Boris Piotrovsky: “As I grew older, I understood how to behave so as not to greatly disgrace my parents. Boris Piotrovsky: “As I grew older, I understood how to behave so as not to greatly disgrace my parents Academician Piotrovsky
Soviet archaeologist and orientalist historian, academician B.B. Piotrovsky was born in St. Petersburg on February 1 (14), 1908. The Piotrovskys are a Russian noble family with Polish roots; traditionally, the older generations of the Piotrovskys were military men.
The love for history and archeology was born, as the academician himself stated, in the Orenburg Museum. In 1915, when the boy was only 7 years old, the Piotrovsky family moved to Orenburg and lived here until 1922. Boris Piotrovsky began his education at the gymnasium, which was located at school No. 30. Since childhood, he was attracted to Ancient Egypt. Returning to Petrograd as a schoolboy, he attended classes at the Hermitage, in the Department of Antiquities, which in those years united ancient Eastern and ancient collections, and then continued to study Egyptology at Leningrad University.
In 1929, as a final year student at the Faculty of History and Linguistics at Leningrad State University, B.B. Piotrovsky went to work at the Academy of the History of Material Culture (Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences), in the Language Sector, which was then headed by Academician N.Ya. Marr. In 1930 B.B. Piotrovsky graduated from the university and a year later began working in parallel at the Hermitage as a research assistant.
Since his student years, Boris Borisovich took part in various archaeological expeditions in the North Caucasus. In 1930, on the initiative of N.Ya. Marr, he goes to Armenia for the first time to look for traces of the ancient state of Urartu that once existed there. Archaeological study, comprehensive analysis and historical understanding of Urartian monuments have become the main focus of his scientific activity for many years. The Caucasus, in his own words, began to gradually displace distant Egypt from his life.
Since 1931, Piotrovsky began leading scientific expeditions to Armenia, the purpose of which was to search for and study traces of the Urartian civilization. As a result of excavations of the ancient city of Teishebaini, valuable information was obtained about the culture and art of Urartu. The results of the expeditions were described in detail by B.B. Piotrovsky in his scientific works - archaeological reports on the excavations of Karmir-blur (1950, 1952, 1955) and monographs: “History and culture of Urartu” (1944), “Karmir-blur” (1950-1955), “Kingdom of Van” (Urartu)" (1959), "The Art of Urartu VIII-VI centuries BC." (1962). They presented for the first time the results of a study of all cultural and artistic monuments of Urartu known at that time in their archaeological and historical context. They have not lost their scientific value to this day and are among the most frequently cited works in urartology. The main works of B.B. Piotrovsky are devoted to the history, culture and art of the Caucasus and the Ancient East, in particular the state of Urartu and questions of the origin and ancient history of the Armenian people.
The choice of Karmir-blur - "Red Hill" - on the western outskirts of Yerevan as an excavation site was the fruit of painstaking searches, long thoughts and subtle scientific intuition of Boris Borisovich. This choice fully justified itself. Thanks to many years (from 1939 to 1971) of excavations by a joint archaeological expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR and the Hermitage under the leadership of B.B. Piotrovsky, the ancient city of Teishebaini, the ruins of which were hidden under the “Red Hill”, and is currently one of the most interesting and most fully studied monuments of the Urartian civilization. B.B. Piotrovsky was the founder of Russian urartology. Thanks to his excavations of Urartian fortresses in Armenia and the publication of monuments found there, the interpretation of random finds was replaced by a systematic study of the culture and art of the Urartian kingdom.
During the excavations, the citadel was explored, as well as several residential buildings of the settlement, which lay at the foot of Karmir Blur. Teishebaini - “the city of the god Teisheba” - was founded by one of the last Urartian kings, Rusa II, in the 7th century. BC. It was a large administrative and economic Urartian center in Transcaucasia, where the governor stayed and there was a garrison where tribute collected in the surrounding regions was brought. The citadel occupied the surface of a rocky hill with an area of about 4 hectares and was a single building, apparently having two or three floors. On the ground floor there were about 150 rooms for utility purposes - for example, storerooms for wine, with large vessels with a total capacity of about 400 thousand liters, and for grain, which housed a total of about 750 tons. The walls of the building were made of mud brick, stone was used for plinths and cornices. The ceremonial premises of the upper floors collapsed during a fire that broke out during the assault on the fortress. Apparently she died in a surprise attack. The collapsed ceilings buried the contents of the storerooms, including a huge amount of metal products (mainly bronze), which, as it turned out from the inscriptions engraved on them, were older than the fortress itself. Most of them belonged to the kings of the 8th century. BC. - Menua, Argishti I, Sarduri II and Ruse I. Some directly say that they were made for the Erebuni fortress, which was located not far from Teishebaini and by the time the latter was built it may have already been abandoned, and the objects stored in it were transferred to storerooms new citadel.
