Kostiantyn-Vasyl Ostrozkyi

He was called the “uncrowned king of Rus’” and was named as a candidate for both the Polish and the Muscovite thrones. Prince Kostiantyn-Vasyl Ostrozkyi was voivode of Kyiv for almost 50 years and founded the Ostroh Academy and the press that printed the Ostroh Bible in 1581.

Key accomplishments

Voivode of Kyiv for almost 50 years (1559–1608); starosta of Volodymyr and marshal of Volhynia from 1550

Founded the Ostroh Academy (c. 1576), the first higher school in Ukraine, and the Ostroh Press

Under his patronage Ivan Fedorov printed the Ostroh Bible (1581), the first complete printed Bible in Church Slavonic

Founded schools in Turiv (1572) and Volodymyr (1577) and a press at the Derman Monastery (1602)

Led the resistance to the 1596 Union of Brest

Vasyl who became Kostiantyn

Why does this prince have two names? When he was born in Dubno in 1526 or 1527, he was named Vasyl. He was the younger son of Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi, Grand Hetman of Lithuania. His father died in 1530, and the boy was brought up by his mother in Turiv. From the 1540s Vasyl began to use his father’s “princely” name, Kostiantyn, which is why he is known by both.

Lord of Volhynia and Kyiv

At the end of 1559 the prince became voivode of Kyiv and held the post until his death. For almost half a century he defended the frontier against the Tatars. In 1578, besieged in Ostroh, he paid the Crimean khan 3,000 ducats of his own money to spare Kyiv from being sacked. In 1574 his niece Halshka Ostrozka signed her estates over to him and his son.

Rus’ as an equal

In 1569, at Lublin, Poland and Lithuania were merging into a single state. Ostrozkyi was in effect the spokesman for Rus’ and demanded that it be treated as an equal partner. He firmly opposed the union and signed the transfer of Volhynia and the Kyiv region to the Kingdom of Poland only when threatened with losing his estates.

Ostroh, a town of books

Around 1576 the prince founded a Slavonic-Greek-Latin school in Ostroh, the Ostroh Academy: the first higher school in Ukraine. Its first rector was the scholar Herasym Smotrytskyi. The prince invited the printer Ivan Fedorov to Ostroh, and on 12 August 1581 the Ostroh Bible came out there: the first complete printed Bible in Church Slavonic. It is regarded as an outstanding piece of 16th-century printing, not only in Ukraine but in the world.

Against the Union of Brest

The prince was not against uniting the Orthodox and Catholic churches. But he believed it had to be an open process involving the whole church, not a secret deal among a few bishops. So in 1595 he called on the Orthodox to resist the union, and after the Council of Brest in 1596 he led that resistance.

The prince and the Cossacks

In the early 1590s he helped put down Kryshtof Kosynskyi’s uprising. Yet when Severyn Nalyvaiko rose in 1594–1596, he did little to stop him and kept up his ties with the Cossacks. For this the Polish nobility condemned him. Kostiantyn-Vasyl Ostrozkyi died in Ostroh at the end of February 1608.

Why it matters today

Ostrozkyi showed that power and wealth can serve a people’s language, faith and learning. When the fate of the Ruthenian lands was decided at Lublin, he demanded equal rights for Rus’. His academy and press made Ostroh one of the first centres of higher learning and printing in Ukraine, and the Ostroh Bible proved that books of world standard could be made here. Every Ukrainian school and every Ukrainian book counts Ostroh among its beginnings.