Scientific and Informal Communication of Soviet Historians in 1930’s: Letters of Olga Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya to Dmitri Petrushevski

Abstract

The author analyzes the correspondence between two leading Soviet mediaevists Olga Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya and Dmitry Petrushevsky as an example of not only scientific, but also informal communication. In her letters, from 1932 to 1939, Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya informed Petrushevsky about significant events that took place at the Faculty of History of the Leningrad State University, in the GAIMK, in the Public Library. Often the details contained in the letters, as well as Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya’s point of view on certain issues related to appointment, leadership, teaching, editing and publication of textbooks, open up a different, informal side of making key decisions that influenced the development of Soviet historical science. In particular, the letters of Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya of the 1930s demonstrate both the importance of the system of "scientific schools" for Soviet historians and the negative consequences of such a system.