Holovatsky was born in Chepeli, to a family of a priest Fedir Holovatsky (Hlavatsky) whose heritage takes roots in the city of Mykolaiv (today in Lviv Oblast). Ivan Holovatsky, grandfather of Yakiv, was a szlachtycz of the Polish Pruscoat of arms family and burg-minister of Mykolaiv. Yakiv's mother Fekla Yakymovych also was from the family of a priest in Tur, Zloczow powiat.
In 1832, at Lviv University he formed the Ruthenian Triad (Ruska Triitsia) with Markiyan Shashkevych, and Ivan Vahylevych, and played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival in Galicia. The three published the first Halych almanac in the vernacular language, Rusalka Dnistrovaia (The Dniester Nymph, 1836), with included several of Holovatsky's poems. In 1946–47 he published Vinok rusynam na obzhynky (A Garland for Ruthenians at the Harvest Feast), an anthology of 20 Serbian songs in Ukrainian translation.[6]
When Austria began to support Galician Poles in political reaction, disillusioned and influenced by Mikhail Pogodin's Pan-Slavist ideas, Holovatsky adopted a Russophile attitude in the 1850s. Dismissed from the university for his views, in 1867 he moved to Russian-ruled Vilno (Vilnius) to head the archaeographic commission there. The most important work among his ethnographic and literary studies was Narodnye pesni Galitskoi i Ugorskoi Rusi (Folk Songs of Galician and Hungarian Ruthenia, 4 vv, 1878).[6]
^ abcdKatchanovski, Ivan; Kohut, Zenon E.; Nebesio, Bohdan Y.; Yurkevich, Myroslav (2013). "Holovatsky, Yakiv (17 October 1814–13 May 1888)". Historical dictionary of Ukraine. Historical dictionaries of Europe (2nd ed.). Lanham (Md.): The Scarecrow press, Inc. p. 218. ISBN978-0-8108-7845-7.