Kateryna Mykolayivna Skarzhynska née von Reiser (, 7 February 1852 O.S./19 February 1852 (N.S.) – 1932) was a Ukrainian noblewoman, philanthropist, and collector of folklore. She established the first private museum in Ukraine to house her collection of artifacts and was particularly known for her collection of pysanky, Easter eggs decorated with Ukrainian folk art. Born in Lubny to the von Reiser family, which had a long history of military service to the Russian Tsars, she was educated at home, studying in her parents' library and with select tutors. After her father died in 1859, together with her mother, brother, and maternal grandmother she moved to the Lodygyn/Lodigine family estates in the Tver province of the Russian Empire, near Moscow. There at the age of 14, von Reiser established a school for the former serfs of the estate and a public hospital.
In 1869, von Reiser became acquainted with Nikolai Georgievich Skarzhynsky, a Ukrainian nobleman and soldier. Through his circle of friends, she decided to continue her education and passed her gymnasium studies, entering the Bestuzhev Courses. They married in 1874 and later would have five children together. Five years later, he was transferred from St. Petersburg back to Ukraine. Though she did not finish her studies, Skarzhynska had developed an interest in culture and moving back to her father's estate, Kruglik, inspired her to begin collecting folk art and other artifacts. Consulting with ethnographers, archaeologists and historians, she financed archaeological excavations and amassed a large collection of items. Failing to interest local authorities in establishing a museum to house them, she created the first private museum in Ukraine in 1880. Hiring professional curators, Skarzhynska assisted in developing the collection until 1905. One of the curators, , would become her partner, father of her youngest child, and her companion and caretaker in her old age. In 1906, she transferred her materials to the Museum of Natural History of Poltava Provincial Zemstvo.
In addition to her work with the museum, Skarzhynska was involved in creating schools in the Poltava province. She established an agricultural school in the village of Terny in 1891; created a school for prisoners in the Lubny city jail; and built a public school on her estate at Kruglik, while organizing adult education courses. Her works were honored by the Russian government with the gold medal and ribbon of the Order of Saint Anna. In 1905, Skarzhynska separated from her husband and moved with her younger children, first to Italy, and then to Switzerland. She continued her philanthropic endeavors creating a shelter for displaced Russians living abroad, opened schools for Russian children, founded an organization for emigrants to network, created a tuberculosis hospital and various Russian printing houses to assist her compatriots who were living outside of Russia. At the outbreak of World War I, she returned to Ukraine, but as a former noble, was robbed by revolutionary troops and left penniless. Though granted a small pension by Lenin, it was later revoked and she died in 1932 during the Holodomor.
Mostly forgotten in the Soviet era, Skarzhynska is now recognized for her impact on the cultural and scientific development of Ukraine. In 1989 a street in Lubny was named after her. Her papers are housed at the Poltava Regional Studies Museum. The elementary school she founded on the Kruglik estate operated as a public school until 1943. The agricultural school she organized is now known as the Lubny Forestry College.
Early life Kateryna Nikolaevna von Reiser, known as Katya, was born 19 February 1852 N.S. in Lubny, in the Russian Empire, to Ekaterina Petrovna (née Lodygyna/Lodigines-Cyrus) and Nikolai von Reiser. Her father's family, though German in origin, had a long-standing history of service to the Tsars. Vincent-Martin Stepanovich von Reiser, a lawyer in the Swedish army, was taken as a prisoner of war by Peter the Great's army during the Battle of Poltava in 1711. He joined the tsar's service working as an artillery and mining specialist. His son, also Vincent, served as an aide-de-camp to Peter III of Russia and later was promoted to by Catherine the Great. Wilhelm Ulrich Vikentievich von Reiser also served in the Russian army, accompanying Suvorov to Switzerland, as did his son and Katya's father, Nikolai, who participated in the Battle of Warsaw. As her father spent much of his time away from the family, Katya and her brother Misha were raised mostly by her mother and maternal grandmother, Varvara Petrovna Lodygina.
Von Reiser's early education was at home, where she drew on her parents' extensive library. Her parents had many intellectual friends and they were often visited by the geologist , who became an early mentor to von Reiser. She mastered both French and German. The family lived on the Kruglik estate purchased by her father in Lubny, until his death from typhus at the fortress of Novogeorgievsk in 1859. When von Reiser was 10, they moved to the Lodygyn/Lodigine family estates in the Tver province, but within a few years moved to Moscow and then St. Petersburg in search of the best tutors for her home studies. These pedagogues were selected by her uncle, Alexander Apukhtin, who was a trustee of the Warsaw School District, and included and . Though her grandmother wanted Katya to become a maid of honour to the imperial court, at the age of 12, von Reiser decided she would dedicate her life to helping the poor.
