Dmitry Likhachov

Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev (Дми́трий Серге́евич Лихачёв, also spelled Dmitrii Likhachev or Dmitry Likhachov; 28 November 1906 – 30 September 1999) was a Russian medievalist, linguist, and a former inmate of Gulag.

During his lifetime, Likhachev was considered the world's foremost scholar of the Old Russian language and its literature.

He was revered as "the last of old St Petersburgers", and as "a guardian of national culture".

Due to his high profile as a Soviet dissident writer, social critic, and activist during his later life, Likhachev was often referred to as "Russia's conscience".

Dmitry Likhachev was born in Saint Petersburg.

From his early childhood he had a passion for literature, even though his parents did not approve of this interest.

For his election to the "Cosmic Academy", Likhachev had presented a short report, in which he poked fun at the new spelling rules of 1918 and urged that they be "reformed" by restoring the banned letter "Yat".

After his arrest, Likhachev was confronted with the paper by a Soviet secret police interrogator, who screamed, "What do you mean by language reform? Perhaps we won't even have any language at all under Socialism!"

After nine months in jail, the young scientist was unlawfully exiled without trial and spent five years in the USSR's first concentration camp, located on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea.

Deported to the Solovki Special Purpose Camp, he spent 5 years studying "criminal folklore" (as he termed it).

Dmitry Likhachev wrote his first scientific article, "Card Games of Criminals", in the camp.

He didn't play cards himself, but was a keen observer.

He also gathered much material about the language of thieves and later published articles and a book about thieves' slang and customs.

At the camp, hard work, poor living conditions and illness dramatically damaged Likhachev's health, but he survived.

On the Solovetsky Islands he met both exiled Russian intellectuals and real criminals, who happened to save his life.

As Dmitry Likhachev said many years later, "At the Solovki, I understood that every person is a person."

Whilst on the islands, for some period of time Dmitry Likhachev worked as a member of the Criminological Cabinet, organizing a labor colony for teenagers and saving them from death caused by hunger, drugs, and cold.

In 1923, at only 16 years old, Likhachev entered the Department of Linguistics and Literature of Leningrad State University.

He attended the Roman-Germanic and Slavic-Russian sections at the same time, undertaking two diplomas.

At the university the young Likhachev met many outstanding scientists and developed his own way of thinking.

Likhachev graduated in 1928 from the Leningrad University.

In 1928, at the end of his studies, Likhachev was arrested and accused of being a member of what Remnick called, "a students' literary group called the Cosmic Academy of Sciences", which "posed about as great a threat to the Kremlin as the Harvard Lampoon does to the White House."

On the night of 28 October 1929, he was summoned from a visit with his parents and ordered to join a party of 300 prisoners destined for execution.

Wishing to spare his parents the trauma, Likhachev told them that he had been summoned for night work and that they should not wait for him.

He then hid behind a wood pile and listened as the three hundred prisoners were shot and thrown into a mass grave.

The next morning, Likhachev returned from his hiding place as a completely different man.

From 1931, Likhachev was a worker on the construction of the Stalin White Sea–Baltic Canal until his release.

Likhachev returned to Leningrad and started his scholarly career in the Pushkin House (as the Russian Literature Institute is known), which spanned more than 60 years and saw the publication of more than 500 scholarly works.

Likhachev did not stop his work even during the Siege of Leningrad.

He believed that Russia was an integral and indivisible part of European civilization, contrary to "Euroasiatic" views of Russia popular with Lev Gumilev, Boris Rybakov, and many other contemporaries.

Likhachev worked for five years as a proofreader in the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

In 1936, thanks to petitions by the president of the Academy of Sciences, Aleksandr Karpinsky, Dmitry Likhachev's criminal record was cleared.

In 1938 the talented scientist was noticed and invited to the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (known as the Pushkin House).

Dmitry Likhachev worked here until the end of his life.

Old Russian literature, which at that time did not receive much academic attention, became the main scientific interest of Dmitry Likhachev who, by the beginning of the 1940s, was one of the most renowned specialists in this sphere.

In 1941 Likhachev presented his thesis "The Novgorod Annalistic Corpus of the 12th Century".

World War II brought new trials.

Likhachev, together with his wife and twin daughters, survived the horrors of the siege of Leningrad (1941-1944).

In a 1987 interview with David Remnick, Likhachev recalled how he had, "watched the February and October Revolutions from his window."

In a 1987 interview with David Remnick, Likhachev recalled the events of that night and concluded, "The executioner is older than me, and he is still alive."