The Impact of State Power on Archaeological Science in the Russian Empire

In this paper I examine the impact of politics on archaeological science during the Russian Empire. In particular, I focus on the how the state influenced both the forms and ways of organizing archaeological research in Russia and the choice of topics and areas of research during the aforementioned period. Two levels of analysis are considered. First, I examine the impact of Russian domestic policy on the organization of various Russian archaeological congresses, whose topics and venues were largely determined by the priorities of imperial national politics. Second, I analyze the impact of Russian foreign policy on the establishment of archaeological institutions in countries where Russian archaeological research was carried out, which comprised territories that coincided and correlated to Russia’s aims abroad, such as the Balkan States and Central and East Asia. The interaction between political power and archaeological science during the Russian Empire appeared in the personal views and attitudes of scientists, who were often guided by the interests of state ideology and policy. As my analysis seeks to demonstrate, the archaeological community was loyal to the powers in charge and supported the Russian Empire’s state doctrine. key wordS: Archaeology. Government agencies. Scientific societies. Russian Empire. Domestic policy. Foreign policy.

the russian State Archive of literature and Art, the russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, the russian State Military Historical Archive, the russian Empire Foreign policy Archive of the department of Foreign Affairs of the russian Federation, the Central State Historical Archive of ukraine, the Central Historical Archive of Moscow, the Central Historical Archive of Saint petersburg, the State Archive of the Vladimirskaya region, the State Archive of the Yaroslavskaya region, the Saint petersburg department of the Archive of the russian Academy of Sciences, the department of the writing and scientific archive of the State Historical Museum, the Manuscript department of the russian state library and the Manuscript department of the russian national library.

Archaeology and domestic policy in the
Russian Empire: the relationship of state power, archaeological organizations and scientific societies I will begin by briefly describing the origin and development of archaeological research in russia.the russian state paid attention to archaeological remains since the beginnings of the Empire (1721).This interest was first guided by mercantile ideas; by the 18 th -19 th centuries, archaeological research was being increasingly considered by russian society and the state power as a provider of valuables and a source for museum collections.
In this setting, the russian state began to affect the social interest in antiquities.In 1834 the Empire's Statistical Service, one of the main executors of the policy resolutions concerning antiquities, created a system of provincial statistical committees, the staff of which were state officials.Due to the ideas of statistics at this time, the staff of the committees studied local history.these committees heightened the interest in archaeological antiquities and organized archaeological research throughout the country; the main merit of these committees was the creation of an archaeological excavation service in the russian provinces.the contribution of statistical committees to scientific research as it is understood nowadays was modest.Nevertheless, there was something paradoxical going on with the development of provincial statistical committees: while these committees were the result of the state's aspirations for administrative centralization of all activities in the empire, at the same time these committees contributed to the organization of regional scientific associations and to the understanding of the importance of studying the «local motherland» and appealing to local problems of archaeology.