Career Philanthropy 1866–1905 When she turned 14, von Reiser set up a school for the former serfs on her grandparents' estate in Nikolskoye in the Vyshnevolotsky Uyezd and worked alongside the teacher she hired. She also established a hospital to treat local patients. In 1869, she became acquainted with Nikolai Georgievich Skarzhynsky, a nobleman, who became a major general in the Russian Army, specializing in providing horses for the cavalry. Skarzhynsky was descended of a noble-Cossack family of Polish-Ukrainian roots, through Ivan Mikhailovich Skarzhinsky, of the Lubny Regiment. His friends, who were part of the Russian intelligentsia, inspired her to continue with her education and she passed the exams for the women's gymnasium in Lubny. She then attended the Bestuzhev Courses in St. Petersburg, visiting cultural landmarks, such as the Hermitage Museum and the Russian Academy of the Arts. In 1874, she married Skarzhynsky at the Church of the Greatmartyr George in Kiev. The couple returned to St. Petersburg, where she continued her studies until 1879, when they were interrupted by her husband's transfer back to Ukraine.
Skarzhynska returned to her family estate at Kruglik, where she and her husband lived in separate houses. They had an open relationship, each able to have other relationships, without hostility between the couple. She and Skarzhynsky would have five children: Kateryna, Volodymyr, Olga, Alexander, and Natalia. Fascinated by the local folk art and handicrafts, she began collecting artifacts, with the help of historian . In 1880, Skarzhynska founded the first private museum in Ukraine, collaborating with the noted archaeologist and curator on its organization. Kaminsky worked at the museum from 1881 to 1891 as the head curator. The museum was originally housed in a room in the Skarzhynsky's home, but later expanded to a two-story structure with a lobby and six exhibit halls, adjacent to a park and greenhouse. She corresponded with many scientists from throughout Russia and participated in archaeological seminars, as well as fact-finding trips. In 1883, Skarzhynska traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg, visiting the Polytechnic Museum, Rumyantsev Museum and State Historical Museum to study materials and acquire knowledge and equipment for running her own museum. That year she also met with officials from the Moscow Archaeological Society and Kiev University Archaeological Museum.
Skarzhynska made archaeological excavations in the mountains near Lubny and led expeditions to dig in the , an historic area covering the Sula River basin. She also paid for excavations by Kaminsky and others, and established a program where she would pay a reward for the recovery of iconostasis and other artifacts, details of the history of rural churches, and items of local historic interest. She amassed a large collection of Ukrainian folk art on Easter eggs known as pysanky. She tried to interest the city of Lubny in establishing a museum for her collection, but they felt the expense for such a luxury was unjustified. Skarzhynska went ahead and established the museum herself. Skarzhynska did not charge for entry to the museum, which contained over 35,000 items, including archaeological artifacts, coins, Cossack antiquities, personal archives and autographs of notable Ukrainian families, and 4,000 books, housed in a scientific library. Her activities on behalf of the museum resulted in her election to several scientific societies, including the Moscow Numismatic Society and the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography.
In 1891, Kaminsky left the museum, and died later that same year, after recommending hiring his assistant, as replacement curator. Kulzhynskiy had originally arrived at Kruglik in 1889, and upon Kaminsky's recommendation became the tutor for the Skarzhynsky children, Olga, Volodymyr, and Natalia. That year, Skarzhynska established an agricultural school on land owned by her husband in the village of Terny, donating the land to the local Zemstvo. She next established a school in the city jail at Lubny and then a girls' gymnasium. In 1898, she built a school on the estate, which had two classrooms, a laboratory, library, museum, and a recreation hall, as well as quarters for the instructor. She hired an instructor from Moscow, Victor Vasilyevich Simonovsky, to teach at the school and shared the expenses of its operation with the Zemstvo. The free, public, coeducational school offered courses for four grades in music, natural sciences, religion, Russian calligraphy and grammar, Russian literature, and Russian geography and history. She employed several former prisoners as clerk, night watchman, and gardener; in the 1905 revolution one of them became a local leader of the rebellion, and ordered her to be protected. Her husband had been made an honorary superintendent of the Lubny School District, and though he supported her collecting, he was not involved in her other philanthropic endeavors and did not support her publishing efforts or meetings with scientists. Skarzhynska and the tutor, Kulzhynskiy, began an affair. He was the father of her youngest son Igor. Her works in education were recognized by the Russian government with the gold medal and ribbon of the Order of Saint Anna.
Skarzhynska offered evening adult education courses at the museum. She continued collecting pysanky and by 1898, her collection contained more than 2,100 eggs. These were catalogued by Skarzhynska and published in 1899 by Kulzhynskiy in a book Description of the Collection of Pysanky (). The collection attracted many visitors, both local people and visiting scientists. By 1901, there were up to 300 visitors a day. In both 1903 and 1905, Skarzhynska offered the museum to the city of Lubny, but her offers were refused. She began making plans to leave Russia in 1905, recognizing that a revolution would make maintaining it impossible. She operated the museum until she left for Europe, finally giving her collections to the Poltava Zemstvo in 1906, transferring over 37,000 objects in four railway boxcars. That year, the Museum of Natural History of Poltava Provincial Zemstvo made a second edition of her collection of pysanky, which included over 3,000 drawings. In 1943, the museum was looted and burned and only 458 specimens of her eggs survived.
Life abroad 1905–1914