Ivan Timofeev

Timofeev, Ivan 

Date of birth unknown; died 1631. Russian writer and political figure.

In 1604–05, Timofeev was a d’iak (administrative official) in the Finance Ministry. He participated in military operations against the First False Dmitrii and in battles with the peasant army of I. I. Bolotnikov near Kaluga and Tula. From the end of 1607 he worked in Novgorod. From 1618 to 1628 he was a d’iak in Astrakhan, Yaroslavl, and Nizhny Novgorod.

Timofeev’s Vremennik, which is one of the most valuable sources on Russian history from the mid-16th to the early 17th century, tells of historical events during the reign of Ivan IV, Fedor Ivanovich, Boris Godunov, the First False Dmitrii, and Vasilii Shuiskii and in the period that followed. Timofeev attributed the Time of Troubles to the breakdown of ancient customs and the violation of age-old principles of social and political organization.

WORKS

Vremennik, Moscow-Leningrad, 1951.

REFERENCES

Polosin, I. I. “Ivan Timofeev-russkii myslitel’, istorik i d’iak XVII v.” In his book Sotsial ‘no-politicheskaia istoriia Rossii XVI–nachala XVII v. Moscow, 1963.
Cherepnin, L. V. Materialy po istorii russkoi kul’tury i russko-shved-skikh kul’turnykh sviazei XVII v. v arkhivakh Shvetsii, Tr. otdela drevnerusskoi literatury, vol. 17. Moscow-Leningrad, 1961.
Koretskii, V. I. “Novye materialy o d’iake Ivane Timofeeve, istorike i publitsiste XVII v.” In the collection Arkheografieheskii ezhegodnik za 1974 g. Moscow, 1975.