Начальные этапы становления русской науки о классических древностях юга России (XVIII – середины XIX вв.)

Abstract

The paper studies initial stages of Russian Scholarship of Classical Antiquities of Southern Russia (18th to mid-19th Century), beginning with cultural reforms (1724) of Peter the Great and ending with the foundation of the Archaeological Commission in St. Petersburg (1859), when a centralized network came to regulate excavation throughout the Russian Empire. It provides a detailed account of the early history of the institutions (St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences, antiquarian societies and museums in Odessa, Nikolaev, Kerch, Moscow, St Petersburg etc.), private and state collections and individuals, from the foreign travelers and academicians to the dilettanti, which were involved in ‘invisible colleges’ (Odessa and Kerch). Some early surveys, discoveries and excavations on the Northern Black Sea Region were examined, etc.