Pavel Shchegolev

Born Apr. 5 (17), 1877, in the village of Verkhniaia Katukovka, in what is now Panino Raion, Voronezh Oblast; died Jan. 22, 1931, in Leningrad. Soviet literary scholar and historian.

In 1895, Shchegolev enrolled in the faculty of Oriental languages at the University of St. Petersburg. He was expelled in 1899, however, for taking part in student demonstrations. In 1903 his work Vladimir Raevskii: The First Decembrist appeared in print, and in 1905 Griboedov and the Decembrists was published. In 1906 and 1907, Shchegolev, together with V. Ia. Bogucharskii and V. L. Burtsev, published the journal Byloe, which dealt with revolutionary history, and in 1908 he helped edit the journal Minuvshie gody. Between 1905 and 1917, Shchegolev published the memoirs of the Decembrists M. A. Fonvizin, E. P. Obolenskii, V. I. Shteingel’, A. E. Rozen, and N. V. Basargin. The first edition of Shchegoiev’s well-known book The Duel and Death of Pushkin came out in 1916. In July 1917 he resumed publication of Byloe, and the journal continued to be published until 1926.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Shchegolev served on the Extraordinary Investigatory Commission of the Provisional Government and reviewed the archives of the Police Department. After the October Revolution of 1917, he published the collections of documents The Fall of the Tsarist Regime (vols. 1–7, 1924–27) and The Petrashevskii Circle (vols. 1–3, Moscow-Leningrad, 1926–27). An excellent textual critic and a specialist in sources, Shchegolev wrote a number of works that drew heavily on archival materials, including works on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia and studies on the life and works of A. S. Pushkin, A. S. Griboedov, and M. Iu. Lermontov.

In 1930 and 1931, Shchegolev was a member of the editorial committee for the publication of the first complete edition of Pushkin’s works to be issued in the Soviet period; the works were published in six volumes. In the 1920’s he collaborated with A. N. Tolstoy in writing the plays Azef and The Conspiracy of the Empress. Together with O. D. Forsh, he wrote the scenario for the motion picture The Palace and the Fortress. Shchegolev was one of the founders of the Museum of the Revolution in Leningrad.