It was on this expedition, which was later included in textbooks on the history of the ancient world, that in 1941, Hermitage researcher Boris Piotrovsky found his destiny. At the excavations of Karmir-blur, he met a graduate of Yerevan University, Hripsime Janpoladyan, who later became an outstanding archaeologist-orientalist. They were introduced to a bronze figurine of the Urartian god of war (not a coincidence in 1941), found by Hripsime Mikaelovna.
Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, B.B. Piotrovsky is the deputy head of the Hermitage MPVO team. During the blockade winter of 1941-1942, Piotrovsky wrote a major work in Leningrad, “History and Culture of Urartu,” which was published in 1944. For this book, Boris Borisovich was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences (1944) and the USSR State Prize (1946). Boris Piotrovsky and Hripsime Dzhanpoladyan got married in 1944, in Yerevan, where in 1942 Piotrovsky, dying of exhaustion, was evacuated from besieged Leningrad. Their first child, Mikhail, was born in Yerevan in December 1944.
After the war, Piotrovsky continued his research in Karmir-blur, and in 1956 he got the opportunity to visit Egypt. Later, in 1961-1963, he led the work of an international archaeological expedition in Nubia in the area flooded by the waters of the Aswan Dam under construction.
In 1953-1964 B.B. Piotrovsky was the head of the Leningrad department of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and then headed one of the largest museums in the world. In 1964, Piotrovsky became director of the State Hermitage and remained so for 26 years until his death. Boris Borisovich combined extensive scientific activity and administrative work with teaching and social activities. Since 1966, he also headed the Department of Ancient Oriental Studies at the Oriental Faculty of Leningrad State University and trained scientific personnel.
Boris Piotrovsky was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of History (history of culture) from November 24, 1970 and a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR (1968), corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the British Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Letters in France , Royal Academy of Morocco, honorary member of fifteen other foreign academies and societies. B.B. Piotrovsky - Honored Worker of Arts of the RSFSR (1964), Honored Worker of Science of the Armenian SSR (1961).
Over his many years of activity, B.B. Piotrovsky in 1983 was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, was awarded three Orders of Lenin (1968, 1975, 1983), the Order of the October Revolution (1988), three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1945, 1954, 1957), as well as medals, including including "For the Defense of Leningrad" (1944). In addition, the academician was awarded orders from France, Bulgaria, and Germany.
The entire family of academician B.B. was connected with archeology and art. Piotrovsky. His wife R.M. Dzhanpoladyan-Piotrovskaya (1918-2004) did not give up scientific work for many years at the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Arts and in the Oriental Department of the Hermitage. But she also did, perhaps, the main work of her life: she kept the family hearth, which warmed the Piotrovskys’ house in spite of the difficult Soviet and post-Soviet socio-political winds. She was also the editor of the works of B.B. Piotrovsky, which were published after his death: among them the encyclopedic “History of the Hermitage”, the diary “Travel Notes” and the autobiographical “Pages of My Life”. Son of academician B.B. Piotrovsky, Mikhail Borisovich, now director of the State Hermitage, professor of St. Petersburg State University, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Doctor of Historical Sciences.
Academician B.B. died Piotrovsky October 15, 1990 in Leningrad. He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery next to the grave of his father and mother. In 2004, the widow of the academician, R.M., was also buried at the Piotrovsky family place. Dzhanpoladyan-Piotrovskaya.
The scope of Boris Piotrovsky's scientific interests was unusually wide and varied: archeology and the Ancient East, methods of attribution of cultural and artistic monuments, the Hermitage - its history and collections, personalities who made a significant contribution to the creation of the museum. His famous excavations of a fortress on the Karmir-Blur hill near Yerevan essentially revealed the new ancient state of Urartu to the world and were a scientific sensation of its time. Most of Boris Borisovich's life was connected with the Hermitage. Here he went from an inquisitive schoolboy interested in ancient history to a world-famous scientist and museum director, which he became in 1964 and remained until the end of his life.
