Kalachov, Nikolai Vasilevich

Kalachov, Nikolai Vasil’evich 

Born May 26 (June 7), 1819; died Oct. 25 (Nov. 6), 1885. Russian historian, jurist, archivist, and archaeographist (student of old texts and manuscripts). Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1893).

Kalachoy was a proponent of the legalist school of historical science. He worked on the St. Petersburg Archaeographic Commission and was a professor in the subdepartment of the history of Russian law at Moscow University from 1848 to 1852. In the preparation of the reforms of Feb. 19, 1861, freeing the serfs, he was a member of the drafting commission, and he was a member-editor on the commission drafting the 1864 reform of the judiciary. From 1865 to 1885 he was in charge of the Moscow archives of the Ministry of Justice.

In 1852 and 1853, Kalachov undertook an archaeographical expedition and published the documents that he had gathered in The Archive of Historical-Legal Information Relating to Russia and The Archive of Historical and Practical Information Relating to Russia. He founded the monthly journal Iuridicheskii Vestnik (Legal Herald), which he edited from 1860 to 1864 and from 1867 to 1870. He was the editor and compiler of a number of other collections of documents, including Documents Relating to the Legal Life of Ancient Russia (vols. 1–3, 1857–84), Supplements to Historical Documents (vols. 7, 8 and 9, 1859–75), Census Books of the Russian State (vol. 1, books 1–2, 1872–77), and Reports and Verdicts of the Government Senate in the Reign of Peter the Great (vols. 1–2, books 1–3, 1882–83).

Kalachov wrote a number of works on the theory and practiceof archival work. Under his editorship, the Guide to the Docu-ments and Papers Preserved in the Moscow Archives of the Minis-try of Justice began publication in 1869. He was one of thefounders of the St. Petersburg Archaeological Institute in 1877.He sought to establish a network of central and local archives;he was much concerned about the preservation of documentsand tried to make these documents widely available to researchers.

M. N. SHOBUKHOV