Arbitration Court on Tomsk Burial Ground

This paper describes the history and research of Tomsk Burial Ground by A.V. Andrianov and S.K. Kuznetzov in 1887 and 1889. The sources used are: the Russian State Literature and Arts Archive, the State Russian Archive of Ancient Acts, the RAS Material Culture Historical Institute Manuscript Archive. This paper publishes correspondence of A.V. Andrianov and S.K. Kuznetzov with the Imperial Archaeological Commission, letters of A.A. Bobrinsky to both researchers, and to the Governor of Tomsk. Historical records lead to the assumption that but for A.V. Andrianov, D.A. Klemenets and S.K. Kusnetsov took part in the burial ground research starting from April 1887; they specify archaeological sites and burial ground topography and characterize scientific grounds for both scientists, relevance of their field work methods, to understand the reasons that prevented full publications of research materials. The paper thoroughly explains the motives that lead conflicting parties to the unique way in Russian Archeology to solve a research conflict - by mutual claims consideration in the Arbitration Court, which actions were regulated by The Civil Record Rules. The Arbitration Court composition, which was to solve the professional archaeological argument, is described. The example of the conflict between two Tomsk scholars to be the pioneer and researcher of the unique archaeological monument shows the state of affairs in the sphere of archaeological legacy protection and management in Russia in 1880s. The fact that the university city corporation was involved and the Arbitration Court was used to judge a specific archaeological argument confirms that the country had no effective system regulating field archaeological activities. The Imperial Archeological Commission that claimed to be the sole entity to issue open warrants for archaeological operations, could not resolve the argument between A.V. Andrianov and S.K. Kuznetzov. The Chairman of the Commission had distanced himself from conflict resolution and gave his power to solve the issue to the local authority on behalf of Tomsk Governor. A.V. Andrianov and S.K. Kuznetzov saw the Archeological Commission as one of the scientific authorities along with Moscow and Finno-Ugric societies. They did not consider the Archeological Commission as the central state body regulating researchers' right to perform archaeological operations and define field methods.

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