Bestuzhev-Riumin, K. N.

Being the nephew of a Decembrist did not impede Konstantin’s career; although he graduate from Moscow University with a law degree, he gravitated instead toward journalism and history, combining the two by editing the Russian and Slavic history section of A. A. Kraevskii’s “Encyclopedic Dictionary.” He made his intellectual mark with his magistrate, a textual analysis of the Russian chronicles, dating from the 14th century. His work made a methodological breakthrough in primary source analysis. Critiquing without criticizing the historians who had preceded him, he wrote new histories of Russia from his critical perspective of the sources. However, he is best remembered for the Institute of Higher Education for women, who were not allowed to matriculate in universities, that he directed from 1878. Thereafter the widespread practice of lecturing to women because known as “Bestuzhev courses,” even beyond his in St. Petersburg.