Vladimir Nikolayevich Beneshevich

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Vladimir Beneshevich ( Russian Владимир Николаевич Бенешевич * 9. August 1874 in Druja , Vilna Governorate , today Belarus ; † 17th January 1938 in Leningrad ) was a Russian historian and researcher of Byzantine history and canon law and philologist and paleograph of manuscripts this area.

From 1914 onwards, Beneschewitsch was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and from 1924 a corresponding member of the Russian and 1929 of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . In addition, he became a member of the Strasbourg Academy of Sciences in 1929.

Beneshevich was executed in 1938 by the Soviet regime in the course of the so-called Stalin Purges and is one of the " New Martyrs " of the Eastern Orthodox Church .

Life

Vladimir Beneshevich was born on August 9, 1874 in Druja in the Vilna Province of the Russian Empire . His father was a bailiff at the local court and his grandfather was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church . He had a brother Dmitri, who was three years older.

Beneshevich finished high school in 1893 'first class'. He then studied law at Saint Petersburg State University from 1893 to 1897 and also graduated with a first-class diploma. From 1897 to 1901 he studied philosophy, law and history in Germany, first at the University of Heidelberg , then at the University of Leipzig and finally at the Humboldt University in Berlin . After his return to Russia he married Amata ( Ludmila ) Faddejewna Zielińska (1888–1967), daughter of the professor of classical philology Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński at the University of St. Petersburg. The Beneschewitschs had three sons: Nikita (1910-1918) and the twins Dmitri (1911-1937) and George (1911-1937).

Academic years

Between 1900 and 1905 Beneschewitsch worked in libraries in Europe and the Middle East. He studied Slavic and Byzantine written sources and took part in the first archaeological expedition to the ancient religious centers on Mount Athos , Mount Sinai , in Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor and Palestine. He was granted access to the handwritten monastery collections in 49 libraries. He worked in Paris, Vienna, Munich and Rome and discovered many previously unknown milestones in law. The main focus of his research was the reconstruction of historical Greco-Roman law, based on systematic source material. He also briefly taught (1903–1904) canon law at the Alexander Lyceum. The results of his research were published in his master's thesis The story of the sources of Canonical Law of the Greek Orthodox Church in 1905. He then received a master's degree in canon law. He also discovered three new fragments of the Codex Sinaiticus (these are now kept in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg).

In 1905, Beneschewitsch was appointed private lecturer in Byzantine history at the Faculty of History and Philology at the University of St. Petersburg. In 1908 he was appointed editor of the magazine Обозрения трудов по славяноведению . He held this post until 1918.

In 1909 he was finally appointed as associate professor, and a short time later as ordained professor of Byzantine history. He also gave extensive lectures on palaeography. From 1906 on he taught the history of canon law at the University's Law Faculty, at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy (1906–1909), in the advanced courses for women, in the Raeva courses for women (1910–1911) and at the Military Academy of Law ( 1909-1912).

The University of Athens awarded him a doctorate in law in 1912. In the same year, Beneshevich, along with the Egyptologist Boris Alexandrovich Turayev and the linguist Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr, proposed the publication of the journal Христианский восток (Christian East) under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Beneshevich published his doctoral thesis on the synagogue over 50 works and other legal collections of Johannes Scholasticus . In the same year he was awarded a doctorate in canon law.

First World War

Between 1917 and 1918 Beneshevich worked as secretary of the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church . He then served in various capacities in church archives and libraries until 1926. From 1923 to 1926 he was director of the public library of the History Academy of Material Culture and from 1925 to 1926 he was library director of the department for Greek manuscripts in the public library for manuscripts in Leningrad.

He was arrested in July 1922 and again in 1924 in connection with the case of Metropolitan Benjamin , but was not held for long in either case.

In 1926 Beneshevich was appointed secretary of the Byzantine Commission of the USSR . In 1927 he was granted a travel permit to Germany for a three-month research stay. This gave him the opportunity to study a number of Greek manuscripts. Shortly after his return, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences offered to translate his work on Johannes Scholasticus . Beneshevich agreed.

Allegations of espionage, execution and rehabilitation

In early 1928, Beneshevich was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR . In November of the same year he was arrested on charges of espionage for the Vatican, Germany and Poland. He was sentenced to three years in prison and sent to the Solovetsky Detention Center . He was returned to Leningrad in 1930 to attend the trial of his wife and brother on charges of sedition. In August 1931 he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and billeted in the Ukhta - Pechora prison camp . The arrest and house searches almost completely destroyed his collection of copies of old manuscripts. Of the 49 manuscripts known from his published Prolegomenas, only three survived. About 2000 photographs were also destroyed.