In the museum world, dynasties are not uncommon: quite naturally, interest in an object is passed on from generation to generation. But at first no one thought about the dynasty of “Hermitage directors”. Mikhail Piotrovsky took over his father's chair at a time of crisis, in 1992. Moreover, he inherited the “throne” not directly, but along a winding line. Under his father, he did not work at the Hermitage at all, although he grew up behind the scenes. And I sadly watched from the sidelines as the museum staff disobeyed the director, who had recently been all-powerful. The last years of the reign of BB, as the elder Piotrovsky was sometimes called at the Hermitage, turned out to be dramatic. The trends of perestroika led to discord; The microclimate collapsed, and the whole order of things that Boris Borisovich had created for a long time. Now, perhaps, the rightness of the parties to the conflict can be assessed as fifty-fifty. The museum inevitably had to change, which Piotrovsky resisted. But hardly exactly as his opponents insisted. A fairly typical story of the late 80s. And yet, BB remained on the captain's bridge until the end of his days.
He found himself at the helm under also dramatic circumstances. In 1964, the then director Mikhail Artamonov was removed from his post after the opening of an exhibition of unofficial artists within the Hermitage (today, only Mikhail Shemyakin remains famous). The post was taken by Piotrovsky. Of course, it was not customary in those days to grumble against new appointees, but Artamonov was loved and valued as a scientist. Moreover, the reason for his dismissal seemed very blatant. However, BB soon made it look as if he had always been in charge of the establishment. He honored old traditions, carried out reforms gently and gradually, combined authoritarianism with expressed humanity. This story is still remembered in the Hermitage. One of the employees ended up in a sobering-up station, from where the corresponding paper was sent to the museum against him. The culprit was called to the carpet and faced the most disastrous consequences, including dismissal. Instead, Piotrovsky, in front of his subordinate, tore up the police report with the words: “It’s nice to know that at least one real man works in our museum.” He had no visiting hours; visitors could come at any time. The role of a “good gentleman”, who himself can scold, but will not give offense to strangers, stood out favorably to the BB against the background of the gray Soviet directorate.
He did not want to be just an official, periodically publishing scientific works - and yet there was almost no time left for science. While sitting at endless meetings, he drew in the margins of documents and on random pieces of paper (these drawings later decorated the book of his memoirs). Boris Piotrovsky himself did not attach any importance to his handwriting, as follows from his poetic explanation: “At long meetings, at useless meetings, in the arms of boredom, I drew these things. This is mischief, not skill.” Scarab beetles and other symbols of the ancient world often became the “heroes” of drawings. Science called him back to his fold: after all, he had once been a practicing archaeologist - moreover, the discoverer of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. The results of his excavations on the territory of Armenia became a sensation throughout the world. He even managed to realize his youthful dream of working in Egypt. Before the flooding of the area around the future Aswan Dam, an archaeological expedition led by Boris Piotrovsky was sent there from the USSR. Subsequently, he traveled around the world a lot - but as an official, and not as a “field” scientist.
The ancient world has been his passion since childhood. Once as a schoolboy, he went on an excursion to the Hermitage and engaged the guide in a long discussion about vanished cultures. From that moment on, he practically never left the museum. And legally he started working there in 1931. Of course, even today there are enthusiasts among museum workers, but in that generation, enthusiasm turned into dedication. According to stories, duty on the Hermitage roof at the beginning of the blockade often turned into scientific symposiums. The then director Joseph Orbeli even had to make a special suggestion to his subordinates: under no circumstances should they remove gas masks from their bags and not stuff tomes in their place. Piotrovsky himself recalled: “We were very worried that in the event of our death, everything that we managed to find out, but had not yet managed to publish, make it into the property of science, general knowledge, would go away with us, would disappear forever, and someone would need it later start everything over again. We came to a decision: we need to write, write, write immediately, without delay."
And yet, he gained his main fame in the administrative field. He acted reasonably, without heroic deeds, and often made compromises - especially when it came to higher authorities. At one time, the story of the wedding of the daughter of Grigory Romanov, the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee, caused a lot of noise. Indeed, Piotrovsky then allowed a cheerful company into the Winter Palace, although rumors about the issuance of imperial porcelain for table setting are still exaggerated. Well, whoever considers himself entitled to throw a stone at the BB has thrown and continues to throw. But the flip side of this “servility” was the opportunity to preserve the class of the museum and its role in world culture. In a “capital city with a regional destiny,” funding was difficult to obtain, and in terms of the weight of opinions, local museum workers were a priori inferior to those in Moscow. Boris Piotrovsky was one of the rare exceptions. The current director of the Hermitage assures that to this day he is in constant mental contact with his father (especially since the office is the same). It is difficult to say whether Mikhail Borisovich consulted with his father’s shadow on what to do after the scandalous story of the theft from the museum. However, the parallel is obvious: in a similar situation that arose in the Hermitage many years ago, the elder Piotrovsky did not resign. Also continuity.
Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky – director of the State Hermitage, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Leningrad.
Born February 1 (14), 1908 in St. Petersburg. Russian. Member of the CPSU(b)/CPSU since 1945. In 1915, when Piotrovsky was 7 years old, his family moved to the city of Orenburg and lived here until 1922. In 1929, as a final year student at the Faculty of History and Linguistics at Leningrad State University (LSU), Piotrovsky went to work at the Academy of the History of Material Culture (Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences), in the Language Sector, which was then headed by academician N.Ya.Marr. In 1930 he graduated from the university and a year later began working in parallel at the Hermitage as a research assistant.
Since his student years, Boris Borisovich took part in various archaeological expeditions in the North Caucasus. In 1930, on the initiative of N.Ya.Marr, he first went to Armenia to look for traces of the ancient state of Urartu that once existed there. Archaeological study, comprehensive analysis and historical understanding of Urartian monuments became the main focus of his scientific activity for many years.
Since 1931, Piotrovsky began leading scientific expeditions to Armenia, the purpose of which was to search for and study traces of the Urartian civilization. As a result of excavations of the ancient city of Teishebaini, valuable information was obtained about the culture and art of Urartu. The results of the expeditions were described in detail by Piotrovsky in his scientific works - archaeological reports on the excavations of Karmir-blur (1950, 1952, 1955) and the monographs “History and Culture of Urartu” (1944), “Karmir-Blur” (1950-1955), “Vanskoye” kingdom (Urartu)" (1959) and "The Art of Urartu VIII-VI centuries. BC." (1962). They presented for the first time the results of a study of all cultural and artistic monuments of Urartu known at that time in their archaeological and historical context. They have not lost their scientific value to this day and are among the most frequently cited works in urartology.
The choice of Karmir-blur - “Red Hill” - on the western outskirts of Yerevan as an excavation site was the fruit of painstaking searches, long thoughts and Piotrovsky’s subtle scientific intuition. This choice fully justified itself. Thanks to many years of excavations (1939-1971) by a joint archaeological expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR and the Hermitage under the leadership of Piotrovsky, the ancient city of Teishebaini, the ruins of which were hidden under the “Red Hill”, is now one of the most interesting and most fully studied monuments of the Urartian civilization . Piotrovsky was the founder of Russian urartology. Thanks to his excavations of Urartian fortresses in Armenia and the publication of monuments found there, the interpretation of random finds was replaced by a systematic study of the culture and art of the Urartian kingdom.
During the excavations, the citadel was explored, as well as several residential buildings of the settlement, which lay at the foot of Karmir Blur. Teishebaini - “the city of the god Teisheba” - was founded by one of the last Urartian kings, Rusa II, in the 7th century BC. It was a large administrative and economic Urartian center in Transcaucasia, where the governor stayed and there was a garrison where tribute collected in the surrounding regions was brought. The citadel occupied the surface of a rocky hill with an area of about 4 hectares and was a single building with two or three floors.
Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Piotrovsky has been deputy head of the Hermitage air defense team. During the blockade winter of 1941-1942, Piotrovsky wrote a major work in Leningrad, “History and Culture of Urartu,” which was published in 1944. For this book he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences (1944) and the Stalin Prize (1946).
After the war, Piotrovsky continued his research in Karmir-blur, and in 1956 he got the opportunity to visit Egypt. Later, in 1961-1963, he led the work of an international archaeological expedition in Nubia in the area flooded by the waters of the Aswan Dam under construction.
In 1953-1964, Piotrovsky was the head of the Leningrad department of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and then headed one of the largest museums in the world. In 1964, Piotrovsky became director of the State Hermitage and remained so for 26 years until his death. Piotrovsky combined extensive scientific activity and administrative work with teaching and social activities. Since 1966, he headed the Department of Ancient Oriental Studies at the Oriental Faculty of Leningrad State University and trained scientific personnel.
By Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 25, 1983, for great services in the development of Soviet science and culture and fruitful social activities Piotrovsky Boris Borisovich awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Lived and worked in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Died on October 15, 1990. He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery next to the graves of his father and mother.
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1964) and the Armenian SSR (1961), Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1970) and the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences (1968), corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the British Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Literature in France.
Awarded 3 Orders of Lenin (03/15/1968; 09/17/1975; 02/25/1983), Order of the October Revolution (02/12/1988), 3 Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (06/10/1945; 03/27/1954; 06/21/1957), medals , in that including the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” (1944), as well as orders and medals of foreign countries, including the commander’s badge of the Order of Literature and Art (1981, France), the Order of “Cyril and Methodius” 1st degree (1981, Bulgaria).
Winner of the Stalin Prize (1946).
In 1992, in St. Petersburg, at house 25 on Naberezhnaya Street of the Moika River, where Piotrovsky lived, a memorial plaque was installed.
The son of B.B. Piotrovsky is Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky (born December 9, 1944, Yerevan), historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences (1985), professor, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 1997), director of the State Hermitage (since 1992). Awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd (12/9/2009) and 4th (12/09/2004) degrees, Order of Honor (03/17/1997), medals. Laureate of the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation (2003). Honorary citizen of St. Petersburg (05/25/2011).
Gorbunova N.G., Kasparova K.V., Kushnareva K.X., Smirnova G.I. Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky (1908-1990) // Soviet archeology. 1991. No. 03. pp. 108-111.
A world-famous scientist, archaeologist and orientalist, director of the Hermitage - known to everyone as a man of real intelligence, rare charm, a wonderful sense of humor, completely devoid of administrative lordship - has passed away. And it is so difficult to imagine that he is no longer there, that you need to sit down and write an obituary, when Boris Borisovich is still standing before your eyes - alive, cheerful, always ready to communicate. Maybe that's why it took us so long to get down to it. So much has been written about B.B. Piotrovsky both as a bright, talented scientist and as a cultural historian who played a huge role in international cultural relations and headed a museum of such a scale as the Hermitage. In some ways, repetition is inevitable, except, perhaps, for one thing: for the first time we write about him when he is no longer with us...
B. B. Piotrovsky was born on February 14, 1908 in St. Petersburg in the family of Boris Bronislavovich Piotrovsky, a teacher of mathematics and mechanics in military educational institutions. He owes his primary education to his mother, Sofya Aleksandrovna Zavadskaya, a teacher by profession. His parents, deeply intelligent people, were bearers of the culture that we now call St. Petersburg. Family foundations and traditions were formed not only by parents, but also by grandfathers - generals of the Russian army, who from childhood accustomed little Boris and his brothers to future vicissitudes of fate.
In 1915, the Piotrovsky family moved to Orenburg, and in 1921 they returned to Petrograd. And here at school Boris Piotrovsky first saw Egyptian antiquities (ushabti figurines), shown by the teacher in a history lesson. Perhaps this impression has an internal connection with the appearance of 14-year-old Boris Piotrovsky in the Hermitage, where in 1922 he began studying Egyptian hieroglyphs under the guidance of the famous Egyptologist and deep connoisseur of the Ancient East N.D. Flittner.
He received further education at the Faculty of History and Linguistics of Leningrad State University (1925-1930), where he studied with such prominent scientists as archaeologist A. A. Miller, orientalists V. V. Struve, N. Ya. Marr and S. A. Zhebelev. Already in 1927-1929. Boris Borisovich, in addition to specializing in Egyptology - his main profession - receives his first practical and theoretical knowledge in the field of archeology, and broad linguistic training.
In 1928, student B. Piotrovsky wrote his first article on the term “iron” in the ancient Egyptian language, which was highly praised by his teachers. The article was published in 1929 in the "Reports of the Academy of Sciences". His article on the bas-relief of Amenhotep in the Karnak Temple was no less important. This is where the young scientist’s path to science began. In 1929, even before graduating from the University, Boris Borisovich was hired as a junior researcher at the Academy of the History of Material Culture. It was then that his teachers N.Ya. Marr and I.A. Orbeli attracted the attention of the novice researcher to the still little-known state of Urartu, the monuments of which were discovered at that time only outside our country.
