Ivan Durov, Russian ethnographer, local historian, and folklorist was born

Ivan Matveyevich Durov, Russian ethnographer, local historian, and folklorist was born on July 12 (24), 1894 in the village of Sumposad, Kemsky District, Arkhangelsk Governorate (at present Belomorsky District, Republic of Karelia). His parents, Matvey and Anna Durov, were adherents of the old faith. The family had old books and a lot of icons.

In 1903 Ivan Durov entered a specialized school in Sumposad, which was known for the fact that many famous captains received training in its maritime class, including V. I. Voronin, the native of the village, captain of the Soviet icebreaking fleet, polar explorer, member of many Soviet expeditions to the Arctic.

Having successfully finished school in 1910, Ivan Durov then turned to self-education. In 1912, for 9 months he studied at the “gymnasium at home”, in 1913 he continued his studies at “Self-education” commercial courses.

Shortly after finishing school, Ivan Durov took an interest in the everyday life of the Pomors. On December 30 (January 12), 1910 his first ethnographic article devoted to Svyatki was published in Arkhangelsk newspaper. In it, Ivan Durov conveyed the atmosphere of festive Orthodox Pomorye, where, as he wrote, “the old way of life full of customs and rites was preserved”.

A year after the first publication, in 1911 Ivan Durov became a member of the Pomorye branch of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North and began his career as an assistant secretary and head of the library of the Pomorye branch, which was located in Sumposad. From 1913 to 1918 he worked part-time as an accountant at Sumsky Consumer Society, and later this work became his full-time job. Ivan Durov did not give up his scientific interests. Meanwhile he published articles in Izvestiya Arkhangelskogo Obshchestva Izucheniya Russkogo Severa (News of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North).

In 1918-1919 Ivan Durov taught accounting on a part-time basis at the specialized school in Sumsky Posad, then he worked in the village of Soroka (Belomorsk) and in the Union of Cooperatives in the town of Kem. In 1922 he was a member of the presidium of the executive committee of Sumsky Volost (administrative subdivision), chairman of the Sumsky Credit Partnership in charge of elections. His extensive essay under the title Fisheries of Belomorsk was published that year in several issues of Kooperativnaya Zhizn Karelii journal (Cooperative Life of Karelia) in Petrozavodsk. The article read about fishing and hunting in Kemsky District, the history of establishment of cooperatives in Karelian Pomorye, problems of Pomorye fishermen in connection with the opening of the state organization “Oblastryba”.

In 1923 Ivan Durov became a member of the Society for the Study of Karelia, two years later, in 1925 he founded the Sumpasad branch of the society. He was elected as chairman of the board. Ivan Durov was actively engaged in studying the local history – his publications were printed not only in Izvestiya Arkhangelskogo Obshchestva Izucheniya Russkogo Severa, Kooperativnaya Zhizn Karelii, but also in such sources as Izvestiya Obshchestva Izucheniya Karelii (News of the Society for the Study of Karelia), Karelo-Murmanski Krai (Karelia-Murmansk Territory), Ekonomika i Statistika Karelii (Economy and Statistics of Karelia). Readers learnt about the fisheries of the Pomors, the environment of Old Believers, traditions, everyday life in Pomorye etc.

In 1926 Ivan Durov became a member of the Solovetsky Regional Studies Society, and his first research paper The Experience of the Terminological Dictionary of the Fisheries in Pomorye was published three years later. This is the only lifetime edition by the local historian; the terms he had collected are of great interest to ethnographers, because, in fact, through vocabulary entries he described fishing - the most important branch of the economy in Pomorye.

From 1932 to 1933 Ivan Durov was the head of the regional studies branch in Sumsky Posad, in 1934 he worked in the Karelian Regional Studies Bureau in Soroksky (Belomorsky) District, then he was appointed as an instructor at the Karelian Regional Studies Bureau. While building up his own collection of folklore materials, he was able to set up regional studies branches in Nyukhcha, Kolezhma, Virma, Sukhoy, Soroka, whose members collected works of oral folk art. Ivan Durov’s collected folklore and ethnographic materials were housed in the Karelian Research Institute, which included the Karelian Regional Studies Bureau. Today, the texts collected by Ivan Durov and members of the Pomorye regional studies branches are kept in the Scientific Archive of the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences - these are the earliest collections of works dating from 1913 - 1938. The materials are largely made up of spells, chastushkas (folk songs), a lot of proverbs and sayings, as well as fairy tales, religious poems, epics, children's games and entertainment, riddles, jokes, puzzles, poems; lyrical, wedding, family, soldiers’, love, prison and other songs, anecdotes, memories of the Civil War and the flight of the White Army across Pomorye in 1920, etc.

