Alexandr Leonidovich Posadskov,
Doctor of Historical Science, State Public Science-Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Historian and Siberian Scholar N.N. Kozmin (1872−1938): Era and Fate (Pre-Revolutionary Period of Creativity)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-1-14
The article is an essay on the pre-revolutionary period of the work of Nikolai Nikolaevich Koz’min (1872−1938), famous Siberian historian, orientalist, economist, ethnographer and public figure. After graduating from the history and philology department of St. Petersburg University in 1896, he returned to Irkutsk, where he entered government service in the field of land management. From now on, for 20 years his career was related to the problems of land allocation, distribution of lands among peasants, and land statistics. At this time, Koz’min’s scientific interests were connected with his work; he published articles on economic issues of agricultural development and handicraft industries in Eastern Siberia. His articles were published in “Izvestiya” and other works of the East-Siberian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society where he went from a member to the chair of the committee. Acquaintance with G.N. Potanin served as an impetus for his formation as a universal Siberian scholar, a specialist in various fields of humanitarian, including historical knowledge. Moved to Krasnoyarsk he closely collaborated with another well-known regionalist, Vl.M. Krutovsky, and became his co-editor in the journal “Sibirskie Zapiski” (1916−1917). By the turn of 1917, N.N. Koz’min was already an authoritative scientist and public figure, a major figure in ‘Oblastnichestvo’ (Siberian regionalism). Repressed during the years of the Great Terror, he is now not fully rehabilitated, but also occupies a worthy place among domestic intellectuals of democratic convictions who fought for the triumph of knowledge and against the political situation in historical science.
Publishing: 24/02/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 19/12/2024
How to cite: Posadskov A.L. Historian and Siberian Scholar N.N. Kozmin (1872−1938): Era and Fate (Pre-Revolutionary Period of Creativity) // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 1 (39), pp. 200−219. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-1-14.pdf]14.pdf]
The research was carried out according to the project of the research work of the SPSTL SB RAS “Transformation of Book Culture in Social Communications of the 19th − 21st Centuries” (GR No. 122041100088-9).
Links: Issue 1 2025
Keywords: N.N. Koz’min; Siberian Studies; historical studies; economic history; ethnography; East-Siberian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society; Krasnoyarsk sub-department of the East-Siberian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society; ‘Oblastnichestvo’ (Siberian regionalism)