The oldest of four brothers, all of whom had tangential associations with archeology, Fedor was a Byzantinist, best known as the director of the Russian Archeological Institute in Constantinople, which opened in 1894. Uspenskii was particularly interested in studying the Slavic lands of the Ottoman Empire via the Institute, especially their Orthodox artefacts. Although the guns of August, 1914, forced the closure of the Institute, Uspenskii took his archeological ambitions to the Russian Army on the Caucasian front, where it was enjoying success against the Turkish forces. Planning for a Russian victory, he dreamed of a Russian liturgy being prayed in the Hagia Sophia.
Where Associated: Academy of Sciences
The “father of Russian archeology,” Alexei Sergeevich was being educated by his father, the Minister of Education and President of the Academy of Sciences, for a diplomatic posting. Scions of the Razumovskii family, a favorite of Tsaritsa Elizabeth I, the Uvarovs had all the necessary social connections. All Alexei needed was one visit to Pompeii, and he switched careers immediately. An avid numismatist, he wanted to collect more artefacts than just the coins. A founding member of the Russian Archeological Association in St. Petersburg, following a break with Sergei Stroganov of the IAK, he moved to Moscow and formed a rival society. It was Uvarov’s Moscow-based Society that organized the 15 successful archeological congresses, the only sustained academic symposia in Imperial Russia.
A gifted linguist, while still at the Alexandrovskii Lyceum V. V. learned Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic, and became one of the empire’s premier Orientalists. Posted to the Asiatic Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was sent to Orenburg, where he picked up Turkic dialects. Who could better study the Golden Horde? With this set of languages, he analyzed manuscripts and coins relevant to the Crimean, Kasimov, and Kokand Khanates and was appointed to the Academy of Sciences. In 1859 he was elected secretary of the Eastern Branch of the Russian Archaeological Society , then from 1861 to 1872 he served the society as secretary. Disaster struck when Uvarov appointed him to head the organizing committee for the 2nd Congress, in Petersburg to celebrate the society’s 25th anniversary in 1871. He suffered a nervous breakdown from the work load, and never published again. In 1888 Dmitrii Tolstoi got him back on the government payroll, as chairman of the Commission to study ancient documents in the Little Russian provinces.
As a student in St. Petersburg, this son of a former serf helped to organize a Literary and Scientific Society as a countermeasure to unrest among others. Shliapkin began his teaching career in Russian literature, and his lectures were widely attended, including by Roerich. From this he developed a path into ancient Slavic manuscripts and paleography. He also taught ad the Military-Juridical Academy, the St. Petersburg Women’s Pedagogical Institute, and contributed to the Pskov Archaeological Museum. A member of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature, he traveled and excavated widely under its auspices.
Born in Moscow into a petty noble family and educated at the university there, Shpilevskii’s first posting sent him to Kazan in 1860. He blossomed into a champion of the historical archeology of the region, organized the KOAIE, and proved instrumental in getting the 4th Archeological Congress there. His magnum opus, “Ancient Cities and Other Bulgaro-Tatar Monuments in the Province of Kazan” won numerous academic honors. In 1885, he was transferred to the Demidov legal lyceum in Iaroslavl, where he formed other academic societies and worked on the provincial statistical committee.
Educated as a zoologist, Poliakov, whose mother was Buriat, specialized in the Stone Age of Olonetskii Province, the far norther, which includes Arkhangelsk.
Pomialovskii became one of the heavyweights, who began his training in classical languages, primarily Latin, and ended up serving on many educational committees and a member of every number of Archeological committees, including American ones.
One of the first members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences when it was established in 1918, Sumtsov had a distinguished career in ethnography. Among his other positions, he had curated the Ethnographic Museum at Kharkov University, the product of the 12th Congress. At the congress he had argued to petition the Ministry of Internal Affairs to protect the local musical intruments and song, кобзари и лирники.
A Baltic German, Baron Rozen was one of Russia’s most important Orientalists; a specialist in Arabic and in archeology, he studied Arab travelers writing about Rus. From 1885 he headed the Eastern Branch of the IRAO.
The “Siberian Lomonosov,” Ivan Savenkov had a remarkable array of interests by any standard. From Irkutsk, he returned to Siberia after graduating from St. Petersburg University, this time to Krasnoiarsk, first as a teacher, which led to his opening a pedogocial institute there and developing ideas about physical education for students. Locally, he involved himself in everything from acting in the local theatre troupe to leading student excavations of local kurgans. A chess aficionado, he designed a match in which villages could play each other using telegraph codes. From 1907-1911 he directed what remains one of the most impressive local museums in Russia or elsewhere, the Minusinsk Museum of Local History. Digging on Mount Afontovo in the summer of 1914, he died of a heart attack.