Caecar Belilovsky

Kesar Belilovsky (4th of March 1859, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire – 28th of May 1938, Simferopol, Russian SFSR) – a physician, from 1899 to 1905 he had been working as an assistant of medical inspector of Courland Governorate. He was a public figure, an editor, a publisher and a translator. He was also known as a Ukrainian poet (literary pseudonyms – Caesarco, Ivan Kadilo, Holgin, Caesar Belilo).

Kesar Aleksandrovich Belilovsky was born in the village of Voznesenskoye in the Poltava Governorate (now Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine) into the family of a rural feldsher. He studied at the Poltava Gymnasium (from 1867), then at the Dorpat Gymnasium (now the city of Tartu, Estonia), which he graduated from in 1875. He pursued higher education at the universities of Leipzig (1875–1876), Vienna (1876–1878), Dorpat (1879–1881), and again Vienna (1882), and completed his studies at the University of Jena, where he was awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree (as was customary in German universities at the time) after defending a dissertation entitled “On the Differential Diagnosis between Tuberculosis and Syphilis of the Pharynx” (1883).

At that time, foreign diplomas were not recognized in Russia, and Belilovsky had to pass a state examination at one of the Russian universities. He successfully passed this “qualifying examination” at Kharkov University (1884), which granted him the right to practice medicine. He worked for more than a year at the Poltava Zemstvo Hospital; however, this initial practice was not successful. Belilovsky was then offered the position of city physician in the district town of Petropavlovsk (now in Kazakhstan), where, in addition to his duties as city physician, he also headed the municipal and prison hospitals (1885–1892). As a capable administrator, he was dispatched to combat epidemics, such as cholera (in Omsk and the Volga region).

In 1892, Belilovsky transferred from military to civilian service. At the Military Medical Academy, he passed an examination for the degree of Doctor of Medicine and defended a second doctoral dissertation (1894) entitled “On the Anthropological Type of the Criminal.” Belilovsky worked as a zemstvo physician in St. Petersburg Governorate, as a private practitioner in St. Petersburg, and as an official in the Medical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; he also participated in the activities of the St. Petersburg Obstetric and Gynecological Society. His plans to become a privat-docent at the Military Medical Academy were not realized, as in 1898 he was sent on assignment to Kazan Governorate to combat an epidemic that had broken out there.

Upon his return, he was appointed medical inspector of Courland Governorate. The administrative center of the governorate was the city of Jelgava (then Mitau). From the end of January 1899, Belilovsky served as assistant to the Courland Governorate Medical Inspector, with an annual salary of 1,000 rubles. The period of K. Belilovsky’s life and work in Jelgava is described in detail and vividly in an article by the Latvian medical historian Arnis Vīksna (A. Vīksna. “Ukraiņu dzejnieks Jelgavas pilī.” Ārsts.lv. 2017. No. 2 (18), February, pp. 61–64).

The office of the Courland Governorate Medical Inspector was located in the Jelgava Palace, and the scope of its activities was quite broad: management and supervision of sanitary conditions in the governorate; oversight of medical personnel and medical care; inspection of hospitals and pharmacies and issuance of permits for opening new ones; prevention of epidemics; monitoring the sanitary condition of residential areas and marketplaces; conducting forensic medical examinations; collecting and summarizing statistical data; compiling reports, and more. In addition to fulfilling his official duties, Belilovsky worked as a physician at an ophthalmological clinic of the Guardianship for the Blind and, through the Red Cross, undertook various assignments. For his successful service in Courland Governorate, Kesar Belilovsky was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 3rd Class (1900), and the Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd Class (1904).

An erudite and engaging conversationalist, a warm and knowledgeable colleague, Belilovsky could not but participate in the life of the urban intelligentsia. In Jelgava was a “Russian Club,” which during the period of intensive Russification existed rather isolated from the German and Latvian communities. Belilovsky was elected head of the Club and director of its amateur theater. Soon the number of club members increased, and Germans and Latvians also began to attend. However, the revolutionary year 1905 arrived. The Manifesto of October 17 granted civil liberties, and Kesar Belilovsky actively participated in demonstrations connected with the proclamation of these freedoms. His children studied in gymnasiums, but due to unrest in the city, students stopped attending classes. As chairman of the parents’ committee, Belilovsky convened a meeting of parents at the girls’ gymnasium to discuss the situation. During the meeting, an altercation occurred between the doctor and the headmistress of the gymnasium, and that night police officers came to Belilovsky’s home to conduct a search. Although the search yielded no results, Kesar Belilovsky was arrested. However, the provincial prosecutor sent a telegram to St. Petersburg, and the governor received an order by telegraph to send K. Belilovsky to the capital. On the evening of the third day he was released from prison, returned home, and almost immediately departed for St. Petersburg.

In subsequent years (1906–1909), K. Belilovsky served as assistant to the Olonets Governorate Medical Inspector (administrative center: Petrozavodsk). In 1908, he was granted the rank of Actual State Councillor (4th class); thus, being the son of a rural feldsher, K. Belilovsky earned hereditary nobility through his rank. From 1910, K. Belilovsky worked as Medical Inspector of Taurida Governorate, and in 1913 became chief physician of the Feodosia Maritime Medical Observation Station (Feodosia Quarantine). With the outbreak of the First World War, a military hospital was established on the basis of the Feodosia quarantine, and Kesar Belilovsky simultaneously served as its chief physician. During the Civil War, he participated in the White Movement and served as head of the Feodosia Army Infirmary of the troops of the Novorossiysk Region.

In 1920, Kesar Belilovsky worked in Simferopol as a physician at a cannery, then in the Health Department of the Crimean Revolutionary Committee, and after the establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921), as senior inspector of the People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection; he also worked part-time as an ophthalmologist at a children’s hospital. From 1925 to 1932, he worked as an ophthalmologist at a Soviet outpatient clinic in the city of Rasht (Iran). He returned to Simferopol in 1932, where he died on May 28, 1938, in his eightieth year. He was buried on May 30, 1938. The place of burial is unknown.

In Ukrainian literature, Kesar Belilovsky is known primarily as a lyric poet, the author of vivid poems about feminine beauty, pure love, and the enchanting power of human emotions. His songs “V charakh kokhannia” (“In the Spell of Love”) and “Moia pisnia” (“My Song”), set to music by M. Leontovych, became folk songs. He translated into Ukrainian works by J. W. Goethe, F. Schiller, and H. Heine, and into German works by Taras Shevchenko.

Compiled by Eryka Tjunina

Sources of information:

К.К. Васильев, А. Виксна. Украинский поэт К. Белиловский как врач. Сумський історико-архівний журнал (Сумы). 2015, № 25, с. 42–55.

Arnis Vīksna. Ukraiņu dzejnieks Jelgavas pilī. Ārsts.lv. 2017., Nr. 2 (18) februāris lpp.61–64