Ivan Zabelin

Who was Ivan Zabelin?

Ivan Yegorovich Zabelin was a Russian historian and archaeologist with a Slavophile bent who helped establish the National History Museum on Red Square and presided over this institution until 1906. He was the foremost authority on the history of the city of Moscow and a key figure in the 19th-century Russian Romantic Nationalism.

Zabelin joined the Moscow Kremlin staff in 1837. Influenced by the early Muscovite "antiquaries" such as Ivan Snegirev and Pavel Stroyev, Zabelin was one of the first to investigate the history of Moscow's suburbs and monasteries. While working in the Armoury, Zabelin studied the history of metalworking and enamel work in medieval Russia. He was also considered an expert on icon-painting and Muscovite architecture.

In 1859 Count Sergei Stroganov invited Zabelin to excavate the Scythian tumulus graves in South Russia and the Crimea. He is credited with introducing stratigraphic methods in Russian field archaeology. It was he who excavated the Chertomlyk grave, one of the largest Scythian kurgans. His findings are now part of the Hermitage Museum collection. Zabelin joined forces with Count Aleksey Uvarov in establishing the Russian Archaeological Society. He summed up his findings in The Antiquities of Herodotus's Scythia.