Nina Nikolaevna Belova and ancient city studies at the Ural University

Kapsalykova Karina Ramazanovna ORCID: 0000-0003-4163-5099 PhD in History Associated Professor, Foreign Studies Department, Ural Federal University 623280, Russia, Sverdlovsk Region, Yekaterinburg, Lenina av., 51. carinne.kapsalikova@gmail.com Other publications by this author

IntroductionIn modern Russian society, interest in biography is steadily growing.

Old mythologized concepts, stamps and "dark spots" are increasingly being swept away by the hurricane of the "archival revolution" ^{[1, p. 130-134]}. The results of many years of scientific research become the subject of close analysis ^{[2, pp. 634-641; 3, pp. 18-24]}. Another important trend is the interest in historiosophical problems. At the same time, the word itself – historiosophy – is gradually being ousted from the research dictionary, and more and more often the answers to the "challenges of the time" are formulated in the spirit of metamodern and other artificial constructions.

We are far from structuralist constructions in the spirit of the historian of technology Derek John de Solla Price (1922-1983). Romanticizing the process of scientific search, and wanting to make it attractive to students of the "raging" 1960s, he wrote: "Big science tends to restrain some manifestations of individualism. The emergence of collaborative work and invisible colleges, the very provision of excellent conditions – all this is aimed at achieving specific research goals. All this, apparently, directs scientific progress to achieve the goals for which the group or project was created. This is an old argument against research planning, and it always provokes a reaction that we should be careful to give everyone the opportunity to think, to let them follow the trail wherever it leads" ^{[4, p. 108]}. However, the ratio of research conducted in accordance with the internal logic of the development of the scientific direction and the formalized requirements for scientists seriously affected the fate of many historians.

"Serious, thoughtful graduate student"Nina Nikolaevna Belova (1917-2012) is one of the leading Soviet epigraphists, Candidate of Historical Sciences, who in different years held the positions of Dean of the Faculty of History and head of the Department of General History of USU, deputy of the Sverdlovsk City Council.

The list of public assignments, positions and duties is only slightly inferior to the list of her publications. Nevertheless, there is no systematic presentation of the scientific biography of N. N. Belova. This article is devoted to filling this gap – as far as the archival materials at our disposal allow.

Nina Nikolaevna Belova was born on May 17, 1917 in the family of a Petrograd cabinetmaker Nikolai Ivanovich and his wife, a housewife, Vera Mikhailovna. In addition to the eldest Nina, there were other children in the family: Alexander, who later became an engineer, Vladimir, who died at the front in 1942. (Belov Vladimir Nikolaevich died on July 16, 1942, two kilometers from Voronezh on the southwestern outskirts of the grove "Heart". The memory of the people. URL: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/heroes/memorial-chelovek_dopolnitelnoe_donesenie1151100204 /), future teachers Lev and Pavlina (married Volokhov). Another sister, Tamara, worked as a foreign correspondent in the All-Union Association of Vneshposyltorg, and her husband served in the KGB (UrFU Archive, F. R-2110, Op. 1, d. 79, l. 5 vol.). Nina Nikolaevna graduated from a seven-year-old school in a Moscow suburb (Perovskaya station). Then she studied for two years at the FZU School at the plant No. 8 named after M. I. Kalinin. N. N. Belova worked as a technical accountant, in parallel, she worked at the factory at the factory. After graduating from the Faculty of Labor, in 1937, Nina Nikolaevna entered the MIFLI (Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and Art) at the Faculty of History. In 1939, a student of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University took part in the All-Union Population Census and even received a letter of thanks from the SNK of the USSR.

With the onset of the war, studies were interrupted. In 1941 she worked as a normalizer at the Moscow Electromechanical Repair Plant, until the evacuation of the enterprise to Sverdlovsk. N. N. Belova remained to teach history at Mytishchi Secondary School No. 5. In 1944, Nina Nikolaevna was restored to the fifth year of the history faculty of Moscow State University and in 1945 graduated with a recommendation to graduate school. Due to rheumocarditis, it was not possible to enter immediately, and from October 1945 to August 1947. Nina Nikolaevna worked in VOX (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries) in the press department as a literary editor.

