On the History of ABDEM (based on Materials of St. Petersburg Archives)

Abstract

ABDEM is an acronym of a small circle for reading of Ancient Greek authors, which created an artistic, although collective, translation of ancient Greek novels by Achilles Tatius (“The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon”) and Heliodorus (“Aethiopica”) published respective ly in 1925 and 1932. The regular meetings of the group took place in Petrograd / Leningrad in 1922–1930. As for the title of the group: the A was the first letter for their forenames and others are the beginning of their last names: Alexander Boldyrev (1896–1941), Aristid Dovatur (1897–1982), Andrej Jegunov (1895–1968), Andrej Mikhankov (1904–at the earliest 1930). Later the group was joined by Emil von Wiesel (1897–?) and his surname of German origin (meaning ‘weasel’) was translated into Latin as ‘mustela’. Three of them have completed a university degree in Petrograd /Leningrad, while Aristid Dovatur after having received his baccalaureate in Saratov was a PhD student there. Alexander Boldyrev, Andrej Jegunov, and Aristid Dovatur were born into the families of army officers, Emil von Wiesel came from an artistic family, Andrej Mikhankov was descendant of a merchant. The research was conducted in the state archives of St. Petersburg in order to study university student dossiers of the ABDEM members. For the first time, the birth date of Andrej Jegunov has been ascertained as 13 September 1895 (vs. conventional 14 September).