Over those years Ivan Durov continued to work on The Dictionary of the Living Pomor Language in its Everyday and Ethnographic Use. Having finished the work on the manuscript, in December 1934 he donated its single copy to the Karelian Research Institute (today the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The dictionary was not published then, and the manuscript entered the archive. It was only in 2011 that the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the support of the Russian Research Foundation for the Humanities and the Ministry of the Republic of Karelia on the National Policy and Relations with Religious Associations, published the dictionary by I. M. Durov. The dictionary comprises over 12,000 words. The publication also includes a short Essay of the Living Pomor Language by Ivan Durov, which provides a geographical and historical overview of Pomorye, its economy and culture, as well as a general description of Pomor dialects.

While working in the school of the village of Sumposad in the 1930s, Ivan Durov was engaged in collecting folklore materials. His assistants were Sumposad schoolchildren, who, inspired by the enthusiasm of their teacher, collected folklore materials of the native village and neighboring Pomorye villages both on weekdays and at weekends.

Together with young assistants of the school in Sumsky Posad, Ivan Durov actively studied the flora. In his native village he started a fruit and berry nursery, which occupied 130 square metres. In September 1937 at the first Karelian Regional Studies Fair in Petrozavodsk the circle of young regional specialists of the secondary school in Sumsky Posad led by Durov presented their exhibits in fruit growing, phenology, folklore, and others fields.

In 1938 Ivan Durov was arrested on suspicion of participating in a counter-revolutionary organization, recruiting new people, preparing an armed uprising and being a leader of a peasant group in Soroksky District. On April 3, 1938, he was executed at Sandarmokh (Medvezhya Gora station). He was rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the Karelian ASSR on April 12, 1988.

Lit.: Болгова О. Н. "Утраченные" страницы "Словаря живого поморского языка в его бытовом и этнографическом применении" Ивана Матвеевича Дурова // Изучение сохранение историко-культурного наследия Русского Севера. Архангельск, 2017. С. 96-110; Дуров И. М. Словарь живого поморского языка в его бытовом и этнографическом применении. Петрозаводск, 2011. Из содерж.: Кузнецова В. П. И. М. Дуров и его «Словарь живого поморского языка». С. V-XIV; [И. М. Дуров] // Известия Архангельского общества изучения Русского Севера. 1913. № 12. С. 568-569; Кошкина С. В. Лапино. Петрозаводск, 2017. Из содерж.: [О письме И. М. Дурова профессору В. Н. Всеволодскому]. С. 108-109; Кошкина С. В. Сорока - Беломорск, 1419 - 1938 : краевед. записки, летопись. Петрозаводск, 2013. Из содерж.: [И. М. Дуров]. С. 68, 137, 154, 172, 177-179, 328, 337, 339, 344, 346, 348; Краевед из Сумпосада : Иван Матвеевич Дуров. Беломорск, 2014; Кузнецова В. П. Краевед И. М. Дуров и его «Словарь живого поморского языка» // Беломорье : нить времен : материалы форума, Беломорск, 25-26 сент. 2010 г. Петрозаводск, 2011. С. 68-79; Лойтер С. М. Детский поэтический фольклор Карелии : исследование и тексты. Петрозаводск, 2013. Из содерж.: [Об И. М. Дурове]. С. 25-28; Лойтер С. М. Фольклорное краеведение Карелии : жизнь и судьба И. М. Дурова // Краеведческие чтения. Петрозаводск, 2009. С. 3-7; Один из лучших краеведов Карелии // Крас. Карелия. 1935. № 108; Сенькина Т. И. Забытые и неизвестные страницы истории фольклористики Карелии : очерки и материалы. Петрозаводск, 2012. Из содерж.: [И. М. Дуров]. С. 54, 57-61; [Опись материала, собранного И. М. Дуровым]. С. 191-203; Титова Т. И. Мое Поморье. Петрозаводск, 2010. Из содерж.: Краевед из Сумпосада. С. 9-15.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

The Republic of Karelia: Pages of History: collection.

The article written by S. V. Koshkina, local historian, chairperson of “Pomorsky Bereg” public association.

The materials were provided by the National Library of the Republic of Karelia