Rzhiga Fyodor Vyacheslavovich (Czech: Říha; 1847, near the town of Ledeč nad Sázavou, Czechia — March 5, 1926, Nizhny Novgorod) was an educator, philologist, historian, and author of gymnasium textbooks; a member of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Scholarly Archival Commission, who spent the last decades of his life in Nizhny Novgorod and made a significant contribution to regional archival and scholarly work.[1]
Biography and Teaching Career
He was born into a peasant family in 1847 (1848 by the new calendar) near the town of Ledeč nad Sázavou in Czechia.[1] In 1874 he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Prague University.[2] In 1877 he moved to Russia, converted to Orthodoxy and took Russian citizenship, and married Ekaterina Nikolaevna Zhukova, the daughter of a Rybinsk merchant.[1] He began his teaching career that same year, 1877, at the progymnasium in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Governorate, where he taught the ancient languages.[2] From 1882 to 1887 he served at the Warsaw Gymnasium.[2]
In 1887 he received an appointment to the 1st Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Gymnasium, where he taught Ancient Greek and Latin until his retirement in 1912 with the rank of state councillor.[1] While working at the gymnasium he kept diaries (six calendars survive, covering 1884–1885, 1900–1912, and 1917–1918), which contain information about his professional, teaching and methodological, cultural, and family life.[2]
Scholarly Works and Public Activity
From 1888 Rzhiga was a member of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Scholarly Archival Commission (NGUAK), and after the Revolution of 1917 a member of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Archaeological and Ethnological Commission.[2] In his political views he was an advocate of the unity of all Slavs.[1]
During his Nizhny Novgorod period, he published a number of scholarly and educational works: "An Outline of the Life and Work of John Amos Comenius" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1892), "The Syntax of the Russian Language" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1906; 2nd ed., Moscow, 1908), "A Russian Language Textbook. Part 1. Etymology" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1909), an adaptation of the Serbian bylina "The Building of Skadar" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1913), and the two-volume edition "Slavic Songs in Eight Dialects" (Nizhny Novgorod, 1914–1915).[1] His other works include a description, with historical commentary, of a collection of casts of foreign tokens and medals donated by A. M. Gorky to the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Scholarly Archival Commission, as well as translations of documents from Swedish archives.[1] His early works include "Comparative Etymological Tables of the Slavic Languages" (St. Petersburg, 1877–1878) and "The Basic Types of the Sentence" (Moscow, 1890).[1]
Archival Legacy and Family
Rzhiga's personal archive was transferred to the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Region: it comprises about 400 paper-based documents (mostly handwritten) and 32 photographic prints dating from 1871 to 1930. A distinctive feature of the collection is the large number of documents in foreign languages: German, Czech, Serbian, as well as Ancient Greek and Latin.[2] The earliest identified document is a certificate in German dated April 12, 1871, issued to Franz Rzhiga.[2]
Rzhiga's children also left a notable mark in their professional fields: his son Vyacheslav Fyodorovich Rzhiga (1883–1960) became a Slavic philologist and professor at Moscow State University; his son Nikolay Fyodorovich Rzhiga (1886–1954) became an engineer-captain 1st rank who served in the People's Commissariat of the Navy; his daughter Nadezhda Fyodorovna Rzhiga (1892–1944) became a local historian and bibliographer who founded the local history bibliography department of the Gorky Regional Library.[2]
He died on March 5, 1926, and was buried at the Bugrov (Red) Cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod. His grave has not survived.[1]
Sources
- e-heritage.ru — Scientific heritage of Russia (archive)
- archives.nobl.ru — Activities / State Archival Service of Nizhny Novgorod Region