Having already had extensive field experience, Boris Borisovich in 1939 began excavations of the Karmir-Blur hill (the Urartian fortress of Teishebaini), which determined the main direction of his research for many years. Field work was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War, and processing and comprehension of the extracted materials continued in besieged Leningrad. Here he remained, since the partisan detachment, which included B.B. Piotrovsky, was disbanded, and he was appointed head of the fire-fighting team of the MPVO of the Hermitage, on whose staff he had worked since 1931. Boris Borisovich was very worried that all the materials, mined before the war may die in besieged Leningrad. Therefore, work on the monograph “History and Culture of Urartu” became his main goal at this time. It was completed and published in Yerevan in 1944 and in the same year defended as a doctoral dissertation, which immediately promoted him to the ranks of leading archaeologists. This research opened a new direction in Russian archeology and Urartian studies. It fully realized the excellent qualities of the scientist - his talent and high professionalism. And it is not surprising that already at the age of 37 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR (1945).
Soon after the war, reports on the ongoing excavations of Karmir-Blur quickly began to be published - Boris Borisovich considered it necessary to quickly convey to researchers the results of his discoveries, even before his final generalizations. The books “The Kingdom of Van” (1959) and “The Art of Urartu” (1962) became a brilliant conclusion to the study of Urartian monuments. In them, based on the analysis of the latest unique archaeological materials, written sources, a deep understanding of the history and art of the Ancient East, many pages of the history and culture of Urartu were essentially recreated for the first time. The researcher was able to largely understand the role and place of the state of Urartu in the context of the history of the Ancient East. No wonder “The Kingdom of Van” was published in many countries (Italy, England, Germany, USA, etc.). These studies played a big role in the study of the problems of Armenian ethnogenesis and the connections between the Urartian and Armenian ethnic groups. The materials obtained during the excavations became the basis for the creation of an exhibition on the culture of Urartu in the Hermitage and the Museum of the History of Armenia, and the excavations themselves became a standard in Middle Eastern archeology.
Boris Borisovich's research in Armenia had another very important aspect. Karmir-Blur became the center of archaeological research in Transcaucasia for many years. It was here, under his leadership, that the School of Archaeologists of Armenia was created. Many archaeologists of Leningrad and other cities of the Soviet Union began their scientific career here.
The history of Urartu is not the only research topic of B.B. Piotrovsky. Based on a course taught at the Faculty of History of Leningrad State University, in 1949 he published the book “Archaeology of Transcaucasia”, from which many generations of archaeologists, historians, and ethnographers studied. It is surprising that at its core it is not outdated and can only be supplemented by new facts. Among other problems that constantly interested Boris Borisovich were questions of the origin of Scythian art and its connection with the culture of Urartu and Western Asia, and questions of the development and role of cattle breeding in the history of society.
B. B. Piotrovsky carried his love for Egyptology throughout his life. In the early 60s, his youthful dream came true - he went to Egypt, where he headed the Soviet archaeological expedition to save the monuments of Nubia, which worked in the flood zone of the Aswan Dam. The expedition explored the ancient route to the gold mines of Wadi Allaqi. The result of this work was the book “Wadi Allaqi - the path to the gold mines of Nubia” (1983). Nubian collections, the only ones in the USSR, also replenished the Hermitage funds.
In Egypt, Boris Borisovich studied the treasures of Tutankhamun, which led him to interesting discoveries: some of the objects were made of Nubian gold, the path to which lay through Wadi Allaqi; he also raised the question that among the things found in the tomb were gifts from foreign rulers.
And who doesn’t know his article “Ancient Egyptian objects found on the territory of the Soviet Union,” which retains the significance of the main general summary to this day.
A wide range of research, excellent knowledge of the Hermitage collections, love for things and the ability to “see” them led B. B. Piotrovsky to understand and comprehend the general issues of the development process and the interrelationships of cultures, which he constantly spoke about in his scientific reports, at the openings of exhibitions and just in personal conversations. That is why Boris Borisovich deservedly headed the Scientific Council on Complex Problems of the History of World Culture of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
It is unthinkable to provide in this short article a list of all the positions and titles of B.B. Piotrovsky. Let us recall only the main ones: from 1953 to 1964 - head of the Leningrad Academy of Arts, from 1964 - director of the Hermitage; since 1957 he has been a member of the editorial board of the journal “Soviet Archeology”; since 1968 he has permanently headed the Department of Ancient Oriental Studies at Leningrad State University; he is the chairman of the LO All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, a member of the International Council of Museums; Academician of the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1968) and the USSR Academy of Sciences (1970), member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1980-1985), in 1983 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He was elected corresponding member, honorary member, honorary doctor, foreign member of many Academies, archaeological and art history institutes and societies in different countries: India, England, Germany, Egypt, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, USA.
