Documents from the personal fund of N.V. Kalachov, a historian and an archivist

Abstract

The year 2019 marks the second centenary of the birth of the outstanding 19th century Russian archivist Nikolai Vasilyevich Kalachov (1819–1885). A historian, lawyer, academician, senator, initiator of the provincial archival commissions in Russia, an innovator in archival studies – this nobleman from the Saratov province was a tirelessly dedicated collector and а keeper of domestic archives. N.V. Kalachov was the most prominent founder of archiving science in this country. His abundant personal collection is kept in the Saratov Region State Archives. The appearance of those precious documents in Saratov was an outstanding event in the activity of the Saratov Archival Scientific Commission (SUAK, an abbreviation in Russian, Saratovskaya Uchenaya Arkhivnaya Komissiya). Kalachov was to introduce the Commission to the public, but his premature death prevented that from happening. Kalachov’s widow donated his personal archives to the Commission, and to the 25th anniversary of his death those materials were brought from Kalachov’s Estate in the Saratov region to SUAK. Grigori Grigorievich Dybov Jr. (1868–1920), a Saratov notary, played an important part in that scientific expedition. This article discusses the milestones in Kalachov’s biography, portraying him as an eminent public figure, it mentions some of his early works in the 1830s. The fragments of those documents – translations, diary entries and essays – are quoted for the first time.