THE FATE OF THE STATE ACADEMY FOR THE HISTORY OF MATERIAL CULTURE AT THE TURNING POINT: AN UNDISPATCHED LETTER OF F.V. KIPARISOV TO S.M. KIROV

Abstract

In 1934, the Academy for the History of Material Culture (SAHMC), a leading archaeological institution of Russia, faced a challenge. The Chairman of SAHMC, Academician Nikolai Ya. Marr, who had headed it for many years, was dying, and urgent measures had to be taken to ensure successful work of the Academy after his death. Deputy Chairman F.V. Kiparisov decided to address a letter to the party leader of Leningrad Sergey Kirov in order to secure the leading positions of SAHMC in science; he asked for a personal appointment with Kirov to discuss the future of the Academy and proposed a programme for further development of the institution. The drafts of the letter were prepared in November 1934, shortly before the assassination of S.M. Kirov, but the letter itself was probably never sent to the addressee. The papers are kept in the archival collection of SAHMC at Archives of the Institute for the History of Material Culture RAS. Its full publication will provide important new information on the history of SAHMC activities in the context of the general development of Russian academic science during the troubled period of the 1930s.