Abstract

The article analyses and publishes documents from the Department of Manuscripts, Scientific Archives of the Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, which reflect the working plans of the Soviet Orientalist Vassiliy Vassilievich Struve (1889-1965) under the auspices of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture (GAIMK) in 1933. There are five documents: Struve's working plan of 25 March 1933 (Fund 2. Dossier 1 (1933). Unit 24. L. 14-16); minutes of the meeting of the “brigade for the research of the mode of production”, GAIMK section of the slave-owning formation, dated to the same day (L. 40-46); Struve's working plan of 31 March 1933 (L. 17); documents on the completion of Struve's plan (Unit 31. L. 45; 54-54 ver.). Struve's earlier plan was forwarded after GAIMK faced the task to speed up the research of slavery and of the class struggle of slaves after Stalin's words of 19 February 1933 on the “slave revolution”. Struve contemplated a rather vast analysis of evidence from Hittite Asia Minor, Eastern Mediterranean, Carthage, Mesopotamia and Egypt in order hammer the views of Eduard Meyer concerning the prevalence of serfdom and not slavery at the Ancient Orient and the absence of the “slave hunting” there. Besides, Struve planned to discover slave rebellions in various Oriental countries. Members of the “brigade” met the plan with objections on two points: Struve's ideas on the “serfdom of the conquering type” and on the “irrigation slavery”. In a long run, the plan was not implemented and replaced with a more concise research of the Hittite society (drafted in the document of 31 March).

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