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Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

The Köhler Report

After six months of investigation, Köhler submitted his findings to the Academy of Sciences. The President of the Academy, Count Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, passed it along to the Minister of Education and Spiritual Affairs, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, in December 1821.

His report divided the monuments of Crimea into two classes:

those beyond repair but worthy of preservation, such as kurgans, graves, and the foundations of ancient buildings, and
those that could be restored through “relatively small expenditures” of time and money.

The latter monuments were “particularly important for [the study of] ancient history and geography,” Köhler explained, “and must be preserved from the damage that might be rendered them out of ignorance.”

The dividends, he promised, would be political, as well as academic. For while the French and English “have shown great enthusiasm for the antiquities of their respective fatherlands,” the antiquities of those countries were nowhere near as numerous or as ancient as the “priceless monuments in Crimea.”

The Russian Empire, by annexing Crimea, suddenly stood on ancient foundations.

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