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.
Social Estate: merchantry
Of German heritage, the Russian-born Bartold was one of the empire’s foremost Orientalists, a specialist in Islam.
Anton Ashik came to Odessa from Serbia in 1812, and found an entrepreneurial position in 1822 managing trade with the tribes in the Caucasus. He personified the open spirit of New Russia, crowded with foreigners trying to make a place for themselves here. He became an archeologist by accident, by means of the valuables being excavated along the Black Sea littoral. He joined with Ivan Stempkovskii , the mayor of Kerch (the Greek Panticapaeum), French transplant Paul Du Brux and Ivan Blaramberg, together establishing an archeological museum and Kerch, which Ashik later directed. Ashik went from a bad trader to a good archeologist, and wrote the first major text on the Bosporan kingdom.
The extraordinarily prolific Ainalov taught at several universities, noteworthy as an art historian, whose expertise lay in many forms of religious art, from Italian mosaics to Kiev’s St. Sophia.