The documents on the history of the destruction of the Moscow temple of St. Nicholas on Myasnitskaya in 1928 in the Central State Archives

Abstract

The study of the scale of loss of cultural heritage in 1920-1930s is a pressing task for researchers. This publication introduces the documents on the demolition of the ancient Moscow temple of St. Nicholas on Myasnitskaya street in 1928. Here are the texts of the decree of the Presidium of the all-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Mossovet, the extracts from protocols of the meetings of the Central state restoration workshops, the address of a community of believers, of different scientific organizations and institutions, and individual scientists (academicians S.F. Oldenburg, N.I. Marr, N.P. Likhachev, etc.) to the all-Russian Central Executive Committee with a request top reserve the monument. The arrangement of documents in chronological order enables one to see the dynamics of events that preceded the demolition of the monument, the decision-making mechanism of the Moscow and Central authorities on the destruction of the temple. The documents show that the Central and local authorities ignored the requests of authority scientific organizations and the known scientists to keep the ancient monument. The characteristic of documentary complexes on the subject and mentioning of the archival documents that are not included in the publication are there in the Preface.