Durov Ivan Matveevich
12 June 1894, Sumsky Posad Village — 3 April 1938, Sandarmokh, Karelian ASSR
Biography, education, career:
Ivan Durov specialized on ethnographic regional studies from 1910. In 1911 he became a member of Pomorye Branch of the Archangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North. In 1923 he joined the Society for the Study of Karelia, and in 1926 – Solovetsky Society for Regional Studies. From 1934 he worked as an instructor of Sorok Region of Karelian Bureau of Regional Studies, which was part of Karelian Scientific Research Institute. He gathered ethnographic and dialectal materials for his future dictionary of the Pomor dialect, titled Dictionary of Living Pomor Language. On 28 February 1938 he was arrested as a “member of a counter-revolutionary subversive group”. On 22 March he was capitally sentenced, with the sentence executed on 3 April 1938. He was exonerated by the Supreme Court of Karelian ASSR on12 April 1988.
Areas of expertise: History and ethnography of the Russians; ethnography of Pomors