The Man Who Designed Ukraine’s First Banknotes and Stamps ── Heorhii Narbut

On yellow paper, ornamental motifs of 17th–18th century Ukrainian Baroque. In the centre, the words “100 Karbovanets.” This banknote, printed at a printing house in Kyiv in December 1917, was the first banknote issued by the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR), and, according to the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP), also the first banknote to feature the trident (tryzub). The design was the work of the graphic designer Heorhii Narbut (Георгій Нарбут).

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (parliament), in Resolution No. 4748-IX of 18 December 2025, listed 9 March 2026 as a nationally commemorated date marking 140 years since Narbut’s birth. The resolution describes him as “the author of the first Ukrainian state emblems and of the banknotes and postage stamps of the UNR.” In his 34 years of life, he designed, one after another, the “forms” a newly born state needed: banknotes, stamps, the coat of arms, lettering and book bindings.

From a Farm in Chernihiv Governorate to St. Petersburg

According to the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (ESU, compiled by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Shevchenko Scientific Society), Narbut was born on 25 February 1886 (9 March by the modern calendar) at the Narbutivka farm, Hlukhiv county, Chernihiv Governorate, in the Russian Empire — corresponding to today’s Sumy Oblast. Besides Heorhii, he was also called Yurii and Yehor.

He graduated from the Hlukhiv gymnasium in 1906 and entered the philology faculty of St. Petersburg University. He studied art privately under the painters Ivan Bilibin and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky (ESU; the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, IEU, published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta). In 1909 he studied for several months at Simon Hollósy’s art school in Munich.

In St. Petersburg he joined the artists’ circle Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), and made his name with illustrations for Krylov’s fables (1912) and Andersen’s fairy tales, and with book covers (IEU). He had a strong interest in heraldry and silhouettes, and produced the plates for a book on the heraldry of “Little Russia” (the name the empire then used for Ukraine, 1914) and a book on the coats of arms of the hetmans (Cossack leaders, 1915). In 1914 he won a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Book Printing and Graphic Arts in Leipzig (ESU).

1917: To the Academy of Arts in Kyiv

After the February Revolution of 1917, Narbut returned to Ukraine (IEU). That year, under the Central Rada (Ukraine’s autonomous government), the Ukrainian Academy of Arts, the first institution of higher art education in Ukraine, was established in Kyiv. According to IEU’s entry “Ukrainian State Academy of Arts,” the Central Rada approved its charter on 18 November 1917, and it opened on 22 November.

Narbut was one of its founders and became a professor of graphic arts (ESU). Sources differ on when he became rector: ESU and IEU’s entry on the Academy give 1919 (1919–20), while IEU’s entry on Narbut gives February 1918. His students, who later carried Ukrainian graphic art forward, included Pavlo Kovzhun, Robert Lisovsky and Oleksandr Lozovsky, among others (IEU, ESU).

IEU assesses Narbut, together with the painters Mykhailo Boichuk and Vasyl Krychevsky, as one of those who began the revival of a “national style” in Ukrainian art. Today’s National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAOMA) traces its origin to this academy, and counts Narbut among its former rectors.

Designing Banknotes and Stamps

According to UINP, the Central Rada enacted an interim law on issuing state banknotes on 1 January 1918 (19 December 1917 by the calendar then in use). The first 100-karbovanets banknote was printed at Vasyl Kryzhenko’s printing house in Kyiv in December 1917 and entered circulation on 5 January 1918. Its design was Narbut’s work.

UINP explains the banknote as follows. The denomination was printed in Ukrainian on the front, and on the back in the languages of the three largest minorities living in Ukraine (Russian, Polish, and the language of the Jewish population). Because of its yellow paper it was nicknamed the “fried egg.” Because it was printed in haste, this whole print run had the reverse side printed upside down. The poor print quality led to counterfeits circulating, and issuance was stopped soon afterward.

On 1 March 1918, the Central Rada adopted a law establishing a new currency unit, the hryvnia. One hryvnia was set at 100 shahy, and 2 hryvnias were made equivalent to 1 karbovanets. According to UINP, of the banknotes to be issued under this law, Krychevsky designed the 2-hryvnia note and Narbut designed the 10-, 100- and 500-hryvnia notes. The notes were printed in Germany, and actually entered circulation under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, who took power that same year.

The “stamp-shaped shahy,” used in place of coins, entered circulation on 8 July 1918, under Skoropadskyi’s government. Because they had been commissioned during the UNR era, they still carried the words “Ukrainian People’s Republic” (UINP). NAOMA attributes the design of these 1918 shahy to Anton Sereda and Narbut.

The Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia (VUE) calls Narbut “the author of the first state emblems,” listing, alongside the UNR banknotes, his designs for the coat of arms and state seal of the Hetmanate’s “Ukrainian State.” ESU states that between 1917 and 1920 he refined the small coat of arms and produced two designs for the coat of arms of the city of Kyiv. The origin of the trident itself is explained in the article on the flag, coat of arms and anthem.

Lettering and Books: The Ukrainian Alphabet and Eneida

According to IEU, Narbut produced, in 1917 and 1919, a series of pictures and ornamental letters depicting each letter of the Ukrainian alphabet in turn. Drawing on Cossack, Ukrainian Baroque and folk-art motifs, this typeface, rooted in the Ukrainian Baroque tradition, is called the “Narbut typeface” by ESU.

He also continued designing bindings for books and magazines: covers and plates for the history magazine Nashe Mynule (Our Past), the literary magazine Zori, the art magazine Mystetstvo (Art), and others (IEU, ESU). IEU names, among the finest works of his post-1917 period, the frontispiece (in gouache) he made for the 1919 edition of Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Eneida. The publication history of the Eneida is introduced in the article on the Ems Ukase and the article on Ukrainian literature.

Death at 34

Narbut died in Kyiv on 23 May 1920 (ESU, IEU). The chronology of the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, records this date of death based on a 26 May 1920 article in the Kyiv newspaper Hromadske Slovo. According to IEU, the cause of death was typhus.

According to ESU, posthumous exhibitions of his work were held in Kyiv in 1923 and 1926. His works are held in museums in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and elsewhere. His son, Danylo Narbut (1916–1998), was also a painter, and the same resolution of the Verkhovna Rada lists 22 January 2026 as marking 110 years since his birth.