Nikolai Pokrovskii pioneered in church architecture as a field in archeology. His Master’s on “The Origin of the Ancient Christian Basilica” established the basis for what would become a major archeological question, that is, how did church art and architecutre relate to liturgy. His interest in Orthodoxy meant that he also became a Byzantinist. Moreover, he was a founding member of the monarchist political party “The Russian Assembly” in 1900.
Institution: Monarchist_Party
A lightning rod for many issues, Samokvasov levied his influence at a number of the archeological congresses. He combined his positions as director of the Archive of the Moscow Ministry of Justice with that of law professor at the University of Warsaw, and one of the most creative archeologists of the Stone Age. A devoted monarchist, he belonged to the ultra-conservative Union of Russian People after 1905.
Leonid Mikhailovich took tremendous pride in his noble heritage, and became the premier scholar of geneology, invited to work in the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of the Imperial Court and lecturing on the subject at the local Archeological Institute, and on the planning committee to build a museum to commerate 1812. As a political figure, he was a state councillor, a chamberlain, and the last governor of Kholm Province. Leaving Russia after 1917, he lived in Athens, Belgrade, and Ann Arbor. Wherever he went, he established a Russian Geneological Society
As early as the Second Congress, Ilovaiskii began his intellectual rampage against the calling of the Varangians. A fascinating character from Riazan, his teachers noticed his intelligence and persuaded his parents to allow him a classical education. He studied in Moscow with the great historians of the 1840s and ’50s. When in the 1860s Moscow University limited him to teaching general rather than Russian history, he resigned his post. He supported himself writing history and sparking controveries relevant to Great Russian nationalism. This might explain how one of his textbooks enjoyed reprinted 44 editions. His daughter Varvara married another prominent archeologist, Ivan Tsvetaev, who remarried after Varvara’s premature death from tuberculosis. His second wife gave birth to the poetess Marina. Ilovaiskii moved from moderate to radical conservatism after the 1905 Revolution, joining the Union of Russian People.