Volkov, Nikolay Nikolayevich (1904-1953), a scholar

Subject / Ethnic culture/Personnel
Nikolay Nikolayevich Volkov (1904-1953) was a scientist-ethnographer. He graduated from the ethnography department of the geography faculty of the Leningrad State University (1930). In the period from 1931 to 1935 he was mobilized to work in the NKVD (People's Commissareat of Internal Affairs). Since 1935 he worked as a research worker of the Institute of Anthropology, Archaeology and Ethnography and the State Ethnography Museum. He took part in ethnographical expeditions, studied peoples of the North, North-West of the USSR and Crimian Autonomous SSR. In 1937 -38 he was dismissed from his position. In 1941 he volunteered for the army, was injured and taken prisoner. In 1945 he was liberated, worked as a junior researcher of the Ethnography Institute of the USSR Academy of Science, went on the expeditionary researches. In 1947 he became a Candidate of History. In 1947 N.N.Volkov was arrested and in 1948 he was convicted on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. He died in inprisonment in the Vyatka Work Camp (Lesnoye Settlement of the Kirov Oblast). He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1989. N.N.Volkov began the research work when he was a student. Firstly, he was occupied with studing the Skoptsy. In 1930 he made the monograph "Sekty skoptsov" ("Sects of the Skoptsy"), in 1937 - "Skopchestvo i sterilizatsia" ("Skoptsism and Sterilization"). During the ethnographical expeditions he collected some considerable material, including the material about the Veps of the Leningrad Oblast used for making the books "Narody SSSR" ("Peoples of the USSR") which wasn't published in connection of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. By 1947 he had made the study "Saamy SSSR" ("The Sami of the USSR", published in 1994). Under the influence of V.I.Ravdonikas he began to study the Veps. In the end of the 1930s - 1940s he made six expeditionary trips for studing Veps' culture including on the territory of the Leningrad Oblast. He was making the monograph about the Veps which he hadn't had time to finish before he was arrested. The material collected by Volkov are kept in the archives of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after Peter the Great of the Russian Academy of Science (The Kunstkamera). They are an important source for modern researchers. Yegorov, Sergey Borisovich
Ravdonikas, Vladislav Iosifovich
Volkov, Nikolay Nikolayevich
Решетов А.М. Репрессированная этнография // Кунсткамера. Этнографические тетради. Вып. 5-6. СПб., 1994., 353-355
Veps