The known unknown land

The history of the Russian Magneto-Meteorological Observatory (RMMO) in Beijing has not been extensively researched. Sources for this information are Russian (the Russian State Historical Archive, Saint Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Academy of Sciences, Russian National Library) and Chinese (the First Historical Archive of Beijing, the Library of the Shanghai Zikavey Observatory) archives. These archival materials can be scientifically and methodologically analyzed. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Russian Orthodox Mission (ROM) was founded in the territory of Beijing. Existing until 1955, the ROM performed an important role in the development of Russian–Chinese relations. Russian scientists could only work in Beijing through the ROM due to China’s policy of fierce self-isolation. The ROM became the center of Chinese academic studies and the first training school for Russian sinologists. From its very beginning, it was considered not only a church or diplomatic mission but a research center in close cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences. In this context, the RMMO made important weather investigations in China and the Far East in the 19th century. The RMMO, as well as its branch stations in China and Mongolia, part of a scientific network, represented an important link between Europe and Asia and was probably the largest geographical scientific network in the world at that time.

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Hebrew Incunabula in the Russian Researchers’ Publications. Bibliographic Review

Bibliotekovedenie [Library and Information Science (Russia)] ◽

10.25281/0869-608x-2021-1-1-21-34 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 21-34

Author(s):

Semen M. Iakerson

Keyword(s):

Religious Community ◽

National Library ◽

Saint Petersburg ◽

15Th Century ◽

Russian State ◽

History Of ◽

State Library ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

First Time ◽

Private Collections

Hebrew incunabula amount to a rather modest, in terms of number, group of around 150 editions that were printed within the period from the late 60s of the 15th century to January 1, 1501 in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Despite such a small number of Hebrew incunabula, the role they played in the history of the formation of European printing cannot be overlooked. Even less possible is to overestimate the importance of Hebrew incunabula for understanding Jewish spiritual life as it evolved in Europe during the Renaissance.Russian depositories house 43 editions of Hebrew incunabula, in 113 copies and fragments. The latter are distributed as following: the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences — 67 items stored; the Russian State Library — 38 items; the National Library of Russia — 7 items; the Jewish Religious Community of Saint Petersburg — 1 item. The majority of these books came in public depositories at the late 19th — first half of the 20th century from private collections of St. Petersburg collectors: Moses Friedland (1826—1899), Daniel Chwolson (1819—1911) and David Günzburg (1857—1910). This article looks into the circumstances of how exactly these incunabula were acquired by the depositories. For the first time there are analysed publications of Russian scholars that either include descriptions of Hebrew incunabula (inventories, catalogues, lists) or related to various aspects of Hebrew incunabula studies. The article presents the first annotated bibliography of all domestic publications that are in any way connected with Hebrew incunabula, covering the period from 1893 (the first publication) to the present. In private collections, there was paid special attention to the formation of incunabula collections. It was expressed in the allocation of incunabula as a separate group of books in printed catalogues and the publication of research works on incunabula studies, which belonged to the pen of collectors themselves and haven’t lost their scientific relevance today.

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History of the Central Asian commercial bank (1881−1911)

OOO Zhurnal Voprosy Istorii ◽

10.31166/voprosyistorii202012statyi40 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 (12-2) ◽

pp. 215-222

Author(s):

Bakhtiyor Alimdjanov ◽

Shokhrukh Choriev ◽

Timur Ivanov

Keyword(s):

Central Asia ◽

Commercial Bank ◽

Russian Army ◽

Historical Archive ◽

Central Asian ◽

Russian State ◽

General Government ◽

History Of ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

First Time

In the article, on the basis of documents of the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) that have not been previously introduced into scientific circulation, the activities of N. I. Ivanov, a famous merchant of the second half of the 19th century in the Turkestan General Government, which became rich on military supplies to the Russian army during the period of conquests in Central Asia is given. For the first time in Russian historiography, the functioning of the Central Asian Commercial Bank (1881-1911) - the first commercial bank in Russian Turkestan, founded by N. I. Ivanov. The activity of private financial institutions in Central Asia is analyzed.

