“…This Area Is almost the only Classical Country in Our Possession”: Baron B. B. Kampengauzen’s Memoir “On the Antiquities in the New Russia Region” (1817)

This publication introduces into the scholarship Baron B. B. Kampengauzen’s (Campenhausen, 1772–1823) memoir “On the Antiquities in the New Russia Region.” The state controller of the Russian Empire Kampengauzen visited the New Russia Region and the Crimea in summer 1816. In result of this trip, he prepared a long memoir discussing possible transformation of the country. Kampengauzen compiled the part addressing the antiquities of New Russia in a traditional way of the observations of the kind. In the beginning, he stated the general history of the country; later on, he called the reader’s attention to the topical problems of New Russia, discussed the current status of the ancient sites, and expressed his own recommendations for the protection and research of antiquities. This memoir is especially valuable since one of its first readers was the Russian Emperor Alexander I.