Alexander SAMARIN, Cand. Sc. (History), Moscow State University of the Press The lifework of the great Russian savant Mikhail Lomonosov (1711- 1765) excites interest even in our age. We seem to know all about this man of humble origin raised in the backwoods of the Far North who became a big-name scientist and scholar. And yet... Looking into the life-path of the first Russian Academician, we may be in for ever new discoveries and surprises. Or "blank spots"... One such blank spot was Mikhail Lomonosov's largest work on history - Old Russian History, which he undertook in the 1750s and completed the first version of the text in the middle of 1758. In September of that year there followed an imprimatur-a sanction to have this book go to press at the Science Academy's printing- office in a print of 2,400. Soon after, the proof-sheets of the first three quires were sent to the author. But then something untoward happened: on 8 March 1759 Lomonosov withdrew his manuscript and suspended the printing of the book. This is how the savant articulated his decision, "I do not intent to have this here book printed the way it has been, with both the notes and the abbreviations in the margin; I shall have the addenda placed at the back. Readers, as I judge, would not benefit from the muddle that I have noticed in the press. So, one solid text should be set up with the authors cited in the margins." The type-setting of the amended text was begun in 1763, and this work went on in the next two years, and was not completed by the time of the author's death in 1765. Sergei Peshtich, an authority on Russian historiography, does not think that "technical reasons alone were to blame for such procrastination... Lomonosov must have been dissatisfied both with the format and with the content. His work on materials meant for Voltaire, who wanted a broad panorama of the economic and cultural life of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great, probably induced the author to revise his book." ... Читать далее