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Surveying the History of Rossini’s Russian Contacts: the Composer’s Autographs in the St. Petersburg and Moscow Archives

OPERA MUSICOLOGICA ◽

10.26156/om.2020.12.2.004 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

А.А. Логунова

Keyword(s):

Main Attention ◽

National Library ◽

Historical Archive ◽

Russian State ◽

State Museum ◽

History Of ◽

The Russian Federation ◽

The Russian Empire ◽

First Time

Статья продолжает тему, начатую документальной публикацией автора в журнале Opera musicologica № 4 (42) / 2019, и освещает малоизвестные факты из истории взаимоотношений Россини с подданными Российской империи в период с 1817 по 1865 год. Источниками информации послужили материалы из следующих хранилищ: Российский государственный исторический архив, Российская национальная библиотека, Государственный архив Российской Федерации, Российский национальный музей музыки, Санкт-Петербургский государственный музей театрального и музыкального искусства, Российский государственный архив литературы и искусства. В статье подробно комментируются два письма Россини к И. М. Толстому, придворному из окружения Александра II, свидетельствующие о продолжительных дружеских отношениях композитора с влиятельным российским чиновником. Среди рекомендательных писем Россини особенно интересны послания 1860 года — к Т. Рикорди и Дж. Боноле, в которых идет речь о молодом русском певце, будущем режиссере А. Д. Гарфильд-Дмитриеве. Представленные в настоящей статье документы — шесть писем и музыкальный автограф для альбома М. Я. Раппапорта — не только открывают новую страницу в истории русских контактов Россини, но содержат малоизученные факты, касающиеся биографии композитора и его итальянских связей. Большинство автографов публикуются впервые. The article continues the documentary publication in the Opera musicologica, no. 4 (2019) and deals with unknown facts from the history of relations between Rossini and subjects of the Russian Empire on the basis of the materials from the Russian State Historical Archive, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian National Museum of Music, the National Library of Russia, the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music, the Russian State Literature and Arts Archive. The main attention is paid to letters by Rossini to Ivan M. Tolstoy, testifying to the composer’s long-term friendly relations with the influential Russian official from the entourage of Alexander II. Among Rossini’s letters of recommendation, messages to Tito Ricordi and Giovanni Bonola about a Russian singer Aleksandr Dmitriev are of particular interest. Six letters and a musical autograph presented in this article not only open a new page in the history of Rossini’s Russian contacts, but also contain little-studied facts concerning the composer’s biography and his Italian connections. Most autographs are published for the first time.

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Hebrew Incunabula in the Russian Researchers’ Publications. Bibliographic Review

Bibliotekovedenie [Library and Information Science (Russia)] ◽

10.25281/0869-608x-2021-70-1-21-34 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 21-34

Author(s):

Semen M. Iakerson

Keyword(s):

Religious Community ◽

National Library ◽

Saint Petersburg ◽

15Th Century ◽

Russian State ◽

History Of ◽

State Library ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

First Time ◽

Private Collections

Hebrew incunabula amount to a rather modest, in terms of number, group of around 150 editions that were printed within the period from the late 60s of the 15th century to January 1, 1501 in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Despite such a small number of Hebrew incunabula, the role they played in the history of the formation of European printing cannot be overlooked. Even less possible is to overestimate the importance of Hebrew incunabula for understanding Jewish spiritual life as it evolved in Europe during the Renaissance.Russian depositories house 43 editions of Hebrew incunabula, in 113 copies and fragments. The latter are distributed as following: the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences — 67 items stored; the Russian State Library — 38 items; the National Library of Russia — 7 items; the Jewish Religious Community of Saint Petersburg — 1 item. The majority of these books came in public depositories at the late 19th — first half of the 20th century from private collections of St. Petersburg collectors: Moses Friedland (1826—1899), Daniel Chwolson (1819—1911) and David Günzburg (1857—1910). This article looks into the circumstances of how exactly these incunabula were acquired by the depositories. For the first time there are analysed publications of Russian scholars that either include descriptions of Hebrew incunabula (inventories, catalogues, lists) or related to various aspects of Hebrew incunabula studies. The article presents the first annotated bibliography of all domestic publications that are in any way connected with Hebrew incunabula, covering the period from 1893 (the first publication) to the present. In private collections, there was paid special attention to the formation of incunabula collections. It was expressed in the allocation of incunabula as a separate group of books in printed catalogues and the publication of research works on incunabula studies, which belonged to the pen of collectors themselves and haven’t lost their scientific relevance today.

