Timofey Nikolayevich Granovsky (9 March 1813 – 4 October 1855) was a founder of mediaeval studies in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

.

Granovsky was born in Oryol

Oryol

Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...

, Russia. He studied at the universities of Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, where he was profoundly influenced by Hegelian ideas of Leopold von Ranke

Leopold von Ranke

Leopold von Ranke was a German historian, considered one of the founders of modern source-based history. Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources , an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics .-...

 and Friedrich Karl von Savigny. He felt that the Western history was superior to his own country's and became the first Russian to deliver courses on the medieval history of Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 (1839). Due to the strict censorship of the period, Granovsky assumed that lecturing provided a surer way of disseminating Western ideals in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 than writing. The best regarded of his printed works is an innovator

Innovator

An innovator in a general sense, is a person or an organization who is one of the first to introduce into reality something better than before. That often opens up a new area for others and achieves an innovation.-History:...

 to disprove the historicity of Vineta

Vineta

Vineta or Wineta was a possibly legendary ancient town believed to have been on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It was commonly said to be on the present site of Wolin in Poland or of Zinnowitz on Usedom island in Germany. Today it is said to have been near Barth in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...

.

His readings in the Moscow University were immensely popular and brought him in touch with other Westernizers. One of these, Alexander Herzen

Alexander Herzen

Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism...

, described Granovsky's lectures as "a draught of freedom in Nicholas I

Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...

's Russia".

Granovsky is portraited in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Possessed as Stepan Trofimovich.

External links

• Biography and assessment (from Brockhaus and Efron) by Sir Paul Vinogradoff.