Ivan Snegiryov

Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (Russian: Иван Михайлович Снегирёв; 1793, Moscow—1868, Saint Petersburg) was one of the first Russian ethnographers. He published detailed descriptions of almost every church and monastery in Moscow.

The son of a university professor, Snegiryov graduated from Moscow University in 1814 and since 1818 taught Latin language there. He was active as a censor throughout Nicholas I's reign, censoring such works as Eugene Onegin and Dead Souls.^[1]

He shared the ideals of Official Nationality and belonged to a circle of antiquaries dominated by Nikolai Rumyantsev. He was one of the first to collect Russian proverbs and describe folk rituals and observances. His ground-breaking work on Russian lubok was printed in 1844.^[2]

Snegirev's lengthy description of Moscow (1865-73) was feted by Fyodor Buslayev as the best guidebook to the city.^[3] He supervised restoration of the Kremlin buildings and the Romanov Boyar House. His journals were published in 2 volumes in 1904-05.

Publications

Ivan Snegirev authored several books on Russian proverbs, idioms, way of life, rituals and holidays:

• Russkie v svoikh poslovitsakh: razsuzhdenia i izsliedovania ob otechestvennykh poslovitsakh i pogovorkakh (lit. Russians in their idioms. Discourses and investigations about the national proverbs and idioms; 1831—1834).
• The common holidays of Russians and superstitious rites (1837—1839).
• Russian folk proverbs and parables (1848).
• On the lubok pictures of Russians (1844, second expanded edition published in 1861).

References