Rutenburg Victor

Rutenburg Victor (1911–1988) – historian medievalist, historian of anti-religious free-thinking.

Kopeikin, in 1937 he took the surname of his wife S. G. Rutenburg

In 1929, he graduated from the Teachers-Training Institute in Stalino (Donetsk); he taught history in a secondary school in the settl. of Voznesensky Rudnik. In 1933, he passed the curses for young officers of the Red Army and got the rank of Reserve Sublieutenant.

In 1934, he moved to Leningrad and entered the Historical Faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, literature and History; at the same time he worked as a school teacher of history. In May 1938, he got the excellent evaluation for his research paper ‘From the History of Italian Pawnshops in the Fifteenth Century; on a Manuscript from the Archive of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R.’. On July 28, 1938, he was arrested in the frame of the affair of Esperantists – he was accused in espionage and spent 11 months in jail; he was released on July 5, 1939, and returned to the Faculty. In 1940, he graduated from the University and entered the post-graduate courses at the Chair of the History of the Middle Ages.

From June 22, 1941 till February 7, 1946, he served in the army during the WWII. After the demobilization, he returned to the post-graduate courses (1946-1948). Since 1946, he was Researcher, Academic Secretary, Head of a Sector at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. (1965-1987). He defended his Candidate thesis ‘Florentine Companies of the Fourteenth Century (From the History of Early Capitalism in Italy)’. Since 1950, he taught at the Leningrad State University. In 1959, he defended his Doctor thesis ‘The Popular Movements in the Cities of Italy. Fourteenth – Fifteenth Centuries’.

Correspondent Member of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. (1976). Chairman of the Commission on the problems of the Renaissance culture at the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. Honourary Member of the Historical Society of Liguria (1976); Foreign Member of the Historical Society of Toscana (1976). Member of the Academic Council of the Museum of th History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. (sonce 1959). Laureate of the State Award (1987).

He was one of the leading Soviet specialists in the history of Italy of the Late Medieval and the Renaissance periods. He was interested in various issues of religious and cultural history. He wrote works on outstanding persons of the Renaissance, economic relations in Italy; he put a special attention at the place of religion in the Renaissance culture, and at its influence anf the humanistic thought.

Compositions

An Essay from the History of Early Capitalism in Italy: Florentine Companies of the Fourteenth Century. Moscow – Leningrad, Ac. of Sc., 1951. (in Rus.)
Vatican in the Past and Present. Leningrad, 1955. (in Rus.)
Campanella. Leningrad, 1956. (in Rus.)
The Popular Movements in the Cities of Italy. Fourteenth – Fifteenth Centuries. Moscow – Leningrad, Ac. of Sc., 1958. (in Rus.)
The Great Italian Atheist Vanini. Moscow, Ac. of Sc., 1959. (in Rus.)
Vatican – the Centre of Reaction and Obscurantism. (under the pseudonym V. I. Volgin) Leningrad, 1960. (in Rus.)
Popolo e movimenti popolari nell’Italia del ‘300 e ‘400 / trad. di Gianpiero Borghini. Bologna: il Mulino, 1971.
Italy and Europe before the Modern Time (Essays). Leningrad, 1974. (in Rus.)
Titans of the Renaissance. Leningrad, 1976. (in Rus.)
The Sources of the Risorgimento: Italy in the Seventeenth – Eighteenth Centuries. Leningrad, 1980. (in Rus.)
Italian City from the Early Middle Ages till the Renaissance (Essays). Leningrad, 1987. (in Rus.)

Bibliography

Panchenko Е. Z. Bibliography of Works by V. I. Rutenburg // Italy and Europe: Collection of Articles in the Memory of Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg. St. Peterburg, 2014, pp. 307–342. (in Rus.)

About him

Iroshnikov М. P., Klimanov L. G., Shishkin V. А. Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg (1911–1988) // Arkheograficheskyi ezhegodnik for 1988. Moscow, 1989, pp. 334–335. (in Rus.)
Petrov М. Т., Fursenko А. А. In the Memory of Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg // Vspomogatelnye istoricheskie dictsipliny. Leningrad, 1990, vol. 21, pp. 305–315. (in Rus.)
Bragina L. М. Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg: Obituary // Srednie veka. 1989, iss. 52, pp. 371–373. (in Rus.)
Nemilov А. N. Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg as Historian of Culture of the Culture of the Epoch of the Renaissance // The Culture and the Society of Italy before the Modern Time. Moscow, 1993, pp. 3–8. (in Rus.)
Sredinskaya N. B. Documents on the History of the City from the Russian Archives in the Works by V. I. Rutenburg // The Culture and the Society of Italy before the Modern Time. Moscow, 1993, pp. 9–15. (in Rus.)
Petrov М. Т., Fursenko А. А. Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg (1911—1988) // Portraits of Historians: Time and Destinies. Vol. 3: The Ancient World and the Middle Ages. Moscow, 2004, vol. 3, pp. 554–563. (in Rus.)
Rashkova R. Т. V. I. Rutenburg and the State Museum of the History of Religion // The Culture of the Epoch of the Renaissance: by the 90th Anniversary of Correspondent Member of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. Professor V. I. Rutenburg. St. Petersburg, 2011, pp. 1–2. (in Rus.)
Italy and Europe: Collection of Articles in the Memory of Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg. St. Peterburg, 2014. (in Rus.)
Korsakova N. L. ‘Keeping the Written Contact in the Esperanto Language…’: Less-Known Pages of the Biography of V. I. Rutenburg // Italy and Europe: Collection of Articles in the Memory of Victor Ivanovich Rutenburg. St. Peterburg, 2014, pp. 9–32. (in Rus.)

M. Sh.