Ennoblement records as a source for the biography of N. Shakhov, an anonymous contributor to Grazhdanin weekly

The article reflects one of the research stages aimed at the attribution of an anonymous contributor's text published in 1873 by Grazhdanin weekly (No 41) and signed as “X.” Earlier it was established that this anonymous contributor was Nikolay Alexandrovich Shakhov, one of the F. M. Dostoevsky's correspondents, a 1871 graduate of the Third Alexandrovsk Military School in Moscow, and the officer of the 1st Ekaterinoslav Leib-Grenader Regiment of His Majesty the Emperor. Shakhov's name and biography are not mentioned in the existing reference literature and other printed sources. The purpose of this work is to establish some facts from his biography. The modern state of historical science, with one of its approaches being an intention to understand history through the prism of human personality and personal biography, determines the relevance of this research. The search in the Russian State Historical Archive (RSHA) resulted in establishing certain facts and revealed a documentary source containing personal information about Nikolay Shakhov, namely a set of ennoblement records granting nobility to the Shakhov family. These records enabled not only to clarify the information about Nikolay Shakhov obtained earlier, but also to draw up his brief biography and establish the fact that he was the son of Alexander Nikolayevich Shakhov, a prominent statesman of the XIX century. This collection of documents, however small, opens up opportunities for further research aimed at finding new facts from Nikolay Shakhov's biography, reconstructing his life story, establishing his family relations and environment, as well as drawing up and clarifying the Shakhov family tree in the longer term.