Affiliation/Organisation Regional Municipal Institution "Scientific and Methodological Center for the Protection of Cultural Heritage"
Candidate of Historical Science
Kharkiv, Ukraine
Dmitry Gordeev - Georgian researcher from Kharkov
Abstract
Today in Ukraine, scientists pay considerable attention to the biographies of their predecessors, determining their contribution to the historiographical heritage.
Among such scientists, a special place is occupied by Dmitry Petrovich Gordeev, an orientalist whose scientific biography is closely connected with Kharkov and Tbilisi.
Dmitry Petrovich Gordeev was born in Kharkov on November 8, 1889. His father, Peter Andreevych, was an honored professor at the Kharkov Veterinary Institute. While studying at the gymnasium, the boy also attended the city school of drawing and painting.
In 1913, he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kharkov University and was left at the Department of History and Theory of Art for scientific work.
Dmitry Petrovich became interested in Byzantine art, which is why he was sent to Georgia and Armenia to study medieval architecture. In 1916–1920, he participated in a number of expeditions to the Caucasus, the purpose of which was to study local art monuments.
In 1917, D. Gordeev was appointed an adjunct professor at the Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute in Tiflis.
His competence was recognized by Georgian scientists - since 1922, Dmitry Petrovich became a full member of the Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute (KIAI), worked in many scientific institutions located in Tiflis.
In 1926, D. Gordeev returned to Kharkov and headed the section of the Kyiv Department of Art History, which he combined with service at the KIAI.
In Ukraine, the scientist continued to study the art of the Caucasus. He became a full member of the board of the All-Ukrainian Association of Oriental Studies, a lecturer at the Caucasian Commission at the All-Ukrainian Archaeological Committee of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was also a member of many scientific institutions that studied Ukrainian culture.
At the end of 1928, under the leadership of D. Gordeev, a commission on Caucasian studies began its work at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
However, in the early 1930s, his scientific activity was interrupted – Dmitry Petrovich was arrested, accused of participating in the so-called "Russian-Ukrainian fascist bloc" and sentenced to 5 years in correctional labor camps.
After his early release in 1937, he lived in Kutaisi, where he worked as a teacher at a Russian school. In 1953, he moved to Tbilisi and worked as a senior researcher at the State Museum of Georgian Art.
Died on August 19, 1968 in Tbilisi.
Such versatile scientific activity allows us to consider D. Gordeev as one of the important figures in the study of oriental art in Ukrainian and Georgian historiography.
Keywords: Georgia, Kharkov, Dmitry Gordeev, Caucasus researcher, art history, first half of the 20th century