Shpilevskii, S. M.

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.

Takaishvili, E. S.

Completing his education at St. Petersburg University, Takaishvili returned to his native Tiflis and became an important public figure through his teaching and archeological activities. He worked for both the spread of literacy among the native population, and the collection and publication of ancient Georgian manuscripts. He led excavations to the 10th-century Bagration principality of Tayk Khardjk, in Georgian Turkey, especially interested in its churches. During the Great War he helped to organize digs in Northern Anatolia, expanding Georgia, and after 1917 he helped to found a university in Tbilisi and was a member of the short-lived constituent assembly. He took his enormous collection of Georgian antiquities to Paris, where he kept them until he was able to return with them after World War II; the return of the antiquities eased relations between Stalin and de Gaulle. Then, he lived under house arrest in Tbilisi; Georgian Church canonized him in 2002.

Romanov, E. R.

A self-described self-made man, Romanov was an importat Belarusian public intellectual, collecting folklore, publishing a newspaper, active in the school system in Mogilev, and he excavated more than 1,000 kurgans around Belarus. His most significant find was the Borisov Stone, one of the Dvina Stones. As head of the NW branch of the Imperial Geographical Society, Romanov embodies the importance of the local to the imperial.

Krachkovskii, Iu. F.

The son of an organist in a Uniate church in Belarus, Iulian made that church the focus of his archeological ventures. He played an active role in the Vilna Commission for collection and publication of ancient documents.

Pavlutskii, G. G.

A graduate of St. Vladimir University in 1886, Pavlutskii had studied classical philology under Ia. A. Kulakovskii, and then continued his education in Berlin and Paris. One of the most influential scholars of religious architecture, he focused on the reciprical influences of Greek, Byzantine, Italian, and Russian churches, especially the latter around Kiev. Keeping art in archeology, he influenced a generation of young scholars.

Danilevich, V. E.

Danilevich counted among the influential and politically active archeologists who had studied first under V. B. Antonovich at Kiev’s St. Vladimir University. After graduating in 1896, he taught history at numerous gymnasia around the empire: Baku, Iurev (Tartu), Revel (Tallin) until 1903, when he became a privat-docent at Kharkov University. Danilevich was renowned for using archeology to teach history, and his lectures became a textbook. He moved to St. Vladimir in 1907, and then to Warsaw University in 1915. In 1917 he supported socialism, if not necessarily Bolshevism. During Ukraine’s short-lived independence, he taught at the university in Kiev, and then in schools around the city following the advent of Soviet power. He directed the Archeological Commission at the Ukraine Academy of Science.

Arkhangelskii, A. S.

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.