In September 1947 she passed all the exams perfectly on time, demonstrating a brilliant knowledge of French, German, Ancient Greek and Latin. The history of ancient Greece and Rome was one of the key areas of scientific work of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University. At that time, N. M. Mashkin, a specialist in the Roman Republic, and K. K. Zelin, a Hellenist, worked at the Department of the History of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages. According to the description signed by the Dean of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University B. A. Rybakov and the Chairman of the Trade Union Bureau E. F. Yazkov, graduate student N. N. Belova "took an active part in the social life of the staff of the Faculty of History as the head of the graduate students of her course, insurance delegate of the staff of the Department of Ancient History, agitator among the population during the election campaign in 1949-1950" (UrFU Archive, F. R-2110, Op. 1, 79, L. 10).

In October 1950 she graduated from graduate school. The topic of her PhD thesis was "Social relations in Gallic cities in the I–II centuries AD" (Belova N. N. Social relations in Gallic cities in the I–II centuries AD: dis. ... Candidate of Historical Sciences: 07.00.00. M., 1951. 395 p. Place of protection: Moscow State University). Already on May 14, 1951, by the decision of the Moscow State University Council, she was awarded the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences. In May of the same year, N. N. Belova was assigned to the Ural University. She first worked as a senior lecturer at the Department of General History, and on January 8, 1955 she was confirmed as an associate professor.

From 1953 to 1955 and from 1955 to 1957 – two terms – N. N. Belova was elected deputy of the Sverdlovsk City Council. The productivity of her work is evidenced by newspaper notes of those years. So, at the general meeting of teachers, students and employees of the historical, philological and geographical faculties of USU, dedicated to the election of deputies, "the assembly also decided to ask Nina Nikolaevna Belova to agree to run for deputy of the Sverdlovsk City Council" (Unanimous desire // Stalinets. 1953, 9 Feb. № 5 (718)). Nina Nikolaevna did a great job as a deputy.

The article in the newspaper "Stalinets" about the work of Deputy Belova is poignant. The widow of the Red Army soldier Antipin is a maid of the Bolshoy Ural Hotel (Antipin Nikolay Yakovlevich, a Red Army soldier, died near the village of Borovaya, Kharkiv region. The memory of the people. URL: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/heroes/person-hero36026375 /) supported two children and a sick sister. For ten years in a row, Antipina asked for an apartment, and in return she received only promises. Nina Nikolaevna managed to help the widow, and the woman got a spacious and bright apartment!

N. N. Belova is a member of the permanent cultural and educational commission of the Sverdlovsk City Council. "Nina Nikolaevna is walking slowly through the quiet streets of the evening city, and there is a swarm of thoughts in her head, unfinished business is recalled. "Student Shakirov (Shakirov Hanif Shakirovich (born in 1923) is a sergeant, commander of the 2nd separate anti–tank battalion of the 12th fighter Brigade of the 61st Army of the Western Front. In the battles for the settlement "March 8" of the Oryol region on May 12, 1943, he was seriously wounded. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War I degree (Order of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces No. 204/65 dated 06.08.1946). In 1956 he successfully graduated from the USU Faculty of History, for a long time he was the director of the Sverdlovsk Regional Special Library for the Blind. The memory of the people. URL: podvignaroda.ru/?#id=80060464&tab=navDetailManAward ; GASO, F. R-2110, Op. 3a, d. 28. l. 151 vol.-152.). Tomorrow I will go to his house." Shakirov lost his sight at the front. But misfortune did not break him. Friends helped, and here he is at the Ural University. He learns as well as others. But – a family, three children, and the apartment is a refrigerator. As always they promise, but time goes by, and there is no apartment. Nina Nikolaevna achieves – Shakirov gets a new apartment. There are many examples of a caring, thoughtful attitude of a deputy to human destiny" (Stein I. Our deputy // Stalinist. 1956, April 12, No. 39 (887)).

