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.
Where Associated: Academy of Sciences
As a young nobleman Avdeev traveled to Rome to study architecture, but he also fell in love with archeology when there. Especially interested in the Riches of Crimea, he combined his two passions and in 1871 became a member of the Academy of Arts, in architecture.
One ot the first ethnic Georgian archeologists and educated in the Moscow Spiritual Academy, Bakradze combined Georgia’s Christianity with its history and ethnography and wrote widely on all three. He contributed to the Tiflis Museum of Zion Cathedral, and he worked for hte post-emancipation Commission to resolve the social estate-land question.
Educated in the classics and serving as a professional soldier, Brandenburg found himself director of the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg in 1872, a position he held til his death. Rising to the rank of Lt. General, he expanded his interest in displaying artefacts of artillery to the systematic excavation of numerous kurgans, especially on medieval battle fields. His greatest success came when he restored much of Staraia Ladoga, 1884-89.
Arkhangelskii, the son of a provincial priest, rose to become a distinguished professor in Slavic religious literature at Kazan University, and retired to the Chancellory of Her Royal Highness the Tsaritsa Maria.