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Birthday anniversary of historian Grigory V. Yesipov
September 24 (October 6), 1812 in Tula, was born a hereditary Ryazan nobleman, historian, head of the archive of the Ministry of the Imperial Court, collector of materials on the history of Russia of the 16th – 19th centuries, Grigory V. Yesipov.
Having completed in 1830 a course at St. Petersburg University Boarding School, in January 1831, Grigory entered the Foreign Censorship Committee, where 1 (13) August 1831 was assigned Assistant Chief Censor.
Foreign Censorship Committee, created in 1828 as a special body after the merging of foreign censorship with domestic one, reviewed works of the foreign press that entered the country legally. Yesipov was engaged in reviewing books being brought from abroad by Russians and foreigners, in reviewing notes and pictures, as well as candy tickets, figures, poems, written out by traders from abroad. Among the works were those forbidden conditionally and unconditionally, permitted after cutting some pages out of them, and fully permitted ones.
Speaking about the work in the Committee, Yesipov called his duties "inquisitorial" and himself a "book executioner." "Upon arrival to Russia on the border any individual was deprived of all books, notes and pictures that he brought. The items were then sealed by frontier customs, sent to St. Petersburg customs in bales or boxes and from there, without removing the seal, came to our Committee. Once the books owner came to the Committee, I was obliged to be unseal the items the same day in his presence, review them and select the banned books, announcing to him that if he would again go abroad, he could get them back at the border customs where they would then be deported. As to the books, permitted with cut outs, the owner could take them away after the forbidden pages were cut out, or leave them in the Committee, together with the prohibited editions. The works allowed by censorship were given back to him immediately."
In 1852, Grigory was appointed office manager of the Commission approved by the emperor for tutelage over the children of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna.
In 1864 Yesipova was transferred to the Ministry of the Imperial Court, where in 1882 he became head of the General Archives. The General Archives of the Ministry which was formed from the Archives of the Armoury, the Archives of the Moscow Court Office and archives of individual institutions of court departments occupied a special place among other departmental archives, as it was the archives of the Ministry, whose activity were not of the national nature and focused exclusively on the ruling House of Romanov. The Archives administration depended on the orders of the Minister of the Imperial Court, reporting directly to the Emperor, and not to the Council of Ministers.
Yesipov’s literary work started in 1833 with the publication jointly with D. I. Yazykov of "Satyr Prince Antiochus Cantemir." In 1834, Yesipov together with Mukhanov, translated Victor Hugo’s "Hans Icelander."
The result of archival studies of G. V. Yesipov of the 18th century history had been, from 1851, a number of historical articles in the "Russian Messenger", "Russian Speech," "Notes of the Fatherland" and other magazines. Many of these stories were included in separately issued collections: "Schismatic cases of the 18th century", "Ivan Pososhkov", "Tsarevichs Impostors, Alexei and Peter”, “People of old age", "Heavy memory of the past."
He prepared and published under his own editorship "The collection of documents on the cae of Alexei Petrovich," "The collection of documents about Peter the Great", "The history Vygovskaya desert."
Grigory Yesipov died in 1899.
Lit.: Бухерт В. Г. Г. В. Есипов и создание Общего архива Министерства Императорского Двора // Отечественные архивы. 1995. № 4. С. 32-37; Димперан Л. В. Есипов Григорий Васильевич (1812-11.4.1889) // Рязанская энциклопедия. Рязань, 1999. Т. 1. С. 335-336; Есипов (Григорий Васильевич) //Энциклопедический словарь. Репр. воспроизведение изд. Ф. А. Брокгауз — И. Е. Ефрон 1890 г. Ярослваль, 1991. Т. 22. С. 683; Китлова Е. «Из сочинений Байрона надо вырезать несколько страниц...». Из воспоминаний помощника цензора // Источник. Документы русской истории. 1999. № 1; Решил вернуться в сословие учёных. (Обзор писем А. А. Шахматова Г. В. Есипову) / Публ. подг. Е. А. Китловой // Археографический ежегодник за 2000 год. М., 2001. С. 378-379; Современный календарь на 1909 год. М., 1908. С. 65; Шестидесятилетие служебной деятельности заведующего Общим архивом Министерства Императорского двора Григория Васильевича Есипова // Исторический вестник. 1891. Т. 43. С. 592-594.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Русские достопамятности: [сборник]. М., 1877. Т. 1;
Церковь Благовещения, что на Житном дворе / сост. Григорием Есиповым. М., 1892.
The text provided with the Paustovsky Ryazan Youth regional library