Mykola Myklukho-Maklai. No, this is not a spell — although the man was quite a wizard. Having scientifically explained the biological equivalence of people of all nations and races, he was the one to give impetus for the anti-racial policy to start in the world and predicted that the global colonial system would soon end.
He made the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and suggested the possibility of establishing structures similar to the modern United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Myklukho-Maklai was a traveler, a geographer, and a great humanist, who said: “One only becomes a man when he does something important for people.” He studied the indigenous peoples of New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and Australia and Oceania, as well as the life and customs of Polissia (Historical region of Ukraine in the north of the country comprising parts of modern Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions) people in his native Zhytomyr region and the fauna of Crimea and the Black Sea. He was awarded the title of “Citizen of the World” by UNESCO.
Zhytomyr pianist Sviatoslav Richter was the first Grammy winners for performing a Johannes Brahms concerto. He was one of the most outstanding pianists of the 20th century, constantly expanding his repertoire — by the end of his life he could play 80 different programs. However, until the moment of glory, he was forced to hide from the Soviet authorities, being the son of an “enemy of the people” shot by a denunciation in the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — secret police, forerunner of the KGB in the USSR).
Mykhailo Tyshkevych was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. He was a diplomat of the Ukrainian National Republic, a philanthropist, and a funder of the Ukrainian Scientific Society. Most of Ukrainian cultural projects of the 19th century were funded by patrons, since it was necessary to somehow bypass Russian censorship. All this eventually created a basis for the Ukrainian national movement.