Introduction
Historians of archaeology in the 1980s began to be concerned with examining how certain political contexts influence the interpretation of archaeological data.the pioneering works by bruce G. trigger, Alain Schnapp and others set the agenda for this new history of archaeology, making 'nationalism' and 'imperialism' the two main topics of historiographical research at the end of the 20 th century (Schnapp 1977;trigger 1980, 1984;bray & Glover 1987).Since then, we have witnessed a veritable explosion of works that explore the impact of nationalism and colonialism on the practice of archaeology (e.g.Kohl & Fawcett 1995;díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996;Härke 2000;Kolh et al. 2007;díaz-Andreu 2007;Silberman 2010).In russia this topic has been the object of intense scrutiny by authors such as Alexandr Formozov (Формозов 1986, 2004, 2011), Nadezhda Platonova (Платонова 2010), Lev Klein (Клейн 2011) and Alexandr Smirnov (Смирнов 2011).
In the context of this research, this article explores how archaeology during the russian Empire was influenced by state power, how the scientific community was directed by state bureaucracy and influenced into the state system.The purpose of this research is to define the limits of state and social support of archaeology in the russian Empire.I offer an original approach by presenting a period of history for russian archaeology that is generally unknown by Western archaeologists, who have traditionally focused on the history of Soviet archaeology after the revolution.to begin the analysis, I will examine the interconnection of the development of russian archaeology with domestic and foreign policies of the Russian Empire.I will first focus on the example of russian archaeological conferences in order to examine the impact of domestic policies on russian archaeology.Second, through the lens of russian politics in the Middle East, I will examine the relationship between russian foreign policies and the practice of archaeology abroad.the basic attention is drawn to the events of the second half of the 19 th century through to the beginning of the 20 th century, the period of time when the specialization in science resulted in forming archaeology as an independent subject in russia.
My research is based on a number of historical sources, including several publications from the In the first half of the 19 th century, the combination of the empire's multi-ethnicity and those in power's ethnocentricity called into existence the concept of domestic Russia.This term defined the russian historical and cultural nucleus of the state, where the russian Empire originated; the Empire added suburbs with different ethnicities to the original mono-ethnic nucleus in hopes of imperial hegemony.
this dual perception of the empire territory by the power was reflected in the history of created institutions and societies.The first statistical committees were established by the government in the capital and central russian provinces; the same situation happened with the archival commissions, established by the government and created first in the central provinces.In this way, the government showed its priorities for gathering information and examining imperial spaces.In contrast, the first scientific societies, which were created before the reforms, appeared in Russian national suburbs, first of all in the baltic provinces and in the western areas.
different stimuli for the creation of government institutions and social associations are evident.When official powers were the initiators, institutions were created in central provinces of the empire.When scientific organizations were created by the educated society, they first appeared in Russian national suburbs.This happened first of all in the baltic provinces and western areas, where the stimulus was national motives, the intention to strengthen the national identity.
the multinational composition of the country was reflected in the existence of local national centers, alternative to the russian one.these centers were divided by intermediate territories, where there was a struggle for dominance between the imperial national source and local national aspirations.this process was most vivid in the western areas, which faced many conflicts between Russian and Polish cultural traditions; these conflicts were reflected in the work of local scientific societies and in the conducting of archaeological conferences.
the above highlights the connection between the domestic imperial geopolitics and the history of the creation and operation of scientific organizations and institutions concerning archaeology.
the department of National Education executed state regulation over the process of creating, establishing and operating scientific archaeological organizations in russia.there also existed a specialized administrative establishment -the Imperial Archeological Commission, established in 1859 under the department of the Imperial Court -the main aim of which was the state regulation and direction of field research and of the use of antiquities in the russian Scientific provincial archival commissions, which had been working for more than 30 years (since 1884 to 1918), became the successors of provincial statistical committees in the field of studying the archaeological antiquities and ancient history of provincial russia.these commissions were social and governmental institutions created by the department of Foreign Affairs and were responsible to the department of National Education.In the scientific sphere, these archival commissions were responsible to the Saint petersburg Archaeological Institute, which financed their work.The members of these commissions were not clerks, rather they were united by scientific interests.The main task of the commissions was the consolidation of provincial scientific intelligentsia, their main contribution being the routine collection of materials on a russian scope.
The development of these scientific archival commissions characterizes the growth of a social need for archaeology amongst a wide stratum of educated russian society.the transferring of archaeological research from the responsibility of government institutions (statistical committees) to social governmental archival commissions denoted the migration of provincial scientific life towards social associations.In the late 19 th -early 20 th century, this tendency resulted in the creation of regional archaeological scientific societies, which required the archaeological community to move to a higher scientific level of institutionalization.
The first scientific societies in Russia to deal with archaeology were created under universities, which were inside government institutions.the first operating scientific society to deal with archaeology was Moscow university's Society of History and russian Antiquities, established in 1804.the first society to mention archaeology in their charter was Kharkov university's Society of Sciences, established in 1812.Since 1817 the creation of scientific societies was concentrated in the Baltic and western russian provinces -in the national suburbs of the empire; by the middle of the century they began to also appear in the central provinces.In 1851 the russian Archaeological Society was established in Saint petersburg; one of the members of the imperial family was elected as the chairman of the society.
The flourishing of work by scientific archaeological societies happened during the reforms of 1861, when domestic policy was liberalized in the russian Empire.the Moscow Archaeological Society was created in 1864 and other societies appeared afterwards; scientific societies became especially popular in the last quarter of the 19 th -early 20 th century.
of the provincial statistical committees and the formation of provincial scientific archival commissions.the constitution of russian archaeology as a scientific discipline at the end of the 19 th century engendered the creation of different archaeological societies.In the course of this process, the organization of archaeological science in russia moved from the sphere of public institutions to the area of public scientific associations.

