AN ARCTIC СRUISE

Abstract

The memoirs of a famous Russian historian and archaeologist, holder of an Advanced Doctorate in History, Gerald Nikolaevich Matyushin (1927–2000), the author of 27 monographs and over 400 articles on the archaeology of the Stone Age and the history of the Southern Urals, introduce the reader to an unfamiliar genre of the scholar’s work: his autobiographical essays entitled ‘An Arctic Cruise’. The essays include little-known facts of G. N. Matyushin’s biography, of his childhood and youth, of his training at the Maritime school on the Solovetsky Islands, of his service in the Northern Fleet during World War II and in early post-war years, and of the fate of his friends, Alexander Kovalev, Sergey Igoshin, Anatolii Mochalkin and Petr Mitin. Selected excerpts from these memoirs were published in a collection of the Russian Archaeological Society series Antiquities, № 2 (Matyushin G. N. Madakha // Archaeologists about the War: Memoirs of World War II Veterans / The National Academy of Sciences, Russian Archaeological Society, Ed. G.N. Matyushin, B.G. Peters, Moscow: 1991. Part. 2, pp. 15–35). Later G. N. Matyushin prepared for publication a new, more complete version of his essays for the collection ‘Archaeologists about the War’ in the series ‘Antiquities’ No. 17 (Archaeologists about the War: Memoirs of World War II Veterans / The National Academy of Sciences, Russian Archaeological Society, 1996, Part 3, pp. 3–54). Later G. N. Matyushin prepared for publication a new, more complete version of his essays for the collection ‘Archaeologists about the War’ in the series ‘Antiquities’ No. 17 (Archaeologists about the War: Memoirs of World War II Veterans / The National Academy of Sciences, Russian Archaeological Society, 1996, Part 3). The memoirs published below are the original version of these essays, written shortly after visiting the Solovetsky Islands in 1985; they are included in the family history, compiled by G. N. Matyushin on the basis of family archives, newspaper publications, certifi cates, award lists and other documents (preserved in the personal archive of I. G. Matyushina). The events described by the author preceded his work on the text of his memoirs by several decades, so occasional details might not be refl ected with complete accuracy. First Published in an abbreviated form in 2022.