Vitaliy Mykhaylovskiy is an Associate Professor, Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv University.

As a fellow at HURI (2013-2014 ), Mykhailovskiy conducted research that defined the types of elites in the Ukrainian territory at the second half of the 14th through the first half of the 16th century and thereby demonstrated that the type of elite was closely coupled with the success or failure of a state-building project. He did so by analyzing the nobility’s origin, religious affiliation, property ownership, social status, heraldry, and family relations in order to outline the influence of particular types of elite on the historical processes.