A LITTLE-KNOWN PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF EGYPTOLOGY: RUSSIAN EMIGRANTS IN FOREIGN MISSIONS IN EGYPT

The paper brings attention to the work and lives of a number of Russian emigrants who contributed significantly to the publication of prominent ancient Egyptian monuments at Saqqara, Giza, and Luxor being involved in the US archaeological and epigraphic projects in Egypt during the 1930s-1960s. A former officer V.V. Strekalovsky was an important member of the epigraphic project in the chapel of Mereruka, which developed new standards for the publication of Old Kingdom relief decoration. A former engineer A.V. Floroff had worked for nine years at the foot of the Giza pyramids recording architecture at the Harvard University - Boston Museum of Fine Arts mission directed by G.A. Reisner, before becoming the most experienced illustrator of the Oriental Institute (Chicago University) epigraphic project at Luxor. His colleague N. Melnikoff worked for six years as an illustrator at Giza. The author argues that the presence of White Russian emigrants in international missions in Egypt was one of the natural results of the development of the fieldwork methodology in the Nile Valley in the first half of the twentieth century. Although the fieldwork experience of Russian emigrants did not affect the development of the national school of Oriental studies, their contribution to the study of ancient Egyptian civilization should not be neglected by contemporary Russian specialists.