Of the 82 years of his life, more than 60 B. B. Piotrovsky was associated with the Hermitage, where he began as a student student, was a junior and senior researcher, head of the Department of Oriental Studies, deputy director for science, and headed the Hermitage for 26 years, continuing the brilliant galaxy of its directors . He knew well all the various types of museum work, participated in the creation of many exhibitions, naturally, played an active role in the scientific work of the museum, was the editor of a number of Hermitage publications, the executive editor of the “Archaeological Collection”, from its 17th issue.
The expansion of cultural international ties of the country, and therefore of the Hermitage, occurred mainly during the directorship of Boris Borisovich, who took an active part in this, organizing various international exhibitions that introduced visitors to the Hermitage to the culture and art of many peoples. The treasures of more than one museum in the world were opened to Soviet people thanks to B.B. Piotrovsky. Let us at least remember “Treasures of the Tomb of Tutankhamun”, on the organization of which he spent a lot of effort and himself wrote a guidebook for it. And how many times did he open exhibitions “Gold of the Scythians” in different countries, to the catalogs of which he wrote introductory articles.
Numerous business trips abroad were associated not only with the opening of various exhibitions or negotiations about them, but also with speeches and reports, lectures that invariably attracted the attention of scientists and the general public. And 24 episodes of a television film about the Hermitage with the direct participation of B.B. Piotrovsky brought the Hermitage closer to people living in “the most remote corners of our country, who recognized and fell in love with Boris Borisovich.
From his youth, Boris Borisovich was fond of drawing and he kept many notebooks in which he not only described in detail his travels, impressions, meetings with people, but also accompanied them with his
amazing elegant light laconic drawings. Everyone who knew him closely is familiar with his manner of constantly drawing something, including cartoons, accompanying them with his own poems.
Remembering the role the Hermitage played for him in his adolescence, B.B. Piotrovsky loved to communicate with children, visited the Hermitage school office, and understood the enormous importance of this aspect of raising children.
But this world-famous scientist, who held the position of director of such a museum as the Hermitage, also had to solve basic production and technical issues. Perhaps the main one was the work to begin the reconstruction of the gradually collapsing museum buildings. It was B.B. Pitorovsky who managed to secure the allocation of the necessary currency to conclude an agreement with a foreign company that was reconstructing one of the buildings of the Hermitage Theater. Unfortunately, Boris Borisovich did not wait for its opening.
Huge busyness did not allow Boris Borisovich to complete all his scientific plans. They remained in his archives, his notebooks, unfinished works.
There is a famous saying: “If you want to know a person, make him your boss.” B.B. Piotrovsky was a boss for a long time, and not a small one, but above all, he remained a man. His office had three doors. They were open not only to countless foreign delegations, foreign and Soviet scientists, representatives of various museums, which is natural for the director of the Hermitage, but also to all employees and visitors.
And he patiently listened to everyone, and the lower a person’s “rank” was, the more likely he was to be listened to. And both his own and outsiders turned to him with so many troubles and requests! Of course, he could not help everyone, and this always upset him; He didn’t agree with everyone, but it was possible to argue with him, and argue on an equal footing...
Boris Borisovich was surprisingly kind to people, simple and democratic in his manners - the director of the Hermitage was from the old St. Petersburg intelligentsia.
Having held administrative positions for many years, Boris Borisovich repeatedly found himself in difficult situations caused by the difficulties and vicissitudes of political life in past years. And he always showed wisdom, tried not to aggravate the situation, not to create an atmosphere of persecution and persecution.
Thus, during the period when departures abroad began, there were no meetings or public condemnations in the Hermitage, which everyone knows quite well about.
The Hermitage was the main home of Boris Borisovich, he remained there forever, and I would like to believe that the best Hermitage traditions, which he tried so hard to preserve, will remain here in the future.
State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad
N. G. Gorbunova, K. V. Kasparova. K. X. Kushnareva, G. I. Smirnova
The outstanding scientist, long-time director of the Hermitage Boris Piotrovsky passed away on October 15, 1990.
Boris Borisovich was on guard of the museum in its most difficult times - during the war and the blockade. And then, over the course of 25 years, he increased the museum’s collections and preserved its age-old traditions.
