies such as “Far Away from the Native Land,” “Honore de Balzac’s Mistake,” “Ruslan and Ludmilla,” “The Stolen Scroll,” “Grasp All, Lose All,” “A Chance,” to mention but a few. Her life was tragic and beautiful. She was destined to live through the gulag horrors twice, yet her close friends and colleague Raisa Nedashkivska says she remained a woman with a kind heart and clear conscience. She loved life, people, and beauty. Journalist Liudmyla Kochevska presented the Italian count with a copy of her book about Mariya Kapnist.
And what were Giovanni Kapnist’s impressions of the trip to Poltava oblast?
“Almost as soon as I set foot on that land,” says the count, “I felt that I was part of it and the environs seemed so very familiar. We were made cordially welcome and shown Poltava. We visited Myrhorod. The Kapnists used to have about twenty estates in what is now Poltava and Sumy oblasts, but Obukhivka was their favorite place.”
Count Giovanni was moved to tears to find a folk museum dedicated to the family there. Even under the Soviets, when people were supposed to hate noble blood, Vasyl Braha, a local schoolteacher, began collecting bits and pieces, building an exposition. Now the museum is looked after by the school principal and a large number of voluntary assistants. Kapnist history is known to every resident of the village and everybody feels proud of it.
And then they showed him the cemetery. The man was overwhelmed by emotions. Then he sat in the ancient armchair at the Kapnist house, staring at faded photographs and portraits, looking through documents.
And then it was time to leave. Pictures were taken. The guests promised to visit again next year, and by all means in time for the Sorochyntsi Fair, for the event made Poltava oblast what it was.
“You know,” the count told me, smiling, “people in Poltava oblast told me I looked very local, and that, given a scythe out in the meadow, no one would tell me apart...”







