Letters from the First Archaeographic Expeditions of the USSR Academy of Sciences to Buryatiya

Abstract

The article deals with the history of the first series of the archaeographic expeditions of the Russian Academy of Sciences to Buryatia, carried out in the late 1950s - early 1960s on the initiative of the academician M. N. Tikhomirov, in accordance with the resolution of the Department of Historical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences. They are known to have proved the prospects of further archaeographic work in Siberia. Six letters of the participants of the expeditions to Buryatia in 1959-1962 V. B. Pavlov-Silvansky and A. I. Rogov to the Chairman of the Archaeographic Commission academician M. N. Tikhomirov, preserved in the collection of the latter, are published. They are classified as semibusiness: the style of correspondents is mostly informal, the features required for office documentation are absent, and the main content is purely business in its nature. The letters contain important data on the history and character of the expedition itself, on the relationship with the Moscow and Ulan-Ude colleagues, on the old believers - the keepers and owners of priceless pieces of ancient Russian writing and printing, cooperation with which remains the most important direction of the archaeographic research work also at the present stage. As a result of the expeditions, a small collection of handwritten and early printed books of the 16th - early 20th centuries was formed. At first, the acquired items were accumulated in the scientific library of the Archaeographic Commission, where they were initially examined. Brief descriptions of the book acquisitions were published in the Archaeographic yearbooks. Later, it was decided to transfer this collection of manuscripts and books to the Siberian Department of the Archaeographic Commission (Novosibirsk) and add it to the Trans-Baikal regional collection of the State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the SB RAS (SPSTL SB RAS). The Appendix presents the information on the findings of these expeditions, provides inventory numbers and storage ciphers of SPSTL SB RAS based on the selected data from the descriptions of the Archaeographic yearbooks.