Переписка И.М. Гревса и С.И. Архангельского (20-е годы XX века): личностно-биографический и историографический аспекты
On the Correspondence between I.M. Grevs and S.I. Arkhangelsky (1920s): The Aspects of Personal Biography and Historiography

Summary/Abstract: This article considers an important source on the evolution of Russian historical science. These are four letters written in 1926–1928 by the leading historian I.M. Grevs (1860–1941) to his colleague S.I. Archangelsky (1882–1958), a future corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Unfortunately, the response letters of S.I. Arkhangelsky have been lost. The letters under study focus on two main problems. I.M. Grevs unsuccessfully helped S.I. Arkhangelsky to publish the historical source he had translated – “The Edict on Maximum Prices” of Emperor Diocletian. In this connection, the problems of scientific formation and ideas of S.I. Arkhangelsky, the difficulties faced by the USSR historians of the 1920s who wanted to publish their scientific works, and the scholarly activity of I.M. Grevs in the Soviet period are considered. S.I. Arkhangelsky and I.M. Grevs adhered to different directions in interpreting world economic history – Eduard Meyer and Karl Bücher, respectively. S.I. Arkhangelsky refused to criticize I.M. Grevs, the reasons for which are discussed here. Another chief point of interest in the letters is the problems of local history studies. Based on the analysis of the exchange of views, new interpretations of the facts of I.M. Grevs’s biography – his travels along the Volga River, meetings with the figures of the Nizhny Novgorod Scientific Society for the Study of Local History – are offered. These and other issues are presented in the biographical context of communication ties between both the historians. The article is accompanied by the full texts of the letters and commentaries.

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