Bychkov, Afanasii Fedorovich

Born Dec. 15 (27), 1818, in Fredrikshamn (now Hamina), Finland; died Apr. 2 (14), 1899, in St. Petersburg. Russian paleographer; academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1869).

Bychkov graduated from Moscow University in 1840 and worked at the Commission on the Study of Ancient Texts; he was business manager of the commission from 1865 to 1873 and chairman from 1891 until the end of his life. In 1844 he became curator of the Division of Manuscripts and Early Printed Slavic Books of the Public Library in St. Petersburg and was director of the library from 1882 until 1899. After 1893, Bychkov was chairman of the Academy of Sciences’ Division of Russian Language, Philology, and Literature.

Bychkov analyzed and described the content of ancient Russian and south Slavic manuscripts. He has published and described numerous ancient classics of Russian literature. He wrote on Russian history and the history of literature, including I. A. Krylov, V. A. Zhukovskii, A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, and A. P. Chekhov. Bychkov continued publishing the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles and was instrumental in the publication of Letters and Papers of Peter the Great (vols. 1-4, 1887-1900) and of many other materials on Russian history. Bychkov also did research in lexicography, numismatics, and archaeology.