Defense of Dissertations by Nikolai Il’ich Pokrovskii at Leningrad University

This article is a discussion of the career path of N. I. Pokrovskii. The author attempts to uncover the key points of his biography and research career. Both of his defense procedures that took place in 1938–1939 are examples of the revival of the pre-revolutionary dissertation culture implemented through the practicing of the legal framework of its Soviet counterpart. The article focuses on the procedure and progress of the defense of the historian’s doctorate dissertation. The availability of the transcript enables the author to reveal the principles, style, atmosphere, and ideological components of this academic event typical of the early Soviet dissertation culture. The author highlights the specifics of the selection of opponents, the defense procedure and academic audit organization as well as the ensuing discussion. The opponents included well-known researchers from St Petersburg, I. Yu. Krachkovskii, an Arabist scholar acting as the candidate’s promoter, and B. D. Grekov and S. N. Valk, Doctors of history who were not authorities on the problems covered in the dissertation and treated the candidate with caution. I. P. Petrushevskii, an Orientalist historian, played a special role: he was an opponent during Pokrovskii’s candidate thesis defense and an unofficial expert during his doctoral defense debate. The debate in question involved the members of the Board of the Historical Faculty and the ‘public’ and demonstrated ambivalent attitudes towards the candidate’s position. The article attempts to understand the critical perception of Pokrovskii’s concepts and the impact of the political and ideological atmosphere in the pre-war USSR on the defense procedure and the historian’s life.