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Destroyed and Forgotten: Revisiting the History of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Magneto-Meteorological Observatory in Beijing in the 20th Century

Herald of an Archivist ◽

10.28995/2073-0101-2021-1-45-56 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 45-56

Author(s):

Tatiana Yu. Feklova ◽

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

19Th Century ◽

Statistical Processing ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Meteorological Observatory ◽

Archival Documents ◽

History Of ◽

Imperial Academy ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

The 19Th Century

The article is to study the history of formation and development of the unique library of the Beijing Magnetic Meteorological Observatory governed by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. Nowadays, researchers increasingly focus their attention not just on history of institutes themselves, but also on history of their communications with and incorporation into the scientific institutional community. Studying the library of the Beijing Magnetic Meteorological Observatory (BMMO) and its books provide a better understanding of its place in the network of magnetic meteorological observatories of the 19th century Russian Empire, which has determined the novelty of the work. The author has introduced into scientific use new archival documents and data from the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Academy of Sciences and from the Russian National Library. The article analyzes activities and history of the Observatory, which was located on the territory of the Russian Orthodox mission in Beijing (China) from 1848 to 1914. For the first time in Russian and international historiography, not only the formation history of the library of the Beijing Observatory has been analyzed, but also the contents and structure of the library stock and its uniqueness. The author has demonstrated variety of its scientific life. As the library was destroyed in the Yihetuan Movement in 1900 and the 1917 Revolution in Russia, the article covers the second half of the 19th century. Its methodological basis modern basic principles of historical research (scientific objectivity, historicism, consistency, historical-genetic approach, etc.), as well as methods of social history of science (relationship between the science and the state, between the science and other social institutions, etc.). It uses the methods of statistical processing of large databases (the sampling method and the method of grouping and summarizing the materials of statistical observation) to analyze the books in library. The research fills the gaps in scientific knowledge on 19th century China and introduces data on the activities of the Imperial Academy of Sciences institutions (Magnetic Meteorological Observatory as well as its library as auxiliary apparatus). Studying the history of scientific research in China can enrich the scientific ties between two countries and allow us to rethink the historical legacy of Russia and China.

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From History of Serbian-Russian Historical and Cultural Relations: Dušan I. Semiz (1884–1955) and His Family. Commentaries to Archival Materials from St. Petersburg and Moscow

Slovene ◽

10.31168/2305-6754.2017.6.2.21 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 505-524

Author(s):

Milena V. Rozhdestvenskaia

Keyword(s):

Short Story ◽

Cultural Relations ◽

Historical Document ◽

Historical Archive ◽

Russian State ◽

Labor Camps ◽

History Of ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

First Time ◽

Political Pamphlets

The fate of a Serbian political emigrant in Russia, the journalist, politician, and historian Dušan Ivanović Semiz (1884–1955) and his family, is studied for the first time on the basis of archival materials from St. Petersburg: the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House) and the Russian State Historical Archive. Dušan Semiz was a journalist and press correspondent at the frontlines of WWI and the author of historical and political pamphlets and books, and translations of Serbian epics into Russian. He was first arrested in Leningrad in 1929 for being a former active participant in the Serbian nationalist revolutionary organisation Crna ruka (The Black Hand) and sentenced to five years in the GULAG. His first spell in the labor camps was followed by several others. Semiz did hard labor as a lumberjack in the Archangel region and at the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal; he was exiled to Kazakhstan in Berlik, where Alexander Solzhenitsyn was also later exiled. Semiz was not released from the GULAG until 1953, not long before his death. Here I present some fragments of the works by Semiz on historical and current relationships between Serbia and Russia, the causes of WWII, and also a short story he wrote in 1933, as well as his letters from the GULAG and exile to his family and letters from his family to him. These documents show hist strong personality, which was maintained even through his period in the GULAG. The archive materials presented in the paper are another historical document of Stalinist terror and are of interest for the study of Serbo-Russian historical and cultural links in the mid 20th century.

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Russia in Eastern Vatican Politics: Pope Leo XIII's Project

Ukrainian Religious Studies ◽

10.32420/2008.45.1894 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 39-52

Author(s):

Ella V. Bystrycka

Keyword(s):

Scientific Schools ◽

Russian State ◽

History Of ◽

The Subject ◽

Apostolic See ◽

The Russian Empire ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

The Relationship ◽

Soviet Historiography

The relationship between the Vatican and Russia has been the subject of research by more than one generation of scientists representing various scientific schools. Of particular interest was the pontificate of Leo XIII. The new emphasis of the foreign policy of the Curia, initiated by him, provided for the establishment of friendly relations with the Russian Empire. In this regard, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences intensified the study of the history of the papacy. In the end, she published a number of interesting documents, edited by E.F. Shmurla (for the period from the creation of the centralized Russian state until the death of Peter I), A. Turgenev (2 volumes, 1841-1842), A. Popov (1845-1850). In Soviet historiography, the study of the history of Vatican-Russian relations in the nineteenth century. engaged M. Sheiman, E. Adamov. On the basis of documentary materials, a monograph of the German scientist E. Winter was constructed. The documents published by the authors have not lost their significance for the modern researcher. Their impartial analysis opens up the possibility of a new understanding of the Eastern policy of the Apostolic See, the place and role of Catholics of the Orthodox rite, in particular Ukrainian Greek Catholics in the context of these relations.

