The archaeology of the Imperial Archaeological CommissionThe paucity of the sources regarding Russian archaeology becomes acute, at least
in the non-Russian literature, for the second half of the nineteenth century and
early years of the twentieth century, until the Soviet Revolution of 1917. It is
diYcult for the non-Russian historian of archaeology to determine the main
events taking place in the discipline, let alone the ideologies that informed
archaeologists and the extent to which these inXuenced their interpretations.
There was an Archeographical Commission set up in 1834 whose remit seems to
have been the collections amassed in expeditions. The commission was created
by the very powerful Count Sergei S. Uvarov (1786–1855), who was Minister of
Education between 1833 and 1849 (Whittaker 1984: 187). A descendant of this
seems to be the Imperial Archaeological Commission in 1859, set up during the
reign of Tsar Alexander II (r. 1855–81). Also at this time antiquities were,
seemingly for theWrst time, put on display in the New Hermitage, also called
the Imperial Museum, opened in 1852 (Norman 1997: 77). Both institutions
worked together closely. The members of the commission—a small group of
specialists—had their oYce at the Hermitage. Part of its remit was to determine
whether or not newly found ancient objects should be housed in the Imperial
Museum. This meant that many, if not most, of the holdings of today’s Oriental,
Archaeological and Antiquities Departments entered the institution at this time.
The commission also became involved in licensing digs, and in archaeological
publications (Norman 1997: 89).
These were years in which an interest in Slavic archaeology was on the
increase (Shnirelman 1996: 224–5), but this did not prevent the continuing
arrival of valuable ancient objects from the Russian colonized lands. Most
notably, as explained in the previous section, the archaeology of the Slavs and
that of the other ancient peoples was not completely separate in the narrative
being constructed on ancient peoples and the origins of the Russian nation.
Nineteenth-century Russian scholars followed the outline established a cen-
tury before by Lomonosov and the other historians. They, thus, regarded the
ancient Scythians and the other neighbouring tribes to the north of the
Caspian Sea towards Siberia as the glorious ancestors of the Slavs and,
therefore, of themselves. Yet, the acceptance of a nomad past for the Russian
people became separated from dealings with contemporary nomadic groups.
The civilized Russian was opposed to the savage nomad. A certain V. Vasiliev
wondered in 1878: ‘Will we ever understand that the nomad is an enemy of
both nature and civilization, that he is a destroyer of the wealth created only
[exclusively] by labours of the settled and agriculture?’ (in Batunsky 1987:
114, n. 37). Nomads encountered in the Caucasus, in Siberia and elsewhere
256 Colonial Archaeology