Archaeological congresses and the domestic policy of the Russian Empire
the most impressive phenomenon in the history of russian archaeology during the post-reform times was the conducting of russian archaeological congresses.The idea of holding congresses was first suggested in 1864 by Alexey Sergeyevich uvarov, the Chairman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, which had been established earlier that year.the Moscow Archaeological Society organized fifteen congresses, which were held in different towns of the empire every three years from 1869 to 1911.
the form of organization of archaeological science, which was new to russia, drew great attention from the government.While preparing each congress, it was necessary to coordinate their rules with the program of the department of National Education, the Imperial Chancellery and the department of Foreign Affairs.The final permission for holding a congress was given by the emperor.Under the influence of the Russian government, it was accorded that the programs for the archaeological congresses had to be exclusively restricted to scientific questions and that only specialists could take part in the discussions.In other words, the russian government sought to avoid discussions on any burning political issues.
The influence of state doctrines was reflected in the way congresses were held.Firstly, the government interpreted this imperial national matter as a political problem. the national state model was actively formed during the reign of Alexander III (1881-1894).It included the consolidation and hegemony of the ethnic nucleus of the empire -the Great russians, the little russians and the belarusians -which was considered by the state to be a single Russian people.This fact was reflected in the extensive propagation of orthodoxy and the russian language.Attempts to strengthen other kinds of national identities -for instance, giving local national dialects the status of independent languages -was considered a threat to the basis of the state national system.
Empire. the striking feature of this archaeological committee was the absence of a clear structure.the Imperial Archaeological Commission was a governmental organization whose members dealt with different kinds of archaeological problems all around russia; however, russian senior clerks had only vague ideas about archaeology and about the direction of studying and saving the country's heritage.
the russian monarchs and the largest part of the state elite traditionally conceived of archaeology as a source of replenishment for the collection of antiquities; this conception was reflected in the Imperial Archaeological Commission's departmental subordination to, and its close relations with, the other department of the palace Ministry, the Imperial Hermitage.Nevertheless, the conception of archaeology that predominated in the Imperial Archaeological Commission was very close to the modern understanding of this science.
All functions of governmental control over archaeological antiquities were concentrated within the Imperial Archaeological Commission.In 1889 the Commission acquired the sole right to distribute state licenses for excavations on "the government, public and belonging to different institutions territories" and for the control over acquired antiquities.the system of such licenses is still used in russia today.
the russian emperors played a great role in the life of different russian archaeological organizations, which were financially and morally supported by members of the tsar's family.All russian monarchs were fond of antiquities, especially in the 19 th century; however, their focus was mainly on the collection of precious things, instead of the examination of different archaeological sources.
In the last quarter of the 19 th century the russian state recognized that the lack of specialists in archaeology was a problem.Since the early 19 th century, archaeology was present in russian university curricula, but only as a part of the history of art; there were no independent archaeological departments in universities.this problem was solved by non-government educational establishments that were privately sponsored: the first of these was the petersburg Archaeological Institute, established in 1878; the second was the Moscow Archaeological Institute, opened in 1907, which had many branches -in Smolensk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Vyatebsk, Yaroslavl, Kaluga and Voronezh.
In short, the russian state had paid attention to archaeological antiquities since the 15 th century, originally for mercantile reasons.A more scientific and academic concern with the past emerged in the 19 th century; this new interest led to the creation oral order, the ninth to fourteenth congresses were held in provinces in western areas and their frontiers, on the territory of combatting political and ethnic claims that existed between Moscow and petersburg on the one hand and Warsaw on the other hand.Since the second half of the 1890s there was struggle with ukrainophile tendencies.
during these congresses held in the western part of the empire the problem of russian territorial claims was brought up in arguments over language matter.there were discussions at these congresses about which languages and dialects were acceptable for usage.In the eastern and southern outlying districts of the empire, the government encouraged the use of local national languages; in the western part of the empire, great attention was given to the extensive use of the russian language.
the russian government intentionally supported archaeology; this is seen in the fact that they sponsored the archaeological congresses and their organizer, the Moscow Archaeological Society. the Moscow Archaeological Society sequentially executed directions received from the state authorities and was not ashamed to make decisions about orga-the correlation between the ideological priorities of these congresses and the state priorities in the sphere of national domestic policy, which was executed by the government in all parts of the empire, can be clearly seen in the analysis of the process of congress organization, the subject matter of reports and discussions, and the events that followed after the congresses.religious, orthodox subject matter dominated the first set of congresses, which were held in the eastern provinces of the empire (Kazan and Tiflis).During the next set of congresses, which were held in the western part of the empire (Kiev, Odessa, Vilna, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav and Chernigov), ethnic subject matter -the problem of russian identity -became the most important subject matter.this contrast coincides (and correlates) with the empire's change in domestic national policy, in which an originally dominating religious subject matter gave way to an ethnic one.
by the 1890s the authorities had realized the importance of archaeology for the promotion of state ideology and appreciated the opportunities provided by archaeological congresses to strengthen the imperial doctrine.According to Alexander III's derstood in a broad way.It includes not only the problem of the black Sea Straits, but also the establishment of russia in other regions of the Asian continent.this was the main and most extensive activity of foreign policy in the history of the russian Empire.russian foreign policy originally strived to access the black Sea; it later also became interested in the balkans and the Straits; in the second half of the 19 th century it focused on Central Asia and later still, farther to the east.