We will also cite a case when the activity of Deputy Belova was not so successful. On December 27, 1955, the USU party Assembly decided to accept N. N. Belova as a member of the CPSU. During the discussion, among the praises of the young researcher and deputy, the words of the teacher F. I. Surin were dissonant: "There are a number of shortcomings in her work as a deputy of the City Council, so I, personally needing an apartment, asked her to help me. She expressed her willingness, but did not make much effort and did not get an apartment. It seems to me that she should be more active in this work" (TSDOOSO, F. 285, Op. 3, D. 139, L. 124). He proposed to extend the candidate's term of N. N. Belova for a year. The results of the vote were expected: "for the proposal of the party bureau of the university – to accept T. To Belov Nina Nikolaevna as a member of the CPSU and to ask the Oktyabrsky district committee of the CPSU of Sverdlovsk to approve this decision – 131 people voted, against – 1. For the proposal of Comrade. Surina – to extend her stay as a candidate for membership of the CPSU for another year – 1 person voted, against 131" (CDOOSO, F. 285, Op. 3, D. 139, L. 125).

In 1958-1959, N. N. Belova combined an associate professor position with an administrative one – dean of the Historical Faculty of USU. Interestingly, she became dean with the light hand of the famous archaeologist E. G. Surov ^{[5, p. 25]}, who, leaving for excavations in the Crimea, convinced her to temporarily take his position (UrFU Archive, F. R-2110, Op. 1, 79, l. 27). As a result, the temporary replacement turned into a permanent one.

Lady PolidaA huge social burden has affected the scientific work of N. N. Belova.

She never defended her doctoral dissertation, although she actively published in central scientific journals and kept in touch with her alma mater. In particular, it was she who was entrusted by the Department of the History of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages to write a review of the PhD thesis of V. I. Kuzishchin and other famous scientists.

N. N. Belova set the vector for the development of antiquity at USU for many years to come. At the same time, there is only a small, but benevolent biographical reference based on the materials of the USU archive ^{[6, pp. 115-116]}. There is also R. G. Pihoi: "Associate Professor Nina Nikolaevna Belova, who taught the history of the ancient East, was a specialist in the epigraphy of ancient Rome, dealt with the issues of source studies of late Roman history for the reconstruction of the social structure of Roman society. But we didn't know that then. <...> N. N. Belova's course on epigraphy was interesting for those who specialized in ancient archaeology, but had nothing to do with my studies (Old Russian law. – note K. K.)" ^{[7, p. 12, 20]}.

M. Ya . wrote about it . Syuzyumov, analyzing the results of the All–Union Meeting of Historians in 1962, "The natural result of the Meeting was the shameful curriculum for the history of 1964 - according to this plan, newly enrolled students, mostly with work experience, who still cannot record lectures and are completely unsuited to reading a scientific article, must take a course in the History of the Ancient East in three months, the history of Greece and Rome – the most important courses of universal history! The basis of universal history – ancient history – has been dealt a heavy blow" (GASO, F. R-802, Op. 1, d. 33, l. 1), ^{[8, pp. 295-296]}.

Indeed, by the 1960s, the main direction in the history of classical antiquity and medieval studies was to turn to a series of studies in the field of various auxiliary historical disciplines, including epigraphy.

N. N. Belova worked, like M. Y. Suzumov, on the complex scientific topic "The dynamics of the ancient city and the genesis of the feudal" (GASO, P-2110, Op. 3, 512. L. 66), and since the author of the continuity theory deduced the European burg from the ancient polis, N. N. Belova was assigned a key role as a researcher of the "genesis of genesis", the beginning of the municipal life of antiquity. N. N. Belova, in fact, applied the theory of continuity of M. Ya. Susyumova to the history of the province of Gaul, analyzing the social structure, administrative processes, agrarian relations that determined the future of this region for centuries to come.

