Viktor Petrov and his Archive

Viktor Platonovych Petrov (1894–1969) is a historian, ethnographer, archaeologist, linguist, literary scholar and writer. Petrov was born in Katerynoslav (now Dnipro), from where he moved with his father Platon Mefodiyovych Petrov, an Orthodox priest and later rector of the Kyiv Theological Seminary and Bishop of Uman’, to Odesa (1902–07), where Petrov younger studied at the Odesa Theological Seminary from 1904. Later, father and son (mother died in his childhood) moved to Kholm (now Poland), where Petrov finished the men’s gymnasium in 1913. In 1918, Petrov graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Imperial University of St. Volodymyr in Kyiv, receiving the silver medal for the thesis entitled “Nikolaj Yazykov, the poet of the Pushkin circle. Life and art” (supervisor M. Grunskyi). During his studies, lecturers paid attention to Petrov’s talantes – in particular, he listened to the lectures of Volodymyr Perets, Andrii Loboda, Mykola Grunskyi and Ivan Ohienko – so the young researcher remained as a scholar at the Department of Russian Language and Literature to prepare himself for the professorship.

After wars and revolutions, in 1918–21, he changed his place of work many times, in particular, in 1919–20, he worked as the secretary of the Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences for the compilation of a historical dictionary. In 1920–21, fleeing from starving Kyiv, Petrov headed the Horobeiv seven-year school in the Kaniv district. In 1922–23, he taught French and German languages at labor school No. 1 in the town of Baryshivka in the Kyiv region, where Mykola Zerov lived with his wife Sofia, as well as Osvald Burhardt, lived at that time. In 1923–27, Petrov was a doctoral student at the Kyiv Institute for People’s Education, where in 1930 he defended his thesis under the supervision of A. Loboda entitled “Panteleymon Kulish in the 1950s. Life. Ideology. Art” (published in 1929). From 1920 he worked as a researcher, from 1924 – hew was a secretary, and in 1927–33 – chairman of the Ethnographic Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, editing its various publications. In particular, in 1925–29, Petrov (together with A. Loboda) was a co-editor of the Ethnographic Bulletin. At this time, he is engaged in ethnographic researches (pilotage on Dnipro river, chumatstvo, folklore of criminals, folk beliefs, etc.), history of Ukrainian ethnography and folkloristics (in particular, he was interested in Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Mykola Sumtsov, Oleksandr Potebnia), literary studies (for example, texts about Mykola Hohol, Marko Vovchok, Lesya Ukrainka, Taras Shevchenko). He pays the most attention to two figures – Hryhoriy Skovoroda and Panteleimon Kulish.

Being in creative liaisons with the circle of Kyiv neoclassicists, Petrov found to be a gifted writer, finished his first short story in 1925 – “Conversations of Eсkhart with Carlo Gozzi”. In 1928, under the pseudonym Viktor Domontovych (later on usually “V. Domontovych”), he published his debut novel, “The Girl with the Teddy Bear”, and soon after, two novelized biographies: “Alina and Kostomarov” (1929) and “Kulish’s Affairs” (1930). He also wrote the manuscript of his novel “Doctor Seraphicus”, which he published in post-war Germany.

In 1930 at the trial of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” literary scholar Serhiy Yefremov mentioned Petrov among other members of the anti-Soviet group. Sometime before, he himself began to collect materials for an incriminating article about Academician Ahatanhel Krymskyi, in which he avoids clear accusations in every possible way, and in the end does not finish this text. At the same time, he undergoes a “cleansing” of the academy’s employees, speaks out with self-exposure of his own texts, publishes ideologically loyal texts. At the same time, in the 1930s, Petrov began to research archeology and the ancient history of Ukraine, which was also a way for him to avoid more politically dangerous periods and topics. From 1933, he became a researcher, and from 1939 – the head of the pre-feudal and feudal archeology sector of the Institute of Archeology (in 1933 – the Union of Institutions of Material Culture, in 1934–1938 – the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR). He researches the history of primitive society, participates in excavations of early medieval Slavic and Trypillia settlements, as well as the culture of “burial fields” on the territory of Ukraine. However, during the “great terror” – on June 8, 1938, Petrov was arrested by the NKVD, and on June 21 he was released. Some researchers suggest that it was during this short period of time that Petrov was recruited as a secret agent or informant, but due to the lack of archival materials, the content of his cooperation with the Soviet special services remains unknown.

