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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2026. № 2 (188), 355—364

UDK 638.1(477.8)”18/19″(091)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

  • Received: 03.01.2026
  • Accepted: 21.01.2026
  • Published: ??.??.2026

THEOPHIL CIESELSKY’S SLAVIC BEEHIVE: HISTORY OF CREATION AND SPREAD AMONG UKRAINIANS OF THE WESTERN REGIONS

MOVNA Ulyana

  • ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9763-2455
  • Doctor of Sciences of History, Senior Researcher,
  • Leading Researcher of the Institute of Ethnology
  •  of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • in the Department of Historical Ethnology,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: movlana@ukr.net

Abstract. Based on the analysis of literary, archival and statistical sources, museum exhibits and field ethnographic materials, the main milestones in the history of the creation of a new author’s model — the Slavic (Galician) beehive and the areology of its further spread in the peasant apiaries of Ukrainians of the western regions in the last third of the 19th — early 20th centuries are investigated for the first time. The most important is the scientific position of the inventor of the Slavic hives, Teofil Ciesielski, whose appearance caused a massive transition of local beekeeping to rational development tracks. In 1875, the general meeting of the Galician Beekeeping and Gardening Society in Lviv decided to adopt and distribute among beekeepers a frame hive, the inventor of which was the chairman of the society, a famous beekeeper, professor of Lviv University Teofil Ciesielsky (1846—1916). The inventor’s name has not been popularized to such an extent that even the few modern studies of the history of beehives do not mention T. Ciesielski as the author, describing the model of the Slavic (Galician) beehive he created.

Both the regional and local specifics of the functioning of these hives in the sense of their typology and areology in the defined territory, and the organic inclusion of the phenomenon selected for study in a broader territorial context are recorded.

The object of the study is the Slavic hive of Teofil Ciesielski, and the subject is the history of its creation and spread in the apiaries of Ukrainians of the western regions. The study used historical-comparative (comparative), typological, structural-functional methods and the method of field research.

Keywords: Slavic hive, Teofil Ciesielski, areology, apiary, rational beekeeping, regional specifics, western regions of Ukraine.

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Our authors
Ulana Movna. Senior Research Fellow, Ph.D. in History. read »
Roman Radovych. Researcher, Ph.D. in History. read »
Boliuk Oleh - kandidate of sciences in arts, Doctoral... read »
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