A. A. Dmitrievsky’s Works at the Russian-Byzantine Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences and His Contacts with the Commission for Byzantine Studies of the All-Ukraine Academy of Sciences

Abstract

The article reconstructs contacts of the outstanding byzantologist, liturgist and historian A. A. Dmitrievsky with different byzantological organizations in Russia and Ukraine. Being a teacher in the Theological and Pastoral College and Higher Theological Courses of Leningrad, in 1923–1928 A. A. Dmitrievsky worked also in the Russian-Byzantine Historical and Lexical Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he participated in reissuing of the Medieval Greek vocabulary of Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange. While working, A. A. Dmitrievsky undertook a number of large-scale researches, part of which was kept in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library; and fate of another stayed unknown for a long time. However, some works of A. A. Dmitrievsky have been found among the papers of P. P. Kudryavtsev in the library archive of the Kiev Theological Academy. The scientist planned to publish these works in Ukrainian in the Byzantical compendium that was preparing to be released by the Byzantological Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences at the end of 1920’s; they were a study on the plate of great countess Olga, presented to the sacristy of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and research work on the Greek brotherhood of Nezhinsk and its archive. Another research of A. A. Dmitrievsky devoted to a Slavonic manuscript from the Astrakhan State University was also preserved in the papers of P. P. Kudryavtsev. The author gives particular attention to A. A. Dmitrievsky’s research on the plate of great countess Olga. The article concludes that the last decade of A. A. Dmitrievsky’s scientific labours was intensive despite the unfavorable conditions of life; the scientist created a number of historical and liturgical works and Byzantological researches that have not yet been introduced into scientific circulation and deserve to be studied.