1905, Ekaterinoslav, 13th
Theme: Paleography/Epigraphy
In 1792 the “Tmutarakan’ Stone,” mentioned in the Lay of the Igor Campaign, was discovered on the Taman Peninsula. The inscription, credited to Prince Gleb made it the first source of an epigraphical history of Russia. President of the Academy of Arts A. I. Musin-Pushkin published the inscription in 1794, and its authenticity still remains a source of controversy. Tmutarakan was the capital of a 9th-century kaganate, Russian-Varangian, that controlled a trade route in defiance of Khazar dominance in the region that would become New Russia.
Appointed to a professorship in the department of political economy and statistics at Kharkov University, Sreznevskii became one of the premier Slavisists in the world. Deeply immersed in the culture of Ukraine, he collected stories, folklore, and traditions throughout the region. Kharkov, though, was not big enough for him, and he transferred to St. Petersburg where he worked at both the university and the Academy of Sciences. He continued his travels throughout the Slavic lands in western Russia and those in the Ottoman Empire. His linguistic work was groundbreaking, but he argued that Ukrainian was a dialect, but although it should be studied, it did not form the basis of a separate culture. One of this three sons, Viacheslav, become one of tsarist Russia’s most important photographers, noted for his technical innovations.
Minister of Education Sergei Uvarov invited the Leipzig-educated Stefani to head the department of classical philology at Dorpat University in 1846. Trained in Greek epigraphy, Stefani moved to St. Petersburg four years later, to the Hermitage, where he studied artefacts sent from the Black Sea littoral. His methodology of not interpreting beyond what was in his hand influenced his students to be scrupulous and careful about what claims they could make.
As a student in St. Petersburg, this son of a former serf helped to organize a Literary and Scientific Society as a countermeasure to unrest among others. Shliapkin began his teaching career in Russian literature, and his lectures were widely attended, including by Roerich. From this he developed a path into ancient Slavic manuscripts and paleography. He also taught ad the Military-Juridical Academy, the St. Petersburg Women’s Pedagogical Institute, and contributed to the Pskov Archaeological Museum. A member of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature, he traveled and excavated widely under its auspices.
Pomialovskii became one of the heavyweights, who began his training in classical languages, primarily Latin, and ended up serving on many educational committees and a member of every number of Archeological committees, including American ones.
From a noble princely family, Putiatin served in the Finnish Guards Regiment and after the emancipation of the serfs he served as both the Chairman of the Noble Assembly and a Justice of the Peace in his native Vyshnevolotskii district of Tver Province. An amateur archeologist, he showed keen interest in the Stone Age and participated actively in the congresses. He also published in French.
Grigorevich was an important collector of early Christian manuscripts, collecting them in the Balkans in the 1840s.
From Erevan Province, Khalatiants taught ancient Armenian at the Lazarevskii Institute in Moscow, where he became an expert on manuscripts in that langugage.
From Grodno, Latyshev rose to become one of Tsarist Russia’s foremost classicists. His most important work lay in his analyses of Greek epigraphy in the southern part of the empire.