Problem of Sources in Researching V.N. Khitrovo’s Biography

Abstract

Through their work, the author examines some of the problems of studying sources while researching the biography of famous Russian statesman V.N. Khitrovo (1834-1903), who played an important role in shaping the Middle East foreign policy of the Russian Empire. While in the region, he made a great contribution to the protection of Orthodoxy and Orthodox pilgrims in the Holy Land, including the development of education of the Arab population of Palestine and Syria, and promoting the spread of Orthodox education. In order to reconstruct the biography of V.N. Khitrovo, sources of various nature and origin were identified and classified. There has been conducted for the first-time analysis of materials from the private collection of V.N. Khitrovo stored in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library; on their basis, the role of V.N. Khitrovo as a specialist in the field of genealogy is revealed within the text. The materials on the history of the Khitrovo family collected by him make it possible to most fully present the history of the family and its role in the development of the future statesman and organizer of science. There was used a wide range of unpublished archival documents containing material important for the reconstruction of V.N. Khitrovo’s biography. Above all, it is the correspondence of widow S.D. Khitrovo with bibliographer and literary critic S.I. Ponomarev. In addition, for the first time, the authors have collected obituary materials, a large amount of reference literature published in Russia in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries, published official sources and documents of private origin, which have allow the researchers to begin supplementing, clarifying and correcting the information and facts from V.N. Khitrovo’s biography.