Sergei Platonov is a historian who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Most of his work is devoted to the study of the Time of Troubles. He was actively involved in the collection and publication of sources, archeography, published biographies of statesmen, wrote textbooks on the history of the Fatherland, which are popular to this day.
The biography of the famous historian Platonov began in 1860 in Chernigov. The child was born on August 9 in a family of immigrants from the capital. Fyodor Platonovich, father, worked in the provincial printing house. The whole family moved to St. Petersburg with his transfer to Northern Palmyra. There, the head of the family began managing the printing house of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and received the nobility.
Study time
The whole life and work of the historian turned out to be connected with St. Petersburg. From 1870 Sergei Fedorovich studied at the gymnasium. He was greatly influenced by an excellent teacher of literature. Platonov did not plan to link the future with history. He dreamed of a career as a writer. At eighteen, the young man became a student. He chose education at the Faculty of History and Philology of the University.
The young man was carried away by the lectures of V. I. Sergeevich and V. G. Vasilievsky. Bestuzhev-Ryumin recommended leaving the talented student at the department to prepare a dissertation. Platonov chose the Time of Troubles as the subject of his research, when a difficult economic situation began in the state.
The young historian worked selflessly. For the candidate's work, more than six dozen ancient Russian sources were studied. The research continued for eight years. To study all the documents, more than twenty archives in different cities were examined, the depositories of several monasteries were visited. In 1888 Platonov defended his master's degree, after which he became a privat-docent.
A year later, Sergei Fedorovich was a university professor. After publication, his work was awarded the Uvarov Prize, awarded for outstanding work on Russian history. After completing his studies, the historian began teaching. It lasted four decades. Initially, Platonov became a school teacher. In 1909 he published a history textbook.
Working by vocation
The twenty-three-year-old researcher began lecturing at the Higher Bestuzhev Courses for Women. He worked at the Pushkin Lyceum. From 1901 to 1905, he worked in the dean's office. The history courses developed by him were a success in educational institutions. In 1903, teaching began at the Higher Women's Pedagogical Institute. Then Sergei Fedorovich headed the institution. He developed it into a real complex, thoroughly completing it with auxiliary institutions.
Along with pedagogical work, Platonov was engaged in research. From the moment of the first publication, he was carried away by the search for the causes of the beginning of the feuds of the Time of Troubles and methods that helped to overcome the contradictions. A considerable contribution of the scientist to the development of science was not only a thorough study of archival materials, but also the publication of many valuable primary sources.
Platonov from 1894 became one of the members of the Archaeological Commission. The works of the learned historian brought him widespread fame. Sergei Fedorovich was elected a member of scientific societies in various cities. The activity peaked in the twenties of the last century.
In 1920 Platonov was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1925 he became the director of the Library, and from 1929 - the secretary of the humanitarian department of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The scientist headed the department of Slavic archeology, presided over numerous societies. He traveled a lot. The scientist visited Paris, was in Berlin.
Sergei Fedorovich published several works from the cycle of historical portraits. A number of his articles on the past of the Russian North have been published. A book about the country's early ties with the states of Western Europe "Moscow and the West in the 16th-17th centuries" has been published. The historian began writing a two-part work on the history of Russia.
Completion of activities
In the late twenties, Platonov was removed from work. Despite the problems, the scientist continued his large-scale work on the monograph. Sergei Fyodorovich spent almost two years in prison. At the end of the summer of 1931 he was sentenced to a three-year exile to Samara. Together with his daughters, the scientist settled on the outskirts of the city. The historian passed away in 1933, on January 10.
His full rehabilitation took place in the sixties. The scientist was reinstated in the academic rolls. Sergei Fedorovich in June 1885 officially became the husband of Nadezhda Nikolaevna Shamonina. From 1881 she studied at the Bestuzhev courses, where the scientist Platonov taught.
Nadezhda Nikolaevna made her feasible contribution to science by translating the works of ancient philosophers, became a biographer of Kokhanovskaya. For publications about the writer, Shamonina-Platonova was awarded the Akhmatov Prize from the Academy of Sciences.
The family had six children. At the Leningrad Technological Institute, the historian's only son, Mikhail, became a professor of chemistry. The daughters graduated from the Bestuzhev courses.
The scientific work of Sergei Fedorovich was of great importance. His monumental Essays on the History of the Troubles was the first work to give a comprehensive assessment of that period. Platonov's monographs combined thoroughness and consideration of multifactoriality.
The scientist understood that his task was to reflect the main moments of social history with a maximum of objectivity. His works are distinguished by clear clarity of presentation. Sergei Fedorovich carefully checked the sources, and did not copy the assumptions of his predecessors. Historical scholarship defines his work as particularly valuable.