The chronological framework of N. N. Belova's research covers the V century AD. This time was represented by M. Ya . Suzumov was the key in the history of the Roman Empire. Thus, the original topic of his doctoral dissertation was precisely the problems of the history of late Rome. So, even "during the 1945/6 academic year, he continued to work on the main topic "Social and cultural crisis in the Roman Empire of the V–VI centuries" (GASO, F. R-2162, Op. 1, d. 56, L. 101).

Letter from M. Ya. Suzumova to N. N. BelovaSverdlovsk, October 19, 1971

Dear Nina Nikolaevna,

I am writing to you with a letter – I hope I will not tear you away from your work on your dissertation. I wish you the fullest super success!

I received your letter... but I was somewhat discouraged – it reflects in your work about clients not yours today, but yours the day before yesterday.. It's a little hard to keep track of the positions.... Much is controversial, incomplete. It is difficult to talk about a public institution without actually giving a complete analysis of the essence and its various forms, and development, and decomposition. Still, it is extremely desirable to constantly keep in mind the ancient Roman and imperial clientele and the clientele of independent Gaul, and then decide by analogy about the nature of the Gallic clientele in its development. It is impossible to understand the exploitation of the slave-owning period only as individual power over a certain person…

After all, not only individuals were enslaved, but also entire tribes in different gradations of dependence (different types of social relations, deditition – a completely different, lower stage of enslavement, although not slaves, but in an enslaved country: Livy, Cicero and Caesar have about them ...)

If we talk about rural residents, it is impossible to do without them. And in independent Gaul, wasn't there a constant war, with conquests… Independent Gaul developed to the same extent as Italy of the early Roman period.... It is hardly possible to separate from the urban clientele when defining a clientele. After all, then there were civitates – tribes around the centers-"cities" ... And a Roman citizen could live in the village while remaining a "citizen"... And somehow "easily" explain the urban clientele from satirists' cartoons! Still, we must take into account the fact that during the election of magistrates in the late tribal = early slave-owning society, as in the Western countries of our time, there were bribes and all kinds of attraction of small people .... And as for the late Roman Republic and Empire, the hopeless situation of the intelligentsia, which had to grovel before Patrons, played a role in part (and very much)! After all, there were no special funds of the state for poets, philosophers, historians, etc.! (In part, Renaissance artists also had to grovel before the pope and the nobility, although there were already some institutions ...) But without an urban clientele, neither in genesis nor in development, this institution is inexplicable and can lead to purely agrarian conclusions that wrong.

One more thing. You are referring to legal categories. But the clientele is closely connected with the legal institutions of Roman law – patronage, client, precarium. You are talking about the moral principle of the client's dependence – but the moral norm does not come eo ipso [eo ipso (Latin) – as a result of this, thereby], but is the result of a long tradition of a social institution. You use the word "column" so carelessly. But isn't the colon's location-conduction connected with the slave system? And if we talk about the column, it would not be better to use more precise ones – columns of liberty, columns of adscription.

Quasi colon is not a colon – he is legally a slave – he is only on peculia, which existed at all times of slavery (C. J. XI, 48 (47), 19-21) ^{[8, P. 441-442]}. Veterans' communities are not a private, but a very broad phenomenon that has contributed so much to assimilation… Of course, I fully agree with the position that the clientele was an institution of archaic origin and was like a relic in the society of the late Roman Empire. But the main thing is to take into account the new requirements…

(GASO, F. R-802, Op. 1, D. 151, l. 1-1 vol.)

Typing, vacation.

Unfortunately, the letter ends in mid-sentence. In the personal fund of M. Ya. Susyumov (GASO, F. R-802) the continuation of the letter or the answer of N. N. Belova has not been preserved.

