“I came to work in a field completely ignored by the scholarly literature”. Autobiography of P. S. Smirnov, Professor of St. Petersburg Theological Academy (1861 — after 1927)

The name of the professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in the Department of History and Denunciation of the Russian Schism, Pyotr Smirnov, is little known to a wide circle of readers. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, P. S. Smirnov was one of the largest experts in the history of the Old Ritualist schism, who enjoyed great authority not only among his academic colleagues, but also among the Old Ritualists themselves. P. S. Smirnov was elected three times by the Council of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy as editor of the Khristianskoye Chtenie journal and held this position from 1903 to 1911. Each of his dissertations — a master’s thesis “Internal Issues in the Schism in the 17th Century” and a doctoral dissertation “Disputes in the Schism in the First Quarter of the 18th Century” — became an event in Russian Church history. However, any detailed information on the scholarly and pedagogical activities of P. S. Smirnov is practically not available in the literature. The published autobiography of Professor P. S. Smirnov, preserved in the collection of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGIA SPb. F. 277. Op. 3. D. 55), contains a lot of valuable and important information not only for the reconstruction of the life and works of Professor Peter Semenovich Smirnov himself, but also for the history of the capital’s Theological Academy at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries.