ЖИЗНЬ ПРОВИНЦИАЛЬНОЙ СОВЕТСКОЙ ИНТЕЛЛИГЕНЦИИ ПЕРВОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ 1950-Х ГОДОВ (по дневникам и письмам из личного архива Д. А. Крайнова)
THE LIFE OF THE PROVINCIAL SOVIET INTELLIGENTSIA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1950S (based on the diaries and letters from D. A. Krainov's personal archive)

Summary/Abstract: The article is based on sources of personal origin and is devoted to a small chronological period (1951—1955) in the life of the famous Soviet and Russian archaeologist Dmitry Aleksandrovich Krainov (1904— 1998). During those years, the scientist lived in the village of Ivashevo (Vladimir region) and the city of Uglich (Yaroslavl region). It was the time of his adaptation to the beginning of a new life after his liberation from the northern Gulag camps. For Krainov, it was also the time of gradual return to science, from which he had been cut off for many years of the war and the imprisonment. The main events of the scientist's life in the first half of the 1950s were reflected in his diary entries, in extensive correspondence with a teacher from Penza, M. B. Bokhina (Poltoratskaia), as well as in the letters from the former actors of the prison camp theater “Stroika 501/503”, relatives and fellow archaeologists. The primary issues of those years were the possibility of finding a job, getting some kind of housing, purchasing food, necessary clothes and footwear. The spiritual component of the life of the intelligentsia was also of considerable importance: the opportunity to visit theaters, concerts, read books, and participate in amateur performances. He was not alone in his pursuits, as the first half of the 1950s was marked by the massive return of prisoners to a free life, which was reflected in the letters of the former “friends in misfortune” — the actors of the prison camp theater. Information from these sources allowed us to look at the life of the provincial intelligentsia of the first half of the 1950s “from the inside”, within the framework of a micro-historical approach.

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