Letter and Note of Academician N. S. Derzhavin to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR V. M. Molotov on the Development of Domestic Slavic Studies in the 1930s. (On the Origins of the Foundation of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The publication includes a letter and a note of academician Nikolaj Derzhavin, addressed to Viacheslav Molotov, the head of the Soviet government. These documents are devoted to the history of the Russian Slavic studies in the 1930s, including some methodological issues, as well as the ideology of the so-called “Slavic idea”. Derzhavin describes his own unsuccessful struggle for the foundation of the Institute of Slavic Studies as a fundamental scientific center of the Academy of sciences, which would play the role not only of the all-Soviet institution but of an international one. Now in conditions of the international crisis of 1938–1939, which caused the beginning of the Second World War, Derzhavin in his note put forward less expansive, but important tasks, which could serve as a solid basis for the foundation of the Institute of Slavic studies in the future. He proposed to launch general and special courses on the Slavic history at universities; to include the Slavic history in school programs and to organize an All-Soviet Slavic conference. Derzhavin especially stressed the principal importance of the complex learning of the Russian history and the history and culture of all Slavic nations.

Received: 12.03.2024.

Citation
Marney L. P., Nosov B. V. Letter and Note of Academician N. S. Derzhavin to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR V. M. Molotov on the Development of Domestic Slavic Studies in the 1930s. (On the Origins of the Foundation of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) // Slavic Almanac. 2024. No 1–2. P. 394–426 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2024.3-4.21