A Historian and a Philanthropist: On the History of Relations Between Vasily Semevsky and Innokenty Sibiryakov

The article focuses on a multi-aspect examination of the relationship between Vasily Semevsky, a prominent Narodnik historian, and Innokenty Sibiryakov, a millionaire philanthropist from Irkutsk, over a span of a decade and a half (early 1880s - mid-1890s). To achieve this aim, various types of published and archival sources were used. The source basis of the study consists of documents of personal origin, clerical documentation, and periodicals. The author of the article employed the method of historical and biographical reconstruction, which allowed identifying the spatial and temporal boundaries of Sibiryakov and Semevsky's relationship; the historical and genetic method, which allowed exploring the personalities of the men in the development of their interaction and identifying qualitative changes; the method of behaviorism, which allowed penetrating into the men's inner world by modeling the motivation of their actions. Initially, the author dwelt on the nature and circumstances of Semevsky and Sibiryakov's acquaintance, which could take place in St. Petersburg University or in the apartment of Nikolay Yadrintsev, a famous publicist. The key event that determined the intensity and content of their interaction was the conclusion of a contract between Sibiryakov and Semevsky in 1885: the latter was to compile a description of the living conditions of workers in the Siberian gold fields. Doing this research, Semevsky made a six-month trip to Siberia to collect the missing material in 1891. Sibiryakov generously financed this trip. Since 1886 editorial and publishing activities connected Semevsky and Sibiryakov. The former prepared a series of reviews of scientific and popular science books on the history of Siberia. A significant part of the correspondence between Sibiryakov and Semevsky, preserved in the personal fund of the historian in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is devoted to the preparation of the two-volume book Rabochie na Sibirskikh Zolotykh Priiskakh [Workers in the Siberian Gold Fields]. In 1893-1894, Semevsky participated in the elaboration and promotion of the project "Regulation on the Fund named after Mikhail Sibiryakov" intended to support workers injured in the Siberian gold mines. The philanthropist donated 410 thousand rubles to it. The work on this regulation coincided with accusations against Sibiryakov in mental insanity and excessive waste. The cooling of relations between the researcher and the young patron took place against the background of the religious exaltation of the latter: Sibiryakov became a monk. Semevsky's book Rabochie na Sibirskikh Zolotykh Priiskakh was published in 1898 when Innokenty Sibiryakov was in a monastery in Mount Athos.

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