Members of the Academy of Sciences from the 18th to the First Third of the 20th Century in the Sources of St. Petersburg Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences

This paper explores the chronicles and documents of St. Petersburg Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPbA RAS) that contain information about the staff of academic institutions of the 18th – first third of the 20th century. Conducted at SPbA RAS, the research included the study of documents from the personal archives of academicians, prominent scientists and stakeholders in science, and resulted in a number of published biographies of these scientists (the work in progress). The study of personnel documents from the archives of academic institutions helped to reconstruct the staff lists of some of these institutions, uncover hundreds of ordinary scholars and researchers and publish some previously unknown scientific biographies. Concerning temporary academic and technical staff, the most fruitful was the Archive No. 4 with the documents of the Committee of the Board of the Academy of Sciences, Administration of Affairs of the Academy of Sciences; Administration & Maintenance Department of Leningrad Institutions of the Academy of Sciences. Here, for the 18th–19th centuries, the key source were the staff records, for the Soviet pre-war period – the extensive staff file (ca. 12,000 cards). The details of the academic staff are now entered in the e-database of SPbA RAS, which currently includes information about more than 39,000 persons (http://ranar.spb.ru/persons).