FEDIR YEVSTAFIYOVYCH PETRUN (1894–1963): THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN PAGES OF BIOGRAPHY (UP TO THE 60s AND 130th ANNIVERSARY)

Abstract

The article examines the biography and intellectual activity of Fedir Yevstafiyovych Petrun. He is an Odesa historian, librarian, bibliographer, orientalist, cartographer, geographer and teacher. During the entire time of his activity, he managed to work in a wide variety of higher educational institutions of Odesa, but he worked most of all in the structure of the Scientific Library of the Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University. The degree of research of the problem in historical science has been clarified. It is indicated that in Ukrainian historiography there is no special study dedicated to the maximally complete reconstruction of the biography of F. Petrun. On the basis of documentary materials of the State Archive of the Odesa region, related to the history of various centers and structures of cultural development in Odesa, previously unpublished historical sources have been introduced into scientific circulation, which contribute to the reconstruction and clarification of previously unknown nuances and vicissitudes of the scientist’s life path. The represented archival materials are also a valuable source for studying the development of higher education and science in Odesa in the period of the 1910s-30s, in particular, the history of the higher school, the library network, and biographical data of some scientists of the specified time. The information from questionnaires filled out by F. Petrun and autobiographies written by him, discovered in various Odesa archives, complements the data from the history of everyday life of the higher school and the library network of Odesa. The difficult path of a scientist in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, the influence of political and ideological pressure on the everyday life of the scientific and pedagogical intelligentsia of the USSR, is traced. His role in the life of the higher school and the library network, scientific heritage, scientific and personal contacts of the scientist, their influence on his life and entry into the academic community and communication relations in it are reconstructed.