Gulag survivor, world authority on Old Russian literature, moral conscience of late Soviet society
Solovki, autumn 1929. Warned that an arrest squad was coming for him, he hid all night among the woodpiles, listening to execution volleys. At dawn he understood: "Someone else was taken instead of me — I must now live for two."
Philologist and cultural historian from St. Petersburg. Arrested in 1928 for counter-revolutionary activity, he spent four years at Solovki camp. After release, he joined the Pushkin House, becoming the world's foremost authority on Old Russian literature. He led studies of The Tale of Igor's Campaign and edited the 12-volume Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'. Elected Academician in 1970, he served as first chairman of the Soviet Cultural Foundation (1986–1993). He never joined the Communist Party, opposed Sakharov's Academy expulsion, and was called 'Russia's conscience' while a People's Deputy during perestroika. In 1998 he became the first recipient of the restored Order of St. Andrew.
Career Timeline
- 1928–1932Arrested for counter-revolutionary activity; Solovki camp and Belbaltlag
- 1938Research fellow, IRLI (Pushkin House), USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1947Doctor of Philology
- 1953Corresponding Member, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1970Full Academician, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1986–1993Chairman, Soviet (later Russian) Cultural Foundation
- 1989–1991People's Deputy of the USSR
Related historical events
The Monuments of Ancient Rus' Literature and Philological Legacy
Likhachev's crowning scholarly achievement was the 12-volume series Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus' (Памятники литературы Древней Руси, 1978–1989), which he co-edited with L. A. Dmitriev and furnished with introductory essays. Spanning the 11th through 17th centuries, the series gathered the foundational texts of early Russian literature (chronicles, saints' lives, military tales, epistles, satire) with facing modern Russian translations, making them accessible to scholars and general readers alike. He had already laid the methodological groundwork in his 1962 Textology (Текстология), a treatise on textual criticism, and in his 1967 Poetics of Old Russian Literature he theorized the distinctive aesthetics of medieval literary forms: genre systems, artistic time and space, and the rhetoric of chronicle writing. That same year he lectured at Oxford, engaging Western Slavic studies. From 1997 he began editing a successor series, the Library of Literature of Ancient Rus' (Библиотека литературы Древней Руси), whose volumes continued appearing after his death. Together these projects amount to a monumental reclamation: they recast Old Russian literature not as a static medieval corpus but as a living cultural heritage demanding rigorous critical engagement.
Russia's Conscience During Perestroika: The Cultural Foundation and the People's Deputy
In November 1986 Likhachev was elected the first chairman of the newly created Soviet Cultural Foundation (renamed the Russian Cultural Foundation in 1991). The Foundation, a public body combining state funding with private donations, became his platform: he openly supported the return of the Solovetsky and Valaam monasteries to the Russian Orthodox Church, facilitated the repatriation of émigré cultural figures, and launched preservation projects for endangered heritage across the country. Under his leadership the Foundation opened branches throughout the USSR and began publishing the journal Nashe Nasledie (Our Heritage). Elected a People's Deputy of the USSR in 1989 on the Cultural Foundation's quota, he used the Congress to press for increased cultural funding. He had been one of the few Academicians who refused to sign the 1980 letter expelling Andrei Sakharov from the Academy of Sciences, and under glasnost he continued to speak with principled independence. In 1995 he drafted and promoted an international 'Declaration of the Rights of Culture,' elevating the protection of cultural heritage to the level of fundamental human rights. He never joined the Communist Party; he compromised with the Soviet system while using his moral authority to chip away at its coercive structures. He served as an informal advisor to Boris Yeltsin and to St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, and in 1993 became the first Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg. It was this record of public practice that earned him the name 'Russia's conscience' in the 1980s and 1990s.