At the request of the former Bolshevik Vladimir Bontsch-Brujewitsch , Beneschewitsch was released early in March 1933. From 1933 on, Beneshevich served as an archivist of Greek manuscripts in public libraries and taught Byzantine history at the Leningrad State University.

The first German edition of his work on Johannes Scholasticus was published in Munich in May 1937. In October an article in Izvestia exposed this as a fraud and asked why a Russian scientific paper was published in Nazi Germany. Beneshevich was dismissed from his post and arrested on November 27 on charges of espionage for Nazi Germany.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Beneshevich was executed on January 17, 1938 by an NKVD firing squad in Leningrad, along with his two sons and brother, who were found guilty of the same charge . Beneshevich was struck off the list of the Soviet Academy of Sciences on April 29, 1938.

On August 20, 1958, he was exonerated from all charges of high treason by an LVO military tribunal, more than 20 years after his execution. He was also rehabilitated by the Academy of Sciences on December 19, 1958.

Works

Vladimir Nicolayevich Beneshevich published more than 100 works on Byzantine history and culture. The most important are:

  • Два списка славянского перевода синтагмы Матфея Властаря, хранящиеся в СПб-кой сисинодальной кой сисинодальной . ст. Saint Petersburg, 1902.
  • Канонический сборник XIV титулов со второй четверти VII в. до 883 г. К древнейшей истории источников права греко-восточной церкви . Saint Petersburg, 1905.
  • Древнеславянская кормчая XIV титулов без толкования. СПб , 1907. Т. 1; Sofia, 1987. Т. 2.
  • Армянский пролог о св. Борисе и Глебе . Saint Petersburg, 1909.
  • Ответы Петра Хартофилакса . Saint Petersburg, 1909.
  • Описание греческих рукописей монастыря св. Екатерины на Синае. Saint Petersburg, 1911-1917. Т. 1-3.
  • Синагога в 50 титулов и другие юридические сборники Иоанна Схоластика. К древнейшей истории источников права греко-восточной церкви. Saint Petersburg, 1914.
  • Сборник памятников по истории церковного права, преимущественно русской церкви до эпохи Вели Ветра. (2 issues) Saint Petersburg, 1915.
  • Вазелонские акты. Материалы для истории крестьянского и монастырского землевладения в Византии VIII — XV веков. Л. , 1927 (posthumously together with Ф. И. Успенским).
  • Corpus scriptorum juris graeco-romani tam canonici quam civilis. Sofia, 1935.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members of the previous academies. Vladimir Nikolayevich Beneshevich. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on February 20, 2015 .
  2. ↑ EA Tahoe-Godi, Пять писем Ф.Ф. Зелинского ( memento of August 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), losevaf.narod.ru, 2008.
  3. ↑ a b L. B. Volftsun Schwarz, БЕНЕШЕВИЧ Владимир Николаевич ( Memento from December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), biography, National Library of Russia, St. Peterburg, 2003.
  4. ↑ Full title: Канонический сборник XIV титулов со второй четверти VII века до 883 года. К древнейшей истории источников права греко-восточной церкв
    "Canonical Collection of 14 titles from the 2nd half of the 7th century to 883. The story of the sources of Canonical Law of the Greek Orthodox Church".
  5. ↑ Бенешевич Владимир Николаевич, "Памятники Синая археологические и палеографические", Вып. 2, Saint Petersburg, 1912; VN Beneshevich, "Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Graecorum qui in Monasterio Sanctae Catherinae in Monte Sina Asservantur" St. Petersburg (1911).
  6. ^ State Hermitage Museum, Christian East. Issues 1-2 (VII-VIII) Series dedicated to the Christian culture of peoples of Asia and Africa ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), hermitagemuseum.org, St. Petersburg, 2006.
  7. ↑ Originally: Синагога в 50 титулов и другие юридические сборники Иоанна Схоластика .
  8. ↑ a b c Solovki Encyclopaedia, Академики , Solovki Энцикоклопедия Digest Project, 1998.
  9. ↑ Grigory Andreyev, Бенешевич Владимир Николаевич ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Миряне, 2007.
  10. ↑ According to the 1974 membership list of the Academy of Sciences, Beneshevich was executed on December 19, 1943. However, a document dated February 27, 1938, refers to this execution, which clearly contradicts 1943. See also Andreyev under literature.
personal data
SURNAME Beneshevich, Vladimir Nikolayevich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Druja
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1938
Place of death Leningrad