Human history knows the names of many Ukrainians who have influenced and continue to influence its course. Their names should be known and remembered. Learn more about famous Ukrainians who have influenced the world

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The history of Ukraine is interesting and multifaceted, and the main asset of the state is the miracle of people. For many centuries, Ukrainians not only create their own history, but also influence the course of events in the world. In honor of outstanding figures, streets are renamed and monuments are erected not only throughout Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders.

Who are these heroes? Interesting facts about eight famous Ukrainians who changed the course of world history in our material.

• Volodymyr Khavkin (1860 - 1930 pp.) is a Ukrainian who saved the world from the plague and cholera

Outstanding scientist, bacteriologist and microbiologist. He created the first effective vaccine against cholera and plague and proved their safety for humans. He was born on the territory of modern Berdyansk. The main goal of the scientist was to create salvation from cholera and plague, which raged in the world at the end of the 20th century. Vaccinations with the Havkin vaccine became widespread and are still used in an improved form. During his lifetime, the scientist was called a "great philanthropist" and a "benefactor of humanity."

• Mykola Mykluho-Maklai (1846 - 1888 pp.) - a scientist who taught the Papuans Ukrainian

An outstanding traveler and anthropologist of Ukrainian origin, a descendant of a Zaporizhia Cossack. Throughout his life, the scientist explored the Canary Islands, Morocco, the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as the islands of Indonesia, South America, and Australia. However, he gained world fame after a trip to the mysterious island of Papua New Guinea, which is located north of Australia. The traveling scientist was the first in the world to research and describe in detail the way of life and customs of the natives, and befriended them, defended their rights, and strongly opposed the annexation of the island by Germany.

Mykola Mykluho-Maklai lived among the Papuans for 1.5 years. He even named a river and one of the largest roads in New Guinea after Gogol, and the natives named one of the bays Maclay. Today, Maklay's works are published in numerous editions all over the world.

• Agatangel Krymskyi (1871 - 1942 pp.) is a world-famous orientalist

Ukrainian linguist, historian and translator Agatangel Krymskyi knew 60 languages, but basically spoke only Ukrainian. Krymsky was the author of all the most important articles devoted to the culture of the peoples of the Middle East. The author's works were published in the encyclopedic dictionaries of Brockgaz and Efron. According to incomplete calculations, he published 870 monographs, articles, reviews, as well as 164 original translations of Eastern literary works - poetry and prose. At the 16th session of the UNESCO conference, the name of Agathangel of Crimea was included in the list of outstanding people of Europe of the 20th century.

• Varvara Karynska (1886-1983) - designer of clothes and costumes for cinema and ballet

The famous Ukrainian sewed costumes for famous actors and actresses — Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Vivien Leigh, collaborated with Salvador Dali. The designer created a real work of design art – light knightly armor for Ingrid Bergman, who played Joan of Arc in the film of the same name. For this, she spent months researching the history of the Middle Ages and even went to France, to the hometown of the national heroine. For the film "Joan of Arc", Varvara received the first ever "Oscar" for costumes. Also, Varvara Karynska overturned ballet fashion and gave the world a modern tutu.

• Yuriy Knorozov (1922-1999) is a historian and ethnographer who deciphered the writing of the Mayan Indians

For many years, humanity has been turning to the predictions of the Mayan Indians, but few people know that it was the Ukrainian Yuriy Knorozov, a scientist born in Kharkiv, who solved the mystery of the hieroglyphs of the ancient civilization. The linguist scientist believed that what was created by one human mind can necessarily be solved by another. Therefore, the historian did not leave his office in the Museum of Ethnography for many years and eventually read the mysterious texts. This became a real sensation, because scientists from different countries of the world fought over this secret for centuries. The linguist visited the lands of Maya already after the world recognition of his achievement.

• Bohdan Gavrylyshyn (1926 - 2016) is one of the founders of the Economic Forum in Davos

The prominent economist of Ukrainian origin headed the International Institute of Management in Geneva for 18 years. He was a member of the Club of Rome of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Academy of Management, as well as an honorary doctorate in 7 universities around the world. He created the International Center for Prospective Studies. He became a co-founder of the European Management Forum in Davos (now the World Economic Forum). He was a consultant to General Electric, IBM, and Unilever companies.

• Jan Kum (born in 1976) is a programmer, developer of the WhatsApp messenger, executive director of Facebook

Programmer and entrepreneur of Ukrainian-Jewish origin. He was born in Kyiv, lived in Fastov, emigrated to America with his mother in the early 1990s. He learned programming on his own, obtained information from textbooks that he "rented" in second-hand shops.

At the beginning of his career, Ian worked together with the hacker group woow00 and repeatedly hacked the servers of the Silicon Graphics company. Then he worked at Yahoo. In 2009, together with programmer Igor Solomenchykov, Kum created a special mobile application for communication. which takes into account the features of smartphones and is tied to the phone number - WhatsApp. The application initially positioned itself as a replacement for SMS, it was as simple as possible, the developers ensured that the program could be used immediately. Later, he sold his company to Mark Zuckerberg for $16 billion.

• Maximilian Levchyn (born in 1974) is the co-founder of PayPal

American entrepreneur of Ukrainian origin, co-founder and chief engineer of PayPal, vice president of development at Google. He was born in Kyiv in the family of poet and playwright Rafael Levchyn. Before co-founding PayPal, he launched three startups, all of which failed. Subsequently, he became a co-founder of PayPal electronic payment. In 2002, the American site eBay purchased the PayPal system for $1.5 billion.

In 2004, he launched his own startup Slide, the main development of which was a service for conveniently displaying a large number of photos for users of the MySpace social network. Slide later refocused on creating social services for MySpace and Facebook.

Ukrainians are very talented, educated and creative people. For many centuries, outstanding Ukrainian scientists, artists, travelers, researchers and programmers have been changing the course of world history, and every day there are more and more of them, so we really have something to be proud of.

We remind you! Ukrainian resources are of great global importance. It is not without reason that their total value is estimated not even in billions but in trillions of dollars. Read more about which Ukrainian resources are critically important for the whole world in our article.

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