Alexander Dmitrev

Alexander Dmitrievich Dmitrev (Russian: Александр Дмитриевич Дмитрев; 1888, Kiev – on the night of September 19 to 20, 1962, Rostov-on-Don) was a Soviet historian, researcher of popular movements in the Roman Empire, religious scholar, Doktor of Historical Sciences, professor.

Dmitrev was born into a teacher's family. His father was a teacher of the ancient Greek language. In 1909 he entered the historical department of the Kiev Theological Academy. After graduating from the academy in 1913, he was left as a professor scholarship holder at the department of church law and was awarded the degree of Candidate of Theology with the right to obtain a Master's degree in Theology without new oral tests. But instead of staying at the academy, with the permission of the Holy Synod, he was sent as a professor scholarship holder (graduate student) to the Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople. Here, under the guidance of the prominent Byzantologist academician Fyodor Uspensky, Dmitrev began to deal with the problems of antiquity and early Byzantium. Alexander Dmitrievich took part in scientific expeditions of the institute to Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece.

After returning from Istanbul, Dmitrev settled in Odessa, where he taught at gymnasiums, and after October 1917, at Soviet schools. At the same time he was an instructor of Public Education in the Odessa okrug. In 1922, Alexander Dmitrievich moved to Kiev. There he worked as an instructor of the Water Transport Administration, lecturer in university training courses, and an instructor in Public Education. In 1929, Dmitrev became a researcher at the Byzantological Commission of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He prepared an annotated bibliography and developed a number of topics on the socio-economic history of Byzantium. At the same time, Dmitrev began literary anti-religious work in Moscow publishing houses. In 1929, the first printed work of Dmitrev was published, devoted to the question of the historicity of Christ. At this time, he wrote several deep works on anti-religious topics, based on a wide source base. In 1932, he moved to Moscow and became a researcher at the Moscow Regional Archival Administration and the Moscow Historical Library. A kind of tribute to the history of native Ukraine was the publication of three brochures on the class struggle in Ukraine in the XXVII-XVIII centuries. In 1936, the People's Commissariat for Education sent Dmitrev an assistant professor at the Stalingrad Pedagogical Institute, where he was elected head of the department of the history of the ancient world and the Middle Ages. In this position, he worked until the evacuation of the institute in 1942. During the evacuation, Alexander lost all his property, including his personal library, about which he lamented until the end of his days. In evacuation, he worked in Buguruslan as an assistant professor of the Department of Ancient History at the Teacher Institute. Here Dmitrev completed work on his Candidate of Sciences thesis and defended it in 1943 at Leningrad State University, which at that time was evacuated to Saratov. In the same year, he transferred to work at the Saratov Pedagogical Institute, but the very next year the People's Commissariat of Education sent him to work in Nalchik at the Kabarda Pedagogical Institute. After working a year in Nalchik in 1945, he moved to Rostov-on-Don, but again a year later in 1946 he was seconded to the University of Chernivtsi by the order of the Ministry of Higher Education as head of the department. In the 40s in the «Journal of Ancient History» a whole series of his publications appeared on the social movements of bagaudae, bucolics, agonistici, etc. In the period from 1943 to 1950, Alexander Dmitriev worked on his doctoral dissertation on the topic «Social Movements in the Roman Empire in Connection with the Invasion of the Barbarians» (Russian: «Социальные движения в Римской империи в связи с вторжением варваров»).March 27, 1950 at the Academic Council of Leningrad State University, he defended his doctoral dissertation. Dmitrev knew, besides the ancient Greek and Latin languages, English, German and French, not to mention native Ukrainian. Dmitrev actively participated in the preparation of the 2nd edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: he wrote more than a dozen articles on the history of Rome. In July 1951, Dmitrev moved to Rostov-on-Don and was elected head of the Department of General History of Rostov State University and became the first and at the same time the only professor at the university. In 1960, he was already seriously ill with cancer and therefore resigned as head of the department. Before his death, he was bedridden. Dmitrev is buried in the Brethren Cemetery.