"To reckon with new requirements" has become an important prognostic remark. According to the calculations of the legal historian L. A. Zaitseva, just during this period a new stage of development of legislation in the field of awarding degrees begins ^{[9, p. 611]}.

In the regulation of 1972, which was adopted six months after the letter presented above, the requirements for doctoral dissertations were tightened. Thus, a doctoral dissertation "should be an independent research work containing a solution to a major scientific or scientific-technical problem. The inclusion of the materials of one's own candidate's dissertation in the doctoral dissertation is possible only if the additional material itself represents a contribution to science that meets the requirements for doctoral dissertations" (Bulletin of Normative acts of Ministries and Departments of the USSR. 1972. No. 6).

In the second half of the 1960s, N. N. Belova worked on a set of problems concerning the Gallorim villa as an economic unit connected with the city. On the material of epigraphy by N. N. Belova and archeology by E. G. Surov, the theory of dialectical continuity of M. Ya. was confirmed. Suzumova. N. N. Belova considered the history of the late Roman Republic and Gaul of the principate era as the history of the relationship between Rome and Italians, i.e., the struggle of Italian communities against Roman-Italian slavery. This research led her to the problem of the essence of the Gallic civitas, which throughout its history has transformed from a tribal community into a state organization. "The urban center became a stronghold of Romanization and the focus of the local aristocracy, on which Rome relied in its provincial politics" ^{[10, pp. 206-207]}.

Nina Nikolaevna contributed to the popularization of historical knowledge. She wrote articles in the Soviet Historical Encyclopedia: Britons, Boudica Uprising, Veleda, Vespasian, Getae, Herodian, Lucius Icilius, Insubras, Celts, Matern etc. Abstracts of her articles were published in Bibliotheca classica orientalis.N. N. Belova was one of the few co-authors of M. Ya.

Suzumova. Moreover, she was the only scientist at the department who carried out a kind of "synthesis", a "bridge" between the problems developed by the Byzantinist M. Ya. Susyumov, the archaeologist of the Crimea E. G. Surov, the medievalist N. A. Bortnik and even, in a way, the novist I. N. Champalov. So, ADSV 5, was the publication of a doctoral dissertation by N. A. Bortnik, as well as a program article by E. G. Surov and the actual article by N. N. Belova. In addition, she published with graduate students of the department – V. N. Danilenko and I. V. Pyankov ^{[11, pp. 159-163]}.

Conclusion

"I feel a little sad in my soul: there are a lot of years, but much more has been done, little has been done and not quite what is needed," wrote the director of the Chersonesos Historical and Archaeological Museum I. A. Antonova to the corresponding member. USSR Academy of Sciences Z. V. Udaltsova ^{[12, p. 302]}. Nina Nikolaevna Belova could repeat the same words with full justification. Maybe it is this situation: when the mind, abilities, diligence are squandered on important, but somewhat extraneous matters unrelated to science, will one day become a source of inspiration for a new "Citadel"?! ^[13] The fate of the beautiful muse of Chersonesos: thirty years – at the forefront of archaeological excavations – and not a single moment to create a dissertation! – it turned out to be typical for a generation whose youth coincided with the youth of October.

Thus, the biographies of historians who were part of the "inner circle" of M. Ya. Suzumova is an independent scientific problem. The publication of sources, in this case, is the only effective antidote against the tenets of references "separated by commas" in the notes for the next anniversary date. Except M. Ya. Susyumova, teachers of the Department of General History of USU did not leave personal archives. Information about them should be sought in official documents, scientific publications, memoirs. I. N. Champalov, N. A. Bortnik, N. N. Belova, E. G. Surov, N. F. Shilyuk investigated various problems, but they were united by a powerful Suzumov influence. The use of archival materials is a sure way to trace the path to science of many specialists. The trail, according to a wise Kazakh proverb, is the mother of the road.