Ihor Kozlovskyi
Ihor Anatoliyovych Kozlovskyi (; 16 February 1954 – 6 September 2023) was a Ukrainian scholar, theologian, candidate of historical sciences, writer and public figure. He was a full member of the Donetsk branch of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Ukraine from 2019. He was also a senior researcher of the Department of Religious Studies of the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Kozlovskyi was also the president of the Centre for Religious Studies and International Spiritual Relations, head of the Donetsk Regional Branch of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies, president of the Discovery Centre and vice president of the Ukrainian Centre for Islamic Studies. Kozlovskyi was a member of the Expert Council on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations at the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, an advisor to the Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sports of Ukraine, a member of PEN Ukraine and a member of the initiative group First of December. In 2016, during the Russian occupation of the Donbas, he was captured by the forces of the Russian proxy government, placed in a Izolyatsia prison in Donetsk and tortured. He was released in a prisoner exchange with Ukraine in December 2017. Biography 
Ihor Anatoliyovych Kozlovskyi was born on 16 February 1954. From 1972 to 1974 he served in the Border Troops in the Transcaucasia Border District on the border with Iran. From 1975 to 1980 he studied at the Faculty of History of Donetsk State University and received a diploma with honours in «Historian. Teacher of history and social sciences». Between 1980 and 1984 he studied at the graduate school of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. From 1980 to 2001 he worked in the Donetsk Regional Executive Committee, and then in the Donetsk Regional State Administration in various positions in the field of religion (officer, senior officer, chief specialist, head of the regional department of religion). From 1980 he taught and lectured on religious studies at universities in Ukraine and the United States. From 2001 he was Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Donetsk State Institute of Artificial Intelligence (later the State University of Informatics and Artificial Intelligence), head of the Centre for Religious Studies and International Spiritual Relations. From 2011 to 2015 he worked as an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy of Donetsk National Technical University. In 2012, he defended a dissertation for obtaining a scientific degree of a candidate of historical sciences in specialty «religious studies». On 27 January 2016, he was captured by the militants of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, a proxy organization for Russian occupation of Ukraine's Donbas, due to his pro-Ukrainian views, who subjected him to torture and held captive for almost two years. He was released on 27 December 2017. Kozlovskyi wrote more than 50 scholarly books and more than 200 articles in dictionaries, encyclopedias, academic periodicals, as well as poetic collections and prose works. Ihor Kozlovskyi died from a heart attack on 6 September 2023, at the age of 69. Awards and honours 
For his peacekeeping activities he was awarded the medal of the Austrian Society of Albert Schweitzer, Knight Order of the Royal Brotherhood of St. Feotonia (Portugal), Honours of the Academy Budo (Martial Arts) Nippon Seybucan (Japan). He was a valid member of the Royal College of Norkity (Portugal), as well as an honorary citizen of Oklahoma (USA). Sources 
 Хроніка Донецького відділення Наукового Товариства ім. Шевченка / Упорядник і редактор В. С. Білецький. — Донецьк: НТШ, 2012. — Число 2. — 192 с.

References

External links 
"Understand the Ukrainian east: Conversation with Igor Kozlovsky"  from The Kyiv Review

1954 births
2023 deaths
People from Makiivka
21st-century theologians
20th-century theologians
Members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Full Members of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Soviet Army personnel
Donetsk National University alumni
Soviet historians
Soviet theologians
Ukrainian historians
21st-century Ukrainian historians
20th-century Ukrainian historians
Academic staff of Donetsk National Technical University
Kidnapped Ukrainian people
Ukrainian torture victims
Ukrainian pacifists