Siberian pedagogue and bibliographer M.A. Slobodskiy (1874-1937)
The article is the first detailed research into the biography of Mikhail Alexandrovich Slobodskiy (1874-1937), a famous Siberian philologist, pedagogue, bibliographer, author and editor of a number of publications. His professional activity was associated with educational institutions of Tomsk (1899-1918), as well as with the Ministry of Public Education of the government of A.V. Kolchak (1918-1919) and the Bibliographic Bureau (1919-1922) of both Siberia Research Institute and Tomsk State University. In the Bureau he worked together with the famous-to-be Russian researchers M.K. Azadovskiy and N.V. Zdobnov. As a member of the Society for the Study of the Tomsk Territory under the Tomsk Museum of Regional Studies (1925-1928) M.A. Slobodskiy led active regional studies and bibliographic work. He was elected the Tomsk corresponding member of the Central Bureau of Regional Studies (1926) - a public organization in charge of regional studies coordination. He published the first overview and schedule article on the ethnographic study of the Russian and native population of the Tomsk-Narym Ob area (1929), the territories in the limits of the modern Tomsk Oblast. He stated the insufficiency of human resources in the ranks of Siberian ethnologists, actively supported organization of specialized training of researchers of native cultures, including foundation of the Ethnology Department in Tomsk University. M.A. Slobodskiy is the organizer of the reference and bibliographical service for library users in various Tomsk institutions. In 19291930, when an investigation process faked against the intelligentsia class, commonly known as the Academicians' case, raged in the USSR, M.A. Slobodskiy was subjected to repression. In 1937, he was once again arrested under the pretext of a non-existent case "Union for salvation of Russia" and executed by a firing squad on the accusation of being a member of a counter revolutionary cadet-monarchic organization. From the archives of Tomsk State University, a letter of M.A. Slobodskiy dated 1919 is published, addressed to the prominent researcher and public activist A.V. Adrianov, which vividly depicts the negative perception of the Bolsheviks by a part of the Siberian intelligentsia class.