The Egyptologist and his epoch: Political events of the 1880–1940s in V.S. Golenishchev’s Archival Documents

Abstract

This article analyzes documents of the founder of Russian scientific Egyptology V.S. Golenishchev (1856–1947), stored in domestic and foreign archives. The article draws attention to the correspondence of Golenishchev with his colleagues, meaning their reflection of contemporary political events (from the speech of Orabi Pasha in Egypt in the early 1880s to the events on the eve of World War II). The material examined makes it possible to conclude that the personal position of the scientist was predominantly apolitical; he was primarily engaged in collecting and researching ancient Egyptian texts and clearly saw the feasible preservation of the sociopolitical situation to which he was accustomed as a guarantee of the stability necessary for scientific work.