World sensation
Boris Piotrovsky has been interested in history since childhood. He was especially attracted to ancient Egypt. Over the years, this boyish passion gave the world an outstanding archaeologist and scientist. Boris Piotrovsky spent his entire life in the Hermitage. He probably knew this huge museum by heart. For a quarter of a century he was its main custodian.
Boris Piotrovsky first appeared in the Hermitage as a teenager, in those years when the head of the museum at that time, Joseph Orbeli, created the Oriental Department here. Boris became “sick” of these halls, antiquity, history and decided to stay. He was then barely 16 years old. It was the 1920s, a new system was emerging around us, many communists believed that Soviet Russia did not need a bourgeois history.
There were also attacks on the Hermitage. The museum's curators tried to prove to the new government that culture is more important to history than wars and revolutions. Piotrovsky also viewed the historical process as the development of a culture that preserves eternal values and passes them on through generations.
In 1925, Boris entered Leningrad University at the Faculty of History and Linguistics. Brilliant mentors taught there, the greatest scientists of that time, who instilled in the youth a love for subjects. Soviet science will rely on these people in the future. In 1930, 21-year-old Piotrovsky left on his first expedition to Armenia. The tasks of the expedition included searching and studying traces of the Urartian civilization. At the same time, Piotrovsky began working at the Hermitage as a junior researcher.
Only by miracle did the young scientist escape Stalin's camps. In 1935, he and his comrades were detained and taken into custody on charges of terrorist activities. He spent a month and a half in a cell and was released due to the lack of proof of the charges. Having been released, he went to court and got him reinstated at work.
Expeditions to the Caucasus continued, Piotrovsky walked the Caucasian roads for nine years, studied history, but no traces of the ancient civilization of Urartu could be found. Finally, luck turned to the scientist. In 1939, he and his colleagues found the ruins of an ancient Urartian fortress. It was a world archaeological sensation of the 20th century; historians around the world started talking about the discovery of Boris Piotrovsky. Each year of excavations of the Urartian fortress brought unique finds. Once, historians dug up a bronze figurine of Teisheb, the Urartian god of war. It was June 1941...
Guarding values
The news of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found Piotrovsky on an expedition, and work was immediately curtailed. He immediately rushed to Leningrad. In the Hermitage I saw ruined halls; the museum’s collections were being prepared for evacuation. Two special trains left for Sverdlovsk, preparing to send valuables with the third echelon. But the Hermitage workers were late, and a blockade closed around Leningrad. During the bombing, museum workers were on duty on the roofs, extinguishing lighters. They practically lived in the museum, staying within the historical walls around the clock. During that terrible and frosty winter of the siege, Boris Borisovich wrote the book “History and Culture of Urartu.”
In March 1942, Orbeli literally forced Piotrovsky to evacuate to Yerevan and thereby saved the young scientist from starvation. There the historian continued to write his work, defended his doctoral dissertation, and received the Stalin Prize. The book brought the author fame as one of the greatest specialists in the history of Transcaucasia. By the way, Stalin enjoyed reading Piotrovsky’s book about the history of Urartu.
Boris Piotrovsky helped save the museum during the siege. Photo: www.russianlook.com
In 1964, Boris Borisovich became director of the Hermitage. Shortly before this, Mikhail Artamonov was removed from his post because he allowed an exhibition of young avant-garde artists Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov to be held at the museum. A scandal occurred, provocative and incomprehensible paintings were removed from the halls of the Hermitage, and the director of the museum was fired. Piotrovsky refused to accept this position for a long time; he considered it indecent to occupy the director’s chair in this way. But Artamonov himself asked Boris Borisovich to accept the Hermitage; they both understood that otherwise a party functionary who knew nothing about history would be appointed to lead the museum.
For 25 years, Piotrovsky headed the State Hermitage. Under him, a new era of the great collection began, and the storage facilities were rebuilt. Piotrovsky painstakingly compiled lists of masterpieces of art lost in the 1930s. At that time, the country needed machines and weapons, so many works of art were sold abroad. Under Piotrovsky, the Hermitage became the calling card of the country. Unique exhibitions from many museums around the world began to arrive on the banks of the Neva.
In 1985, a terrible tragedy occurred in the Hermitage. The criminal doused Rembrandt's painting "Danae" with acid and cut it with a knife. The battle for the Danae lasted 12 years, which may have affected the health of the museum director. The restored painting returned to the hall only in October 1997, but Boris Borisovich no longer saw it.
Piotrovsky died in 1990 at the age of 82 from a stroke. An entire era in the life of the Hermitage passed away with him.
