Problems and Prospects of Study into the Scholarly Heritage of Professor Liubomirov

Abstract

The article presents an overview of the biography and scholarly heritage of a graduate of St. Petersburg University, a student of S.F.Platonov, and an outstanding Russian historian of the first half of the 20th century, P.G.Liubomirov. Based on the analysis of the works and materials of the personal archive of the scholar, the paper shows that the sphere of academic interests of P.G.Liubomirov comprised several directions. He made a great contribution to the study of the socio-economic history of the Low Volga region in the 17th–19th centuries, and to the history of social thought in Russia in the 18th century. A series of articles by P.G.Liubomirov on these topics appeared in the 1920–1930s in the regional academic periodicals. Many works of the scholar have never been published and are kept in his archive as manuscripts. In the 1930–1940s a group of his students and colleagues did a large amount of work with concerning publication of his works. However, due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War and ideological campaigns of the turn of the 1940–1950s this work has not been completed. Today, much of the scholarly heritage of P.G.Liubomirov remains unpublished and unknown to historians. The works of the historian has not lost their relevance. In this regard, it is necessary to resume work on the study and publication of the works of P.G.Liubomirov, which was interrupted in the 1950s.