Russian archaeology in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans
the origin of russian archaeology is clearly connected with the conquest of the northern black Sea region.While the development of classical archaeology in the black Sea region was an impetus for the creation of the Imperial Archaeological Committee, political interests were also present.After conquering tauria, russia wanted to establish its right for possessing new lands, to find historical facts that proved the trace of an orthodox Slavic population living there.this explains the empire's great interest in the excavations of Chersonese, where according to "the Story of the passing Years," prince Vladimir was baptized.
The Russian scientific community made great efforts to develop its institutions beyond the imperial borders.It actively supported and tried to promote projects -such as the byzantine Empire studies, palestine studies and many other subjects -in order to understand their importance for russian archaeology.representatives of science realized political aspects in the work of foreign institutions and explained to the government that the leading role here was played not only by scientific interests, but also practical ones -the urge toward religious, political and economical prevalence in the East.
Greece, Italy and palestine possessed the necessary political and economic conditions for organizing scientific institutions; moreover, Russian archaeologists supported research in these territories.Such projects, however, could only be carried out when there was mutual interest between the government and the respective scientific society.Unfortunately, real state support in most cases was absent.Only in the European part of turkey did the interests of science and the russian state power coincide directly.ties with the byzantine Empire, a constant interest for Constantinople, run through the whole history of russian foreign policy.throughout all of russian history, the balkans have been the object of its foreign policy aims.the leading role of the russian Empire on this political theater had been beyond doubt for a long time; russian scientists were nizing congresses and defining lists of participants by means of secret correspondence with the department of Foreign Affairs and the department of National Education.Arguments did occur, however, between the Moscow Archaeological Society and the government when the Society tried to defend its departmental interests, such as the right to organize regional departments and to hold public readings.disagreements also occurred at times when directions came from the authority of local officials; a specific example of this was the congress in Vilno Cite.
State supervision became weaker by the beginning of the 20 th century and the conditions for organizing congresses were liberalized.this mostly concerned the language policy; however, it did not eliminate the constant control of power executed by the state.Archaeological congresses did their best to avoid evident politicization, even during the period of the revolution in 1905; nevertheless, some manifestations of politicization took place.despite the participation of the imperial power, organizers of congresses managed to distance themselves from discussions on social and political matters. the desire of avoiding political discussion, however, was a way of supporting the political establishment in Russia.(figure 1).
the government did not directly determine the work of archaeological congresses as a whole.In regards to the subject matter of reports and so on, the archaeological community, to some extent, developed according to its inner scientific goals and needs.the government did however exercise power daily to control the work of the archaeological community, especially when charters, regulations, policies etc. were being defined for congresses.In some cases, they quite obviously "corrected" documents and initiatives.
Organizers of congresses corresponded confidentially with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of National Education to put into practice what the state power indicated.Contradictions between organizers of congresses and the ministries arose when archaeologists tried to defend their professional interests -the right to organize regional offices for societies and to carry out public readings or congresses subordinated to local government, for example, as in Vilno.

Archaeology and foreign policy in the Russian Empire
this section is mainly devoted to analyzing the influence of the Middle East issue on the development of Russian archaeology.This influence is un-carried out on the initiative of the palestinian Society.Many famous russian scientists took part in these events.the archaeologist Nikodim pavlovich Kondakov held a special role; during his expedition he executed secret assignments for the palestinian Society so as to help strengthen the influence of the russian Orthodox Church in this region.

