Vyacheslav Kamburov and Ferdinand Tonnies: Unknown Fragments of Scien tific Contacts

German archives contain a letter from Vyacheslav G. Kamburov (1874-1906), a privat-docent of Kiev University, then a professor of Tomsk University, to Ferdinand Tonnies (1955-1936), the patriarch of German sociology and social philosopher, a major expert in the ideological heritage of the English social philosopher and theorist of state power Thomas Hobbes, with an enclosed business card of Maksim M. Kovalevsky (18511916), a Russian sociologist, historian, lawyer and public figure. The study of the circumstances of this written address reveals unknown fragments of contacts between the scientists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These fragments have historical and scientific significance, for they essentially complement in essence Kovalevsky's memoirs, as well as the memoirs of his research secretary, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968). Kovalevsky and Tonnies met personally at the first congress of the International Institute of Sociology (1 to 9 September 1894). Tonnies praised Kovalevsky's report on the collapse of traditional social relations in the Russian society. They also talked about Tonnies's studies of Hobbes's legal doctrine. Knowing Tonnies personally, Kovalevsky supported Kamburov's written appeal to the German philosopher for scientific advice. Kamburov's letter of 17 February1903 came from Paris (where Kamburov met Kovalevsky, who was lecturing at the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences (19001905) at the time). The comparison of the major research questions posed in the letter, the content of Kamburov's introductory university lecture (1900), his subsequent book on Hobbes (1906), and Tonnies's essay on Hobbes (1894) confirms that Kamburov used Tonnies's recommendations on the questions. This circumstance contributed to Kamburov's formation as one of the major experts in the philosophical and legal doctrine of Hobbes in Russia. The published letter also testifies to the gradual strengthening of ties between Russian and German social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was changing the orientation in sociology to the teachings of its founders, Comte and Spencer.

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