Digging the Ladoga Canal in 1866, animal bones and weapons turned up. The area was turned over to Inostrantsev and other natural scientists.
Theme: Rus
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.
Site of both an ancient Greek colony and the place where Vladimir I was baptized. It remains an active archeological dig-site, with a museum in situ.
Хведiр Вовк in Ukrainian, Fedor Volkov was a major political figure. When forced to leave in 1879, he ended up studying the anthropology of Cossacks and other Ukrainians, under the tutalege of Gabriel de Mortillet; he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne and was awarded the prestigious Paul Broca medal in paleontology. Still enjoying a reputation among Russian archeologists, especially those who included anthropology in the discipline, Anuchin presented his work at the 11th Congress. Volkov returned to work in St. Petersburg in 1905, and died in 1918, after sending his materials to Kyiv to begin to realize his dream of an independent Ukraine.
Ivan Egorevich’s father died when he was 7, and the impoverished lad later very fortuitously found a job at the Moscow Armoury. Stroev and others there inspited his love for antiquity; he was always engaged in the professioanlization of archeology. His doctorate from St. Vladimir’s is honorary. D. I. Bagalei of Kharkov University named him the founder of “historical archeology.” He designated his daughter Maria and The Historical Museum as his only heirs, to receive his collections.
One of the original members of the IMAO, Tikhonravov met Alexei Uvarov in the 1850s, when he was on the Vladimir Statistical Committee and the provincial governor assigned him to work with the archeologist. Later, he excavated with Savelev in other districts of his native province. Tikhonravov never moved away from Vladimir, but used his position on the statistical committee to conduct and publish significant archeological information from the region.
Her biographies tend to emphasize that she had inspired Lev Tolstoi’s Kitty Shcherbatskaia in “Anna Karenina,” but play down her role as the most formidable female scientist in Imperial Russia. To be fair, she always subjugated herself to her husband, Alexei, even for the 30 years following his death in which she organized the congresses, published the essays from them, developed the Caucasus Museum, and fought to open locally based museums of antiquities throughout the empire. She excavated and published extensively, and her first love were the Christian artefacts in the Caucasus. Professionalism in Russian archeology is unimaginable without her.
Son of a governor of Orel and Voronezh provinces and leader in the provincial nobility, Dmitrii was educated in the Corps of Pages and served as General Ivan Paskevich’s adjutant in putting down the Polish (1830) and Hungarian (1848) rebellions. He retired from public life after then serving Moscow Governor General A. G. Shcherbatov, Praskovia’s grandfather, and with her husband founded the IMAO. He was a quintessential numismatist, and donated his collection to the Rumiantsev Museum.
Spitsyn embodied the success story that scientific scholarship made possible. From Viatka Province, he began a dissertation on Viatka that contradicted what the great historian Nikolai Karamzin had written, so he was forced to abandon it. He returned to his native land, teaching at a women’s gymnasium while excavating throughout the region. In 1892 the Archeological Commission began paying attention to his findings, and brought him to St. Petersburg where he developed into one of the major theoreticians and technicians of the profession. In 1909 he taught the first course in archeology at a Russian university. He continued after 1917, corresponding with colleagues who had emigrated.
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.