Druzhinin Vasily (1859–1936) – historian, collector.
In 1879-1883, he studied at the Historical Faculty of the St. Petersburg University. In 1889, he defended his Master thesis ‘The Dissent on Don in the Late-Seventeenth Century’, and got a position of Ass. Docent at the St. Petersburg University; at the same time, he was a part-time manager at the Department of Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Faith at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he made some organizational work for the Russian Archeological Society, Archeographic Commission, Russian Geographical Society. He was a member of the Committee for Protection of Russian Icon-Painting; since 1920 – Correspondent Member of the Russian Ac. of Sc.
Since 1884, and for many years, he has collected Old Believers’ manuscripts, Lubok drawings and engravings, icons, copper casted images, and other objects of the cult from the Old Believers milieu. In 1929, he was fired out of the Archeographic Commission, arrested and sent out of Leningrad. In 1935, he settled in Staraya Russa, and there he died in 1936.
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