Musin-Pushkin, Aleksei Ivanovich

Musin-Pushkin, Aleksei Ivanovich 

Born Mar. 16(27), 1744; died Feb. 1(13), 1817, in St. Petersburg. Count and Russian statesman; collector, authority on old texts, and historian. Member of the Russian Academy (1789).

Musin-Pushkin began collecting documents and objects relating to Russian history in 1775. He discovered the Laurentian Chronicle, a copy of the Russkaia Pravda (law code), and the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh. He published The Book to the Great Map (1792), the Russkaia Pravda (1792), the Testament of the Grand Prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh (1793), and The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, to which he gave the title Heroic Song of the Campaign Against the Polovtsy by the Appanage Prince of Novgorod-Seversk, Igor Sviatoslavich (1800). Musin-Pushkin’s manuscript collection was used by such historians as N. M. Karamzin and I. N. Boltin. Part of the collection was destroyed in the Moscow fire of 1812 during Napoleon’s invasion.

REFERENCE

Kalaidovich, K. F. “Biograficheskie svedeniia o zhizni, uchenykh trudakh i sobranii rossiiskikh drevnostei gr. A. I. Musina-Pushkina.” Zapiski i trudy Obshchestva istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh,” part 2, Moscow, 1824.