Russian archaeology in Northern and Central Asia
In the second half of the 19 th century the russian empire's foreign policy aims changed to a concentration on Western Turkestan.This influenced the Russian scientific community by heightening their interest in the antiquities of Central Asia.In the 1860s the russian Academy of Sciences and other Russian scientific societies turned to researching these territories.Archaeologists participated in both scientific and military expeditions.Scientists did not pay attention to the fact that the information they were supplying to the state was being used to solve expansion problems, yet the imperial expansionist aspirations and the scientific interests of the russian scientists coincided (and clearly correlated).
In the middle of the 1870s the first excavations in russian turkestan began, which were carried out by dilettanti, who were often military men.by the 1880s-90s russian science had gathered information about Asia's ancient monuments; it structured its interests in this field of archaeology by creating special committees in the structure of archaeological societies and a series of oriental periodicals.In 1880, the Office of Eastern Archaeology of the russian Archaeological Society was established in Saint petersburg along with its journal Notes.Similarly, in 1887 the East Commission of the Moscow Archaeological Society was created and began publishing Works.
The most prominent scientific organizations of the empire, however, were not persistent enough in carrying out independent research on territories that were newly joined to russia.For a long time the biggest part of antiquities collections and information was coming from officers and managers of Russian Turkestan (figure 2).Only later, in the middle of the 1890s when a community of intellectuals appeared in the new russian provinces of turkestan and connected their lives and interests with Central Asia, did scientific organizations come into being.The first of these was a study group of archaeologylovers focused on turkestan, which dedicated their studies to the ancient history of that region.this turkestani circle of archaeology fans was created in 1895 in tashkent.
among the best world specialists in the byzantine Empire and the archaeology of the southern Slavs.the wars between russia and turkey in 1828-1829 and 1877-1878 were a great stimulus for research of the balkans by russian scientists and military men.In the European part of turkey the political and scientific aspirations of Russia coincided, which resulted in 1894 in the organization of a unified Russian archaeological institution abroad, the russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople.
It is possible to trace the influence of the Russian Empire's political interests on the scientific work of the russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, which was established with the help of russian diplomacy.the archaeological research done by the institute was mostly directed to the study of Slavic antiquities in the balkans.the institute had a special Slavic department for this purpose and was a connecting center for scientists from bulgaria and Serbia.the imperial government used all possible kinds of scientific activity for promoting the Russian base in the Balkans.There were other scientific expeditions sent to the balkans besides the work of the russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople.the government's desire to look for "scientific evidence" supporting its political agenda was frequently the main reason for organizing these expeditions.the russian authorities tried (and failed) to organize an international association of balkan scientists, the union of Slavic Academies.the stages of organizing new forms of scientific activity and the periods of those activities often coincided with the foreign policy actions of the russian Empire, which aimed at strengthening the russian hegemony in the balkan part of Europe.
While the russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople researched the balkans, russian archaeology also paid attention to the region of Asia Minor, especially to the territories that were close to the imperial borders.russian diplomacy showed a great interest for archaeological research in the parts of Asia Minor that were strategically important for russia.
In palestine, the most important russian institution was the Imperial Orthodox palestinian Society.this society was formally public, but in reality was a public and government association.Created in 1882 for organizing religious pilgrimage, it conducted not only religious activities, but also educational and scientific ones.Diplomatic, military and research interests were combined in the life of the palestinian Society.
the enlargement of orthodox establishments and their land possessions was helped by the affirmation of the russian presence on the Holy land.One of the tools of this process was scientific expeditions In 1899 the twelfth congress of Orientalists was held in rome; it focused on the creation of an international society for studying eastern territories, which was created in 1903 with headquarters in St. petersburg.this congress carried out a resolution that gave priority to russian scientists in studying Eastern turkestan and internationally acknowledged their achievements so far.On the grounds of this resolution, The Russian Committee for Studying Northern and Central Asia in Historical, Linguistic, Archaeological and Ethnographic Aspects was created in 1903 and became one of the principal scientific organizations carrying out research of antiquities on these territories.
looking at the example of the balkans, one can see definite ties between Russian diplomatic aspirations and the direction of archaeological activities.likewise, the russian development of historical and archaeological research in the regions of Northern and Central Asia was connected to their policy of expansionism, which aimed at widening the imperial territory and its zone of economic influence.
In the 1890s the government's attention was concentrated on the territories of Eastern turkestan (Eastern China), which were situated farther east.At this time, and correlated to this political motive, the russian archaeological community showed much more interest in studying these territories.though expeditions organized by military and foreign affairs departments continued to give information on the ancient history of these territories, scientific expeditions became the main source of scientific information.Some of the representatives of the Russian scientific community linked the tasks of their historical research with strengthening hegemony on these territories.Military and reconnoitering missions were also carried out in the guise of archaeological research.Among them was the russian Colonel, Charles Gustav Mannergeym, who under the guise of a scientific archaeologist traveled to China from 1906-1908 (figure 3).Collections acquired by scientific expeditions in Eastern turkestan were demonstrated to the russian emperor.participants of expeditions that favored the empire's interests were awarded with grants.

