Schliemann H., (1822-1890), Archaeologist

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SCHLIEMANN Heinrich (1822-1890), German and Russian businessman and amateur archaeologist. In January 1846, he arrived in St. Petersburg as a representative of a Dutch company. In February 1847 he was granted Russian citizenship and entered the second merchant guild. He was engaged in wholesale trade of colonial goods. In December 1863, he was made St. Petersburg merchant of the first guild and in January 1864 he was made an honorary citizen. He married E. P. Lyzhina and had children in this marriage. In April 1864, he left Russia. In 1868, he returned to St. Petersburg for the last time. In 1869, he left for the USA and became an American citizen without giving up his Russian citizenship. In the same year he married in Greece for the second time while not being divorced in his first marriage. Thus breaking the Russian laws on citizenship and marriage he could not return to Russia. Having studied the text of Iliad by Homer, Schliemann discovered the location of Troy, and spent many years carrying out large-scale excavations. In 1880, 1882, and in 1884, he sent 180 items found during the excavations to St. Petersburg for A. A. Polovtsev (today most of those finds can be seen in the Hermitage). In 1883, he asked for a permission to carry out excavations in Transcaucasia but was refused. In 1945, the Soviet government removed a collection of gold items found by Schliemann in Troy from Germany to the USSR. Today they are on display in Pushkin State Museum Of Fine Arts in Moscow. The Schliemann archive (including its Russian part numbering over 50,000 documents) is kept in the library of Gennadius American School for Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. There is a commemorative plaque on the house where Schliemann lived in 1859-64 (28 the First Line of Vasilievsky Island).

References: Богданов И. А. Долгая дорога в Трою. СПб., 1995; Шлиман Е. П. "Не привози с собою Гомера...": Письма Е. П. Шлиман Генриху Шлиману. СПб., 1998.

I. A. Bogdanov. Lyzhina E.P.
Polovtsov Alexander Alexandrovich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Schliemann Heinrich
1st Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 28
Богданов И. А. Долгая дорога в Трою. СПб., 1995
Шлиман Е. П. "Не привози с собою Гомера...": Письма Е. П. Шлиман Генриху Шлиману. СПб., 1998 Hermitage
Hermitage