In 1941, Petrov was appointed as a director of the Institute of Ukrainian Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. After the beginning of the German-Soviet war, the institute was evacuated to Ufa, together with other employees, Petrov also left Ukraine. However, already in February 1942, he appeared in the occupied Kharkiv. Petrov was sent to work in the propaganda department, where he later received the rank of officer in the German army. In 1942–43, Petrov edited the journal “The Ukrainian Sowing” in Kharkiv at the expense of the occupation administration. At the same time, he published his Dnipropetrovsk novel “Without Foundation” on the pages of this journal. He also continues his research on the culture of the “burial fields”, carefully avoiding the Gothic interpretation of their ethnicity, which would correspond to the expectations of German propaganda. In addition, he continues to publish a number of works on ethnography, folkloristics and literary studies. After the end of the war and his return to the USSR, Petrov did not hide the fact that during those war years he participated in Soviet intelligence. In the Scientific Archive of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, there is a certificate issued to Petrov confirming that in 1942–45 he was in the partisan detachment named after Lavrentyi Beria. Also, in 1965, Petrov was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, for his activities during the Second World War.

In 1943, Petrov became the head of the department of ethnography of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in L’viv, and later, together with the retreating German army, he moved to Berlin. In 1944–45, he was a researcher and lecturer at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin and then Leipzig, and also collaborated with many newspapers. He lived in Fürth for a while. Until 1949, Petrov was a professor of philosophy at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, and also taught at the Orthodox Theological Academy of Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church, at the Ukrainian Technical and Economic Institute in Regensburg. In 1946, Petrov entered the newly established Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in Augsburg. At the same time, together with Yuriy Kosach, Ihor Kosteckyi and Yuriy Shevelyov, in September 1945, he founded the Ukrainian Artistic Movement – MUR, which published a number of non-periodical publications, where Petrov published his literary studies, philosophical works and short stories. In 1947, his “Doctor Seraphicus” was appeared in Munich, and a year later, a separate edition of the novel “Without Foundation” was published in Regensburg. At this time, Petrov reveals his hypostasis as a philosopher, unfolding on the pages of emigration publications under the pseudonym “Viktor Ber” his historiosophy of the consequent change of historical epochs. On April 18, 1949, Viktor Petrov left his Munich apartment in the direction of the railway station and disappeared.

Petrov was forcibly or voluntarily taken to the USSR, where from October 1950 he was employed at the Institute of the History of Material Culture in Moscow as a junior researcher, because all documents certifying his scientific qualifications were lost during the war years. In Moscow, he worked in the sector of Slavic-Russian archeology, where he mainly was finishing the monograph “Slash-and-burn agriculture”, the grammar of the Old Prussian language, studied the Scythian language, and also went on archaeological expeditions to Ukraine and Moldova to study Scythian monuments, Cherniakhiv and Zarubinets culture, as well as the cultural layer of the early Slavic era. In 1956, Petrov received permission to move to Kyiv, where his beloved one, Sofia Zerova, lived. In 1957, after 35 years after their first meeting, they got married.

In the last period of his life, Petrov worked at the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR as a senior researcher, as well as on the voluntary basis – in the research archive of this institute. He continues to participate in archaeological excavations, in 1967 Petrov received the degree of “doctor of philological sciences” based on the totality of his works, and also three monographs of the researcher were published – “Slash Agriculture” (1968), “Scythians. Language and ethnos” (1968) and “Ethnogenesis of the Slavs” (1972, posthumously).

The Research Archive of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine stores Viktor Petrov’s personal collection No. 16, which was formed from documents transferred to the archive by Petrov’s widow, Sofia Zerova. This collection mainly contains manuscripts of Petrov’s archaeological texts, but also works on ethnography, folkloristics, linguistics, history and literature, as well as his correspondence with archaeologists. In addition, the archive has Petrov’s reports from archaeological expeditions (collection No. 64), some of his research works (collection No. 12), as well as the personal file of the researcher (in a separate archive of the personnel department).

Viktoriia Serhiienko