{{Short description|Russian historian (1860-1933)}} {{Expand Russian|topic=bio|date=August 2023}} {{family name hatnote|Fyodorovich|Platonov|lang=Eastern Slavic}} [[File:Platonov S.F. 1913. Karl Bulla.jpg|thumb|270px|Sergey Platonov in 1913. Photo by [[Karl Bulla]]]] '''Sergey Fyodorovich Platonov''' ({{langx|ru|Серге́й Фёдорович Плато́нов}}) (28 June [16 June [[Old Style and New Style dates|O.S.]]], 1860 – 10 January 1933) was a Russian historian who led the official [[St Petersburg]] school of imperial historiography before and after the [[October Revolution|Russian Revolution]].
==Life and career== Platonov was born in the city of [[Chernigov]], [[Russian Empire]] and attended a private gymnasium in [[St. Petersburg]] until 1878, when he went to the Department of History and Philology of [[St. Petersburg University]] until 1882. He was a student of [[Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin]], who recommended that he be given the opportunity to "prepare to be a professor."
Platonov belonged to the "St. Petersburg school" of Russian historiography, which focused on the study and publication of historical sources. He earned his master's degree in 1888 with a thesis on Old Russian Legends and Tales about the Seventeenth-Century Time of Troubles as a Historical Source, receiving the [[Uvarov Award]] of the Academy of Sciences.
Platonov's scholarly career was centered at the [[University of St Petersburg]], where he was held in highest repute for his detailed studies of the ''[[Time of Troubles]]'' (1923) and [[Oprichnina]]. His history textbooks, impeccably written and easily readable, enjoyed such popularity that he was asked by the tsar to teach history to his children. In 1909, he was admitted to the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]].
Unlike some of his disciples (such as [[Alexander Presnyakov]]), Platonov did not change his views after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917|Revolution]] and stood aloof from the mainstream [[Marxist]] historiography, as represented by [[Mikhail Pokrovsky]]. Nevertheless, he was permitted to administer the [[Archaeographic Commission]] in 1918-29, the [[Pushkin House]] (i.e., the Russian Literature Institute) in 1925–1929 and the Academy's Library in 1925–1928.
On 12 January 1930 Platonov was accused of taking part in [[Industrial Party Trial|a royalist conspiracy]], arrested and exiled to [[Samara, Russia|Samara]], where he died three years later on January 10, 1933.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sergey Fyodorovich Platonov {{!}} Russian Historian, Biographer & Scholar {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sergey-Fyodorovich-Platonov |access-date=2024-03-10 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> However, a number of his historical works continued to be reprinted later in the decade, and in 1967 he was formally [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitated]].
==Bibliography== *''History of Russia'' (1925), New York, Macmillan. *'' The Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the Internal Crises and Social Struggle in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy'' (1970), Lawrence, University Press of Kansas. *''Moscow and the West'', (1972), Hattiesburg, Academic International. *''Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia'', (1973) with an introductory essay. Gulf Breeze, Florida, Academic International Press (includes 'S.F. Platonov: Eminence and Obscurity' an introductory essay by John T. Alexander *''Ivan the Terrible'', (1974), Gulf Breeze, Florida, Academic International Press.
==References== {{Reflist}} *[http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804013998 St Petersburg Encyclopedia] accessed 13 July 2008 *[http://www.answers.com/topic/sergei-fyodorovich-platonov Russian History Encyclopedia: Sergei Fyodorovich Platonov] accessed 17 July 2008 *'Sergei Fedorovich Platonov (1860 - 1933): A Life for Russia.' by Aleksei Nikolaevich Tsamutali published in ''Historiography of Imperial Russia'', ed. Tomas Sanders, (1999) Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe.
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Sergey Fyodorovich Platonov}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Platonov, Sergey}} [[Category:Soviet historians|Platonov]] [[Category:1860 births|Platonov]] [[Category:1933 deaths|Platonov]] [[Category:Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925)]] [[Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Privy Councillor (Russian Empire)]] [[Category:19th-century historians from the Russian Empire]]