Murzakevich recalled from childhood when Napoleon’s army captured Smolensk, and he and many others took shelter in his father’s church. The precocious lad ended up at Moscow University, but without money or social connections. A friend with both got Murzakevich to Odessa, first at the customs office and then at the Richelieu Lyceum. Murzakevich became one of those who Russianized the school, but he also became fascinated with the archeology in New Russia and Crimea and he became an influential member of the Odessa Society of the History of Antiquities. Moreover, the Governor General of New Russia Mikhail Vorontsov recognized his talents and supported his work, even employing him to sort out his library.
Where Associated: Richelieu Lyceum
One of the foremost Orientalists in all of Europe in the 19th century, Grigorev helped to organize the 3rd Congress of Orientalists in St. Petersburg in 1876. Working in Odessa, Orenburg, and Petersburg, he had antagonistic relations with a number of scholars. But a high profile figure, he pioneered in the study of Turkestan. Such a background also made him useful to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
From his position at the Richelieu Lyceum, Iurgevich became an expert in all of the classical digs along the Black Sea littoral. His best known work was on the Genoese fortifications in Crimea.
Aleksei Ivanovskii worked with Praskovia Uvarova on her multi-volume studies of the Caucasus. By education, he was a geographer and an anthropologist.
Brun found himself appointed to teach at the Richelieu Lyceum in 1832, where he developed a keep interest in archeology as a member of the Odessa Society. The Archeological Commission appointed him to work on Herodotus’s Scythia, and he ultimately earned th Uvarov Prize for his studies of the Black Sea. He had a position at one time in the Ministry of Finance, and also at the Vitebsk and Dinaburg Gymnasia.
A founding member of the IMAO, Eshevskii personified the dilettante who developed a keen interest from studying with the many infleuntial historians at Moscow University, and then traveling abroad to Western Europe; he focused on this rather than any Russian areas. He had no archeological speciality, but edited many publications for the IMAO. One of his more interesting papers was on the Bronze-Age pile dwellings in Switzerland.
Another of the founding members of the IMAO, Gattsuk, who identified as Little Russian rather than Ukrainian, taught at the Richelieu Lyceum, and then developed his interest in archeology. He demonstrated particular interest in distinguishing racial/ethnic parameters of theremains in the kurgans he excavated. A contentious amateur, he enjoyed participating in the debates that arose at the congresses, even when he was not well versed in the scientific details.