Don Ostrowski remembers Andrei

Дон Островски, историк и коллега А.П. по Гарвардскому университету,  распространил через список электронной рассылки для исследователей истории ранних славян (Early Slavic Studies) следующий текст.


Andrei Ivanovich Pliguzov 1956-2011: A Remembrance

           I first met Andrei Pliguzov in the fall of 1977 in Leningrad. He
sought me out at the Publichka because he found out I was working on a topic
he had worked on as an undergraduate. We struck up a warm friendship during
that winter. At that time, he was interested in everything, a fact that lent
itself to wide-ranging discussions. He was thinking about going into the
field of television in some capacity, either in front of or on the other
side of the camera, but was eventually drawn back to Russian history.

           He worked with A. A. Zimin until the latter's death in 1980,
then among others, with Viktor Ivanovich Buganov until his death in 1996.
In those days, Andrei was a dynamic go-getter with a vibrant personality. He
seemed to be connected with everyone and everything. He published a
prodigious amount of high-quality work in a brief period of time. He was
particularly interested in matters of text criticism and editing and
codicology. His doctoral dissertation "Pamiatniki rannego
'nestiazhatel'stva' prevoi treti XVI veka" was completed in 1986. He was one
of the co-editors and major contributor to the collection RUSSKII FEODAL'NYI
ARKHIV, 5 vols. (1986-1992). He was on the editorial board and contributor
to the periodical ARKHIV RUSSKOI  ISTORII  (1992-), and to various
rotaprint-type publications that made most of the opportunity glasnost
provided for publication outside the old Soviet system of publishing houses.
A collection of a number of these early articles of his was published as
POLEMIKA V RUSSKOI  TSERKVI: PERVOI TRETI XVI STOLETIIA (Indrik, 2002).
Andrei edited ZHIVAIA VODA NEPRIADVY (Molodaia gvardiia, 1988), which
included a collection of documents concerning the Kulikovo Battle as well as
Sergei Borodin's novel about Dmitrii Donskoi. He also co-edited and
contributed to the commentary of the translation of Sigismund von
Herberstein's RERUM MOSCOVITICARUM COMMENTARII into Russian (1988) and a
collection of documents and eyewitness accounts about the Smuta
(Sovremennik, 1989). He was involved with the translation of John Fennell's
THE CRISIS OF MEDIEVAL RUSSIA, 1200-1304  into Russian and helped to provide
explanatory notes (1989). In 1993, he published TEKST-KENTAVR O SIBIRSKIKH
SAMOEDAKH (Arkeograficheskii tsentr'), a study of folklore narratives about
Siberia.

           After my research year in the Soviet Union, I returned to the
United States and maintained only sporadic communication with Andrei. He
took notes for me on a manuscript in the Tikhomirov Collection the
Novosibirsk (his hometown) Public Library. In January 1990, I was able to
visit the Novosibirsk Public Library to examine the manuscript myself. The
director of the Sector of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Vladimir Nikolaevich
Alekseev, in the initial interview to allow me access to the manuscript,
quite naturally wanted to know why I wanted to see it. I began to go into a
long explanation about my dissertation on the 1503 Church Council when he
noticed among my papers the notes that Andrei had taken. He recognized
Andrei's handwriting and straight away brought me the manuscript.

           I was hoping to see Andrei that trip but had just missed him in
Moscow where I had been earlier in the week. The next day Vladimir
Nikolaevich came over to the desk where I was working and said that I had a
phone call from Moscow. It was Andrei. He told me he was getting on a plane
and would be there in 5 hours, and that I should wait at the Library for
him. Sure enough, he arrived just as the library was closing. Such deeds
were typical for Andrei in those days. He managed to include an article of
mine, an offprint of which I gave him on the steps of the Library, in an
article of his that was already in press. He was an inclusive scholar. At
the time, I thought of him as a young Zimin or Ia. S. Lur'e, and certainly a
worthy successor to these two giants.

           In the 1990s, Andrei spent some time at Harvard University and
saw as one of his primary missions to help Western scholars who were not as
familiar with the Russian manuscript repositories and scholarly writing as
he was. He was unstinting in his willingness to assist others.  Edward L.
Keenan took Andrei under his wing and made sure Andrei had sufficient
employment to keep him going. Andrei also worked closely with Omeljan
Pritsak. Eventually Andrei began to work for the Library of Congress under
James Billington. During his time at Harvard he helped organize and co-edit
a Festschrift for Keenan

           At the 1994 AAASS convention in Philadelphia he was on a panel I
was also on and he gave a flawless presentation in English without notes!
But by then he had already been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The subsequent
operation changed his personality and his abilities. Previously he was a
sure-footed scholar, in command of his intellectual domain; subsequently he
began to stumble in his prodigious memory, making miscues that clearly
mystified him. In 1999, both of us were at the AAASS convention in St.
Louis. We spent part of a day together going to Cahokia Mounds, the site of
the major city of the Mississippian Indians. Although he enjoyed the trip,
Andrei was, by then, hesitant and unsure of himself. He tired easily and was
now the one who required assistance. His decline continued slowly but
steadily thereafter. Before long, he was having trouble expressing complete
thoughts even in Russian, as though searching for things that were no longer
there.

           Yet he continued to work, even after returning to Russia. He was
one of the editors of SOCHINENIIA. KNIGA GLAGOLEMIIA FOTIOS  (Indrik, 2005).
He had completed preparation of a volume of metropolitan documents, soon to
be published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He wrote and
published a volume of poetry. The last I heard from him was about a year ago
concerning an article he had just written. Andrei was a friend and a scholar
to the last.

Don Ostrowski