A Ukrainian aristocrat from the family of the general sergeant major of the Zaporozhian Gorodovyi Army. He was a statesman and public figure of the Russian Empire. Ethnographer, lawyer, philanthropist, musician. Chairman of the Taras Shevchenko Society in St. Petersburg. Son of the encyclopedist Mykola Markevych. Senator of the Russian Empire, State Secretary to Emperor Alexander II. Founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. A personal friend of the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev.
Until 1888, he and his ancestors were known as Markevychs. However, in 1888, at his request, he and his descendants were allowed to be called Markovych.
Biography.
He was born in Pryluchchyna, the son of the encyclopedist Mykola Markevych from his marriage to Ulyana Oleksandrivna Rakovych (1809-1893), whose sister was the wife of the famous Russian writer Pavlo Annenkov.
He worked as a lawyer in St. Petersburg (chairman of the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber), a full state counselor, state secretary to the emperor, holder of a number of imperial orders, and a senator.
He founded the Musical Society in St. Petersburg, whose main goal was to spread musical education in the Romanov Empire.
Markovych was assistant to the president of the Imperial Philanthropic Society and vice president of the Russian Musical Society. He initiated the establishment of 20 branches of the society, including in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odesa, and music schools at them.
Together with Anton Rubinstein, he was the founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Thanks to Markovych's petitions, in 1866 the "Statute of Music Schools" was approved, and conservatories were recognized as primary educational institutions.
He was a brilliant cellist and the first owner of a Stradivarius cello in Russia, participating in charity concerts with Anton Rubinstein, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Glazunov, Milius Balakirev, and Modest Mussorgsky.
In 1858, he met Taras Shevchenko in Moscow and later corresponded with the poet. From 1898, he headed the Taras Shevchenko Society in St. Petersburg and contributed in every way to the return of Shevchenko's manuscripts from the archives of the Third Department to the Museum of Ukrainian Antiquities in Chernihiv. Later, he obtained permission for the first complete edition of the poet's works in the Russian Empire (Kobzar, published by Vasyl Domanytsky, 1907).
He is the author of a collection of Ukrainian folk songs set to music (Folk Ukrainian Songs Set to Piano, 1860).
He was the chairman of the Shevchenko Society for the Relief of Disadvantaged Natives of Southern Russia who studied in St. Petersburg, and a comrade (deputy) chairman of the Imperial Philanthropic Society.
