"I HAVE EXPERIENCED ALL THE BEAUTIES OF RUSSIAN PRISONS": MOISEI GINZBURG‘S EXILE TO PINEGA

Abstract

To date, there are no studies in Russian and foreign historiography that would objectively cover the individual stages of the biography of the Russian and Soviet philosopher, historian and publicist Moisei Isaakovich Gintsburg (Dayan) (1877-1940). A significant body of his scientific heritage remains not involved in the research field, which is represented by developments on the history of the Jews, the study of the archaeological monuments of the Crimea and the issues of museum affairs in the USSR, which actualizes the topic of this study. The article analyzes in detail the initial period of biography M. I. Gintsburg, associated with revolutionary activities in the early twentieth century. Based on the analysis of a new corpus of archival sources from the funds of the State Archive of the Arkhangelsk Region, the period of M. I. Gintsburg's stay in exile in the territory of the Arkhangelsk province in 1903-1905 is restored. In synthesis with the documents that we have identified in the collections of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, we were able to characterize the period of his political and revolutionary activity in the ranks of the General Jewish Workers Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia (Bund). The classification of the obtained data allowed us to restore the ideas about the political views of M. I. Gintsburg in the context of the brewing revolutionary situation in the Russian Empire. The new archival documents discovered and involved in the research field, as well as the description of the processes and phenomena described above, made it possible to supplement and interpret a new body of informative material on the history of key historical processes in the territory of the Russian Empire during the revolutionary upheavals of the early twentieth century.