Mikhail Semevskii

Semevskii, Mikhail Ivanovich

 

Born Jan. 4 (16), 1837, in the village of Fedortsevo, Velikie Luki District, Pskov Province; died Mar. 9 (21), 1892, in Kronstadt. Russian historian, journalist, and public figure. Brother of V. I. Semevskii.

Semevskii graduated from the Constantine Cadet Corps in 1855. He was in military service until 1861 and served as a government official until 1882. He became an official in the St. Petersburg municipal government in 1877. In 1856, Semevskii began publishing articles on Russian history that dealt mainly with the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. He also contributed to publications issued by the Free Russian Printing House in London.

From 1870 to 1892, Semevskii published the historical journal Russkaia starina (Russian Antiquity). He searched intensively in provincial and family archives for documents suitable for publication in the journal, and also persuaded persons who had led lives of unusual interest to write their memoirs for Russkaia starina. Semevskii’s album Acquaintances (1888) contained brief autobiographies of 850 persons. He published the memoirs of A. T. Bolotov, Ia. P. Shakhovskoi, and E. Minikh, as well as memoirs and letters of Decembrists.

WORKS

Ocherki i rasskazy iz russkoi istorii XVIII v., 2nd ed., vols. 1–3. St. Petersburg, 1883–84.

REFERENCE

Timoshchuk, V. V. M. I. Semevskii, osnovatel’ i redaktor istoricheskogo zhurnala “Russkaia starina”‘: Ego zhizn’ i deiatel’nost’, 1837–1892. St. Petersburg, 1895. (Contains list of Semevskii’s works.)