Postwar Letters From Iryna Fabrytsius to Mariia Viazmitina (1950s—1960s)

The discovery of letters written by I. V. Fabritsius to M. I. Viazmitina provides an opportunity to draw once again the attention of the scientific community to the achievements of the researchers and their life’s destiny. This publication will allow us to learn about the events of the last 15 years of I. V. Fabritsius’s life after her retirement and departure from Kyiv, a period that is practically not covered in publications. Among the large amount of correspondence accumulated in Mariia Ivanovna Viazmitina’s personal archive (more than five thousand), eleven letters received from Iryna Vasyliivna Fabritsius and one letter from her daughter Kateryna survived. The correspondence covers the period from the early 1950s to April 1961. The activities of both Ukrainian scholars are connected with Kyiv. M. I. Viazmitina (1896—1994) was born here and lived here entire long life. I. V. Fabritsius (1882—1966) was also born in Kyiv. In 1891—1900, she studied at the Kherson Women’s Gymnasium. Since childhood, Iryna participated in the archaeological excavations and explorations of V. I. Hoshkevych. In 1913, she began working at the Kherson Historical and Archaeological Museum as an assistant curator, in 1923—1925 she was the curator, and then until 1931 she was the director. In November 1931, she moved to Leningrad, where she spent her student years, and lived there until early 1937. In the postwar years, the researcheress returned to Kyiv and continued to develop her work on Cimmerian and Scythian archaeology and history, in particular on the ethnogeography of Scythia. She also prepared a catalog of archaeological sites in the Northern Pontic region for publication. Due to the conflict situation, Iryna Vasylivna stopped her work at the Institute of Archaeology and retired in 1951. After her release, she moved to Leningrad, where she lived for the last fifteen years. This period of I. V. Fabritsius’s biography remains completely unknown, which makes the published epistolary more valuable

Daughter · Excavation · Ukrainian · World War II · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeological Research and Protection · Environmental and Biological Research in Conflict Zones