Ivan Afanasevich Bychkov

Born Aug. 19 (31), 1858, in St. Petersburg; died Mar. 23, 1944, in Leningrad. Soviet scholar, paleographer, and bibliographer; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences (1903); son of academician A. F. Bychkov.

Bychkov graduated from the law department of the University of St. Petersburg in 1880. In 1881 he became curator of the Division of Manuscripts of the Public Library (now called Saltykov-Shchedrin Library, Leningrad) and remained at this post to the end of his life. Continuing his father’s work, Bychkov published descriptions of manuscript collections of the Public Library and supplements to the collections in annual library Reports, participated in the work of the Commission on the Study of Ancient Texts (member of the commission since 1887), and continued the publication of Letters and Papers of Peter the Great (vols. 5-7). Bychkov published many materials on 19th-century Russian statesmen and writers, including V. A. Zhukovskii, M. A. Korf, A. S. Pushkin, and N. V. Gogol. He was a great expert on manuscript collections and on auxiliary historical disciplines. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, he remained in besieged Leningrad and participated in the collection of archives of dead or evacuated scholars.