Pekarskii, Petr Petrovich

Pekarskii, Petr Petrovich 

Born May 19 (31), 1827, on the Otrada estate, near Ufa; died July 12 (24), 1872, in Pav-lovsk, now under the jurisdiction of the Leningrad city soviet. Russian historian and bibliographer; academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1864).

The son of a nobleman, Pekarskii graduated from the University of Kazan in 1847. Beginning in 1851 he served in the Ministry of Finance, and in 1862 went to the State Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He became a member of the Archaeological Society in 1858 and of the Russian Historical Society in 1870.

Pekarskii began publishing in 1855 in Sovremennik (The Contemporary). He studied the history of science, literature, and culture in 18th-century Russia, in particular journalism, censorship, and the theater, as well as the history of Russian Masonry. He contributed greatly to unearthing and collecting historical documents. Pekarskii’s works, abounding in factual material, are written from a liberal standpoint.

WORKS

Nauka i literatura v Rossii pri Petre Velikom, vols. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1862.
Istoriia imp. Akademii nauk v Peterburge, vols. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1870–73.
Markiz de lia Shetardi v Rossii 1740–1742 godov. St. Petersburg, 1862.

REFERENCE

Mashkova, M. V. P. P. Pekarskii. Moscow, 1957.