Rostovtsev, M. I.

The son of a classical philologist, Mikhail Ivanovich followed and exceeded by becoming a scholar of international repute, interlacing the cultural influences in the southern region of the Russian empire. A student of Scythia, Hellenism, and Rome antiquity, his “Iranians and Greeks in South Russia” (1922) remains a canonical work on ancient history. Prolific even before his emigration to the United States after the Bolshevik Revolution, he began shaping the field from Russia. Although he wrote also in German and was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, his anti-German stance during the Great War prevented his acceptance there. He served as president of the American Historical Association in 1935.

Miliukov, P. N.

Best known as one of the founders of the Kadet Party in post-1905 Russia, and very briefly the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first Provisional Government after Nicholas II’s abdication, Miliukov became an archeologist for a few years by happenstance. Twice exiled from Moscow in the 1890s because of his participation in political protests at the university, where he had studied and then taught history, Miliukov went to Riazan for two years, where he worked on the local Archival Commission, and then later as a history professor at the University of Sophia. In both places he joined with locals and participated in excavations, and presented his findings at three archeological congresses. He attended as a representative of the Riazan Archival Commission and a history professor from Sophia.

Farmakovskii, B. V.

Boris Farmakovskii was one of Imperial Russia’s most respected archeologists of classical antiquity, best known for his work reconstructing Olvia in situ. He served briefly as the secretary of the Russian Institute in Constantinople, and on the Archeological Commission from 1901. From Simbirsk, his father worked for Vladimir Ulianov’s, and the two boys were acquainted. He also taught at the Higher Women’s Courses. After the Revolution, he was active in transforming the Imperial Archeological Commission into the Institute for the History of Material Culture, which he hoped would be removing the state from interfering in academic endeavors.

Bagalei, D. I.

The consumate Ukrainian, born in Kiev and educated there under V. B. Antonovich, Bagalei specialized in All Russian (vse-rossiiskaia) History, that is, Little Russia. Rising to become rector of Kharkov University, after 1917 he became a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Science and of the archival commission. Throughout his career he was one of those who connected the text to the artefact, and strove to make Kharkov the central such institution in Little Russia, not yet Ukraine. His lively papers at a number of congresses about the uniqe qualities of Little Russian prepared him to participate in the Ukrainization of the region.