Ardashev, Pavel

Ardashev, Pavel Nikolaevich 

Born Nov. 22 (Dec. 4), 1865; died after 1923. Russian historian; specialist in the history of Western Europe.

In 1889, Ardashev graduated from Moscow University. He was a professor at the universities of Iur’ev (1901–03), Kiev (1903–17), and Simferopol’ (1921–23). After 1923 he taught at the Vitebsk Pedagogical Institute. In 1902, Ardashev’s Absolute Monarchy in the West was published. His principal work, Provincial Administration in France in the Last Years of the Old Regime, 1774–89: The Provincial Intendants (vols. 1–3, 1900–06), is largely an apologia for the administrative order in France on the eve of the Great French Revolution. However, it is of interest for the large amount of archival material collected by the author. Ardashev was an advocate of H. Taine’s psychological method.