Archaeographic Commission

The Archaeographic Commission (Археографическая комиссия) was set up in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1834 by

Platon Shirinsky-Shikhmatov Prince Platon Alexandrovich Shirinsky-Shikhmatov (russian: Платон Александрович Ширинский-Шихматов; 1790–1853) was Nicholas I's deputy education minister (1842–50) and education minister (1850–53) who spe ...

, Nikolay Ustryalov, and Pavel Stroyev with the aim of publishing historical and ethnographic materials assembled by Stroyev and others in the provinces of

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

. The commission was affiliated with the imperial ministry of education and was modeled on an earlier commission based in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. Its first major enterprise was the

Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles (, abbr. ''PSRL'') is a series of published volumes aimed at collecting all medieval East Slavic chronicles, with various editions published in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and Russian Federati ...

, published from 1841 onward. Regional archaeographical commissions were established in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...

, and

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

. The commission spearheaded efforts to obtain foreign sources on Russian history and sent its emissaries in search of Russia-related documents to the major archives of Europe. After Shirinsky-Shikhmatov the commission's presidents included

Avraam Norov Abram is a male given name of Biblical Hebrew origin,Nikonov, p. 96 meaning ''exalted father'' in much later languages. NIV translation of the Bible, footnote to Petrovsky, p. 35 In the Bible, it was originally the name of the first of ...

(1850–69),

Vladimir Titov Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov (russian: Владимир Георгиевич Титов; born 1 January 1947 in Sretensk, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia) is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spacefli ...

(1871–91),

Sergei Platonov Sergey Fyodorovich Platonov (russian: Серге́й Фёдорович Плато́нов) (28 June O.S.">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="6 June Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 1860 – 10 January 1933) was a Russian histori ...

(1918–29),

Nikolay Likhachov Nikolay Petrovich Likhachyov (russian: Николай Петрович Лихачёв), alternatively transliterated as Likhachev (12 April 1862 – 14 April 1936) was the first and foremost Russian sigillographer (that is, an expert on seals) ...

(1929), and Mikhail Pokrovsky (1930–32). In the 20th century the institution went through several reorganizations and name changes (it was known as the ''Historical-Archaeographic Institute'' and the ''Historical-Archaeographic Commission of the Soviet Academy of Sciences''). The modern archaeographic commission was founded in 1956 by

Mikhail Tikhomirov Mikhail Nikolayevich Tikhomirov (russian: Михаи́л Николáевич Тихоми́ров; 31 May 1893 — 2 September 1965) was a leading Soviet specialist in medieval Russian paleography. Tikhomirov was born and spent his whole life in M ...

as a branch of the Academy's history department. {{Authority control Palaeography Learned societies of Russia Archives in Russia Russian studies 1834 establishments in the Russian Empire