Alexander Smirnov
The Impact of State Power on Archaeological Science in the Russian Empire state stimulation and scientific archaeological institutions were created in these territories, whereas other boundary countries were deprived of worthy scientific research.
Most russian scientists supported the empire's foreign policy aspirations by making historical facts available to the state and offering their interpretations leniently.Quite often scientists took direct part in the realization of imperial foreign policy actions.The similar unification was not the result of state-ordered implementation, and was quite conscious public and political position of scientists.

Some concluding thoughts
there was a close connection between the development of russian archaeology and the development of the russian Empire's political aspirations.russian archaeology developed tendencies that were oriented on territories that were of great interest for the russian Empire both domestically and abroad.First of all, we saw in the balkans that the correlation of governmental and scientific interests resulted in active archaeological research.russian research also developed on Caucasus, and russian and Chinese turkestan, while the study of the Far East was being developed less intensively.At the beginning of the 20 th century, russia was an authority in two historical sciences -the byzantine Empire studies and the studies of turkic peoples -which coincided with the principle direction of the imperial foreign policy at that time.
In the course of these political tendencies, specialized scientific archaeological institutions were created such as the russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople and the russian Committee for Studying Northern and Central Asia.both of these organizations worked under the department of Foreign Affairs.No other neighboring country got such an amount of attention or worthy scientific research, even though Russia's geographical location would assume the importance of studying Western Asia, persia, Afghanistan, India and other countries of the Asian continent.the absence of state interest resulted in the absence of scientific interest.
The scientific community actively supported the imperial foreign affairs acts, they often gave the state historical facts to be used by politicians as political arguments and they offered to mold their interpretations in respect to state aspirations.Such unity was not the result of the formal attitude, but it was an overall deliberate social and political attitude of scientists who shared the state doctrine.

Russian archaeology and other Oriental countries
As we have seen in the above, the empire promoted intense archaeological research in countries in which russia had political interests.the same cannot be said, however, of countries that, though being geographically close to russia, were not considered particularly important from a geopolitical viewpoint.russian archaeologists typically ignored places such as turkey, Central Asian Khanates, Chinese turkestan and persia.this attitude was related to the fact that the russian government was not interested in the expansion on these territories and thus did not carry out the systematic gathering of scientific historical information in these areas.
Such indifference to persia was a result of peaceful relations between russia and Iran, especially in the second half of the 19 th century; the absence of state interest explains the inertness of Russian scientific institutions in regards to the organization of expeditions in this country.A list of scientific trips to Persia carried out on the initiative of the russian Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations is not long.Specifically, the Russian government's confidence in the stability of relations between russia and persia can help explain why they refused the suggestion made by the French republic to take part in the persian expedition headed by a famous French archaeologist of the time, Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan.
As for North Africa and the Arabian peninsula, russian archaeologists in the imperial period did not collect extensive materials from these areas.there was no systematic research conducted between the Nile Vale and Mesopotamia, the importance of which for world archaeology had already been estimated.Similarly, there were very few scientific works on Afghanistan in Russian archaeology before the revolution.
Although many russian Orientalists understood the necessity of the thorough research of all Oriental countries and tried to intensify this, they did not succeed in their efforts because of the government indifference.the development of russian archaeology was connected with the political aspirations of the russian Empire.russian archaeologists studying countries adjacent to russia were in a two-way communication with the state and its foreign policy, and the balance clearly favoured the state interests.As a rule, the russian government aimed to direct archaeological science to study the countries that interested (and benefited) the state -a vizantinovedeniye -specifically in the Orient, the study of Central and East Asia.Scientists who directed their attention to these territories received