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Legal status and development of agriculture of the Greek Community of the Northern Pryasovia (1779–1875): analysis of the record-keeping materials

Kyiv Historical Studies ◽

10.28925/2524-0757.2018.2.94103 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 94-103

Author(s):

Anna Hedo

Keyword(s):

19Th Century ◽

Legal Status ◽

Statistical Information ◽

City Council ◽

Record Keeping ◽

The North ◽

Historical Archive ◽

Russian State ◽

History Of ◽

The 19Th Century

Using the analysis of materials of record-keeping stored in Ukrainian and Russian archives, the article describes the legal status and development of the economy of the Greek community of the NorthernPryazovia: reports, directives, notifications of the Azov and Novorossiysk governor-general. The same group includes the documents that arose in the process of operation of the Mariupol Greek court. The elements that constituted the form of these documents in the 18th — 19th centuries are analysed, the purpose of these documents is formulated. Among the local record-keeping, the documents of the Mariupol Greek Court (was created in accordance with the charter of 1779) occupy a significant place due to the wealth of statistical information. The court performed administrative, police and judicial functions. The cases of district (powiat) administration, district and zemsky court, orphan and verbal courts, city council (magistrat), district police and volost administrations were concentrated here. According to the origin and informative possibilities, the materials of the Mariupol Greek Court can be divided into the following groups: 1) incoming court documentation from the higher authorities; 3) notebooks and documents submitted to the court by subordinate institutions (accounts, journals, reports, public sentences, etc.); 4) documents submitted to the institution by private individuals (reports, complaints, IOUs); 2) accounting court documentation; 5) papers sent to private individuals by court (notifications, directives), etc. The record-keeping materials of the central institutions allow us to reproduce the following questions on the history of the Greeks of the North Pryazovia: the assignment of land (F. 379 and 383 of the Russian State Historical Archive), the liquidation of the Mariupol Greek Court of the Order of the Mariupol Greeks after the reforms of the 60s and 70s of the 19th century. (f. 1286, 1287, 1291, 1405 of the Russian State Historical Archive).

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V. V. Bedin in Charge of the Central State Historical Archive of the USSR in Leningrad: 1945–52, 1954–64

Herald of an Archivist ◽

10.28995/2073-0101-2021-3-916-926 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 916-926

Author(s):

David I. Raskin ◽

Keyword(s):

Personal Characteristics ◽

Central Committee ◽

Central State ◽

Historical Archive ◽

Difficult Time ◽

Russian State ◽

Archival Documents ◽

Red Army ◽

History Of

The article is to highlight the little-known pages in the history of the Russian State Historical Archive, one of the largest archives in Russia. Its story is an integral part of the history of archiving in Russia. The article is to show the role of an individual in the history of Russian archiving in a case-study of the activities of one of its most effective managers. His life is largely characteristic of the generation of archival leaders of the 1940s–60s, while his personal characteristics are unique. The article is based on genuine archival materials preserved in the so-called “Archive of the archive” and also on the memoirs of his contemporaries. It is devoted to the biography of Vasily Vasilyevich Bedin, the longtime head of the Central State Historical Archive in Leningrad (now the Russian State Historical Archive). V. V. Bedin was appointed head of the archive at a difficult time. During the war and in the siege of Leningrad, the archive was headed by temporary leaders who replaced one another and did not always cope well with the responsibilities assigned to them. V. V. Bedin became the fifth head of the archive since 1941. Descent from the Novgorod gubernia peasants, a Red Army soldier during the Civil War, a political instructor, he became a party functionary, studied at the Institute of Red Professors. In 1937, he was appointed head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus, and in 1939 became director of the Leningrad branch of the Museum of V. I. Lenin. On December 22, 1945, he was appointed head of the Central State Historical Archive in Leningrad. In this position, he did a lot to eliminate the consequences of the war and to put the archive in order; he strove to improve the situation of the archive’s staff. In a difficult political environment of the late 1940s - early 1950s he showed high integrity and much decency. This was the reason for his dismissal in 1952. But with the beginning of the “thaw,” V. V. Bedin was re-appointed head of the archive on July 3, 1954. Under his leadership, the archive became a truly scientific institution. V. V. Bedin created a businesslike atmosphere in the archive, allowing its staff of to show initiative and boldly discuss the fundamental issues of the archival administration development. He did a lot to improve the storage of archival documents. V. V. Bedin initiated the archive’s transition to a more functional structure. He remained in the memory of the Leningrad archivists as an effective and principled, demanding and caring leader.

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