Boris Petrovich Polevoy
Boris Petrovich Polevoy, also Polevoi (
Biography
Boris Polevoy was born in
The Polevoys returned to Saint Petersburg, renamed Leningrad, in 1928. Boris entered
Boris received a health-based draft deferment, and spent a few months teaching school in Western Siberia and advising the
Polevoy started his teaching career in February 1944, teaching history first at Sverdlovsk School of Music, and later at the History Department of Ural State University.
In October 1945 Boris Polevoy was finally able to enter graduate school at the History Department of
It was then, in 1953, that the unemployed historian started conducting research of his own in Russian archives, studying the history of Russia's expansion into the Pacific Region - the provinces now commonly known as the Russian Far East - during the 17th through 19th centuries. It remained the area of his interests for the rest of his research career. The next year (1954), he became affiliated with the Russian Geographical Society - an affiliation which also continued to be important for him for the rest of his life.
B.P. Polevoy was able to defend his
Over his career, B.P. Polevoy was the author of over 300 publications, including ten books. His publications concerned the history of Russian exploration in the
While comparatively little of Polevoy's work is available in English, he contributed (together with Elena Okladnikova) a section on "Historical Accounts of Mapmaking" in the "Traditional Cartography in Arctic and Subarctic Eurasia" chapter of The History of Cartography (in volume 2, book 3; edited by David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis).[3][4]
The Amur Valley
One of major topics of B.P. Polevoy's research was the Russians'
The Duchers
One of the issues B.P. Polevoy weighed in on was the identity of the somewhat enigmatic
Location of the 17th century Cossack sites on the Amur
Another problem often discussed in the Russian literature on the history of the Amur valley region is the location of various ostrogs (forts, or sometimes just slightly fortified winter camps) built by the raiders of
B.P. Polevoy's view appeared to gain wide support among the Russian geographer community; petitioned by the Amur Branch of the Russian Geographical Society, the Russian Government renamed the village of Odzhal to Achan in 1977, to celebrate its connection with Khabarov's raid. Polevoy himself considered the renaming somewhat pointless, however, since from his point of view Khabarov's "Achan" was simply a corruption of the clan name, which was already reflected in the name of the village.[6]
As to the Cape Kyrma ruins, thought by Maack to be the remains of Achansk, B.P. Polevoy identified them as the remains of another ostrog - namely, Kosogorsky Ostrog, where Onufriy Stepanov stayed a few years later.[5]
Polyakov's Mutiny
A more important issue on which Polevoy made a contribution was that of the role of Yerofey Khabarov in the Russian expansion of the Amur basin in the 1650s. Practically since the "discovery" of Khabarov for the Russian reader by Russian archivists and journalists in 1840,[6][8] Khabarov was viewed by the Russian public mostly as a hero, early on becoming sort of a civil "patron saint" for the city of Khabarovsk, named in his honor.[6] When writing about the mutiny of one of Khabarov's lieutenants, yesaul Stepan Vasilyevich Polyakov, who with over a hundred followers refused to obey Khabarov in 1652, Russian and Soviet historians traditionally viewed the mutineers as merely "more anxious to plunder the natives than to fight the Chinese" - the point of view accepted by some Western authors as well.[9]
B.P. Polevoy, who devoted much of his work to the study of Khabarov's Amur raids, and published the "Denunciation Letter" (Izvetnaya gramota) written by the surviving Polyakov mutineers against Khabarov, viewed both Khabarov's role and the mutineers' motives differently.
Based on his study of Polyakov's "Denunciation Letter", and a number of other documents related to Khabarov's expedition of 1650-1653 and its aftermath, Polevoy called the traditional "veneration" (культ) of Khabarov "quite strange", and opined that if not for Khabarov's "mistakes" (which turned the
References
- Р. Л. Золотницкая (R. L. Zolotnitskaya), О. А. Красникова (O. A. Krasnikova). Памяти друга: Борис Петрович Полевой (1918–2002 гг.) (In Memory of a friend: Boris Petrovich Polevoy). Sankt-Peterburgsky Universitet, No, 3 (3625), 4 Feb 2003. (in Russian) (The main source for biographical data)
- А. П. Пирагис (A. P. Piragis), Краткая биография Б. П. Полевого (Short biography)
- ПОЛЕВОЙ Борис Петрович (Another short biography, in Novaya Kamchatskaya Pravda 2002. No. 4(318))
- ^ S.P. Krasheninnikov Prize awarded in 1997, "for the corpus of his research work on Kamchatka history" (премия имени С.П.Крашенинникова – «За совокупность трудов по истории изучения полуострова»); R.P. Zolotnitskaya (2003)
- ^
Polevoy, B.P. (December 1977). "SIBERIAN CARTOGRAPHY OF THE 17TH CENTURY AND THE PROBLEM OF THE "GREAT DRAUGHT"". Cartographica. 14 (2). University of Toronto Press. ISSN 0317-7173. Archived from the originalon 2013-01-29. (Including the translator's introduction)
- ISBN 0-226-90728-7.
- ^ The History of Cartography: Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. Edited by David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis. Table of Contents
- ^ a b Б.П. Полевой (B.P. Polevoy) О ПОДЛИННОМ МЕСТОПОЛОЖЕНИИ КОСОГОРСКОГО ОСТРОГА 50-Х гг. XVII ВЕКА (About the true location of the Kosogorsky Ostrog of the 1650s) (in Russian)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j B.P. Polevoy (Б.П. Полевой), Изветная челобитная С. В. Полякова 1653 г. и ее значение для археологов Приамурья (S.V. Polyakov's denouncing letter (1653), and its significance for the archaeologists of the Amur Valley), in: Русские первопроходцы на Дальнем Востоке в XVII-XIX вв. (Историко-археологические исследования) (First Russian explorers in the Far East in the 17th-19th centuries: Historical and archaeological research - B.P.Polevoy's preface to the document), vol. 2, Vladisvostok, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1995. (This article also contains references to Polevoy's earlier publications) (in Russian)
- ^ Бурыкин А. А. (Alexey Alexeyevich Burykin), Заметки об этнониме «чжурчжэни» и наименовании «чжурчжэньский язык». (Remarks about the ethnonym "Jurchens" and the term "Jurchen language") (in Russian)
- ^ "ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ АКТЫ О ПОДВИГАХ ЕРОФЕЯ ХАБАРОВА, НА АМУРЕ, В 1649-1651 ГГ. (Historical acts concerning Yerofei Khabarov's Amur exploits in 1649-1651)". Syn Otechestva (1). 1840.
- ISBN 0-8014-8922-9.
- ^ ЧЕЛОБИТНАЯ С. В. ПОЛЯКОВА И ЕГО СПУТНИКОВ О ПОВЕДЕНИИ Я. П. ХАБАРОВА НА АМУРЕ В 1650-1653 гг (The text of S.V.Polyakov's and his followers' complaint about Ya.P.Khabarov's conduct on the Amur in 1650-1653) (in Russian)