Evseev Ivan ( 1868–1921) – philologist, Biblical scholar, specialist in Slavic translations.
He was born in a peasant family; after the Pskov Seminary, he enrolled to the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy and graduated it in 1893 with the candidate degree. His work ‘Lucian’s Review LXX in Slavic Translation’ shaped the further research destiny of E.; he traveled to the ‘Orthodox Orient’ to work on manuscripts from the library of the Patriarchy of Alexandria. In 1897, he got his Master degree for the work ‘Book of Isaiah in Old Slavic Translation’; in 1906, he defended his Doctor thesis ‘Book of Daniel in Old Slavic Translation’; in 1906 he became Docent, and in 1907 – Full Prof. of the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy. In 1914, he became Correspondent Member of the Ac/ of Sc/ In 1918, hot having sources for life, he returned to the village of Kamenka and turned to peasants labour.
He supposed that Slavic Biblical manuscripts contained important testimonies of original Greek versions. Using a popular classification by P. de Lagarde, E. argued on the base of the Book of Isaiah that Slavic Biblical text was based on the Lucian’s version; and E. set a task to gather material for its reconstruction. For this aim he made a large-scaled research of all available Slavic manuscripts (on the material of the Book of Daniel), divided them into two parts tracing them back to the tenth-eleventh centuries. Textological works by E. with Slavic Biblical manuscripts are fundamental and excellent in quality, but they were not published in a complete form because of WWI and Revolution; his written legacy was partly lost.
In 1903, he started his work on the project of critical publication of Slavic Bible. In 1915-1918, in the frames of the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy, there was a Commission on the schorlarly publication of Slavic Bicle, headed by E. (in 1918-1927, it was transferred to the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Russian Ac. of Sc.; after the reorganization of the department the work was stopped).