1. Mykola Kostomarov was a professor of Russian history at the St Vladimir University of Kiev and later at the St Petersburg University, an Active State Councillor of Russia, an author of many books, including his biography of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, research on Stepan Razin, and his fundamental three-volume Russian history in the biographies of its most important figures.
Mykola Kostomarov was a poet, ethnographer, pan-Slavist, and promoter of the so-called Narodnik movement in the Russian Empire.
Mykola Kostomarov's father was a Russian landlord, Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov, and he belonged to Russian nobility.
Mykola Kostomarov's mother Tatiana Petrovna Melnikova, was an ethnic Ukrainian peasant and one of his father's serfs; that is why Mykola Kostomarov de jure was a "serf" of his father.
Mykola Kostomarov's father ended up marrying his mother, but he was born before this.
Mykola Kostomarov's father wanted to adopt young Mykola, but he didn't get a chance before he was killed at the hands of his domestic serfs, in 1828, when Mykola was 11 years old.
Mykola Kostomarov's father was known to be cruel to his serfs, and they reportedly stole his fathers money after they killed him.
Mykola Kostomarov put forward the idea that there are two types of Rus' people, those of the Kievan background, among the Dnieper Basin, which he called Southern Russians, and those of the Novgorodian background, which he called Northern Russians.
Mykola Kostomarov observed Northern Russians as a political hegemon of the Russian state.
Mykola Kostomarov was the first Russian historian who used of ethnography and folksong in history, and tried to discern the "spirit" of the people, including the so-called "national spirit", by this method.
Mykola Kostomarov was interested in the history of the insurgent leaders in Russia.
Mykola Kostomarov's detailed writing on the case of Stepan Razin, one of the most popular figures in the history of the Don Cossack Host, was particularly important for the political evolution of Narodniks.
Mykola Kostomarov maintained a long-standing argument with Mikhail Pogodin regarding the linguistic and ethnographic origin of the word "Rus'".
Mykola Kostomarov was a very religious man and a devout adherent of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Mykola Kostomarov was critical of Catholic and Polish influences on the area of Ukraine and Belarus throughout the centuries, but, nevertheless, was considered as more open to Catholic culture than many of his Russian contemporaries, and later, the members of the Slavic Benevolent Societies.
Mykola Kostomarov was considered by many to be a leading intellectual of the Narodniks.
Mykola Kostomarov was important in the history of both Russian and Ukrainian culture.
Mykola Kostomarov was active in cultural politics in the Russian Empire being a proponent of a Pan-Slavic and federalized political system.
Mykola Kostomarov was a major personality in the Ukrainian national movement, a friend of the poet Taras Shevchenko, a defender of the Ukrainian language in literature and in the schools, and a proponent of a populist form of Pan-Slavism, a popular movement in a certain part of the Russian intelligentsia of his time.
Mykola Kostomarov had a profound influence on later Ukrainian historians such as Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Hrushevsky.
Mykola Kostomarov was a romantic author and poet, a member of the Kharkiv Romantic School.
Mykola Kostomarov published two poetry collections under the pseudonym Yeremiia Halka, Ukrainski baliady and Vitka, both containing historical poems mostly about Kievan Rus' and Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
Mykola Kostomarov published a detailed analysis of the Great Russian folksongs.
Mykola Kostomarov's poetry is known for including vocabulary and other elements of traditional elements and folk songs, which he collected and observed in his historical research with respect to ethnography.
Mykola Kostomarov wrote historical dramas, however these had little influence on the development of the theater.
Mykola Kostomarov wrote a novelette in Russian, and a Russian mixed with Ukrainian pice, but these are considered still less significant.