Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2021 number

The letters written by M.M. Gromyko, one of the founders of the Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in the early 1960s addressed to the famous scientists B.B. Kafengauz and V.K. Yatsunsky are published for the first time. They reflect her contribution to establishing contacts and collaboration between the Novosibirsk Center of historical sciences at the early stage of its development, and the leading institutes and scholars in Moscow. Based on the published sources the author explains, how some facts of M.M. Gromyko’s biography, such as belonging to alumni of Moscow State University (graduate and post-graduate programs), her first steps in the research and educational carrier, which she took at the MSU, her personal acquaintance with many historians who specialized in feudalism, determined her role in the academic collaboration between Akademgorodok and the capital. The personal qualities of M.M. Gromyko -keen intelligence, erudition and communicative skills - allowed her to establish contacts with Siberian historians. The letters by M M. Gromyko demonstrate her efforts to organize expert assessments of the Siberian research by highly qualified Moscow historians and to integrate Novosibirsk scholars into the academic activities of such authoritative institutions as agrarian symposia. One of the letters reveals some aspects of the “creative laboratory” of M.M. Gromyko. It contains some information about the historiographic life of the 1960s and the everyday life of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok residents.