Olga M. Freidenberg, Aristid I. Dovatur, and the Department of Classics in Leningrad (translated by Sibil Gruntar Vilfan)

Abstract

Teaching classics was almost abandoned in Soviet Russia after 1917. The article touches upon the fates and scholarly careers of two heads of the Leningrad Department of Classics, revived in 1932 — Olga M. Freidenberg (1890–1955), who obtained her position by virtue of being a disciple of Nikolaj Marr but was anathematised for the same reason in the late 1940s, and Aristid I. Dovatur (1897–1982), who spent several years in Stalin’s labour camps and later got a chance to teach at university and resume his scholarly activities.