TO THE HISTORY OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONS OF NICOLA OTTOKAR AND GIOACCHINO VOLPE

The reader is invited to the letters of Nicola Ottokar, a graduate of St. Petersburg University, student I.M. Grevs, who became a professor of the University of Florence during his emigration, to his colleague, the famous Italian medievalist and politician Gioacchino Volpe. According to the author of the article, when Nicola Ottokar was in exile, he rapidly «built into» the Italian intellectual environment. This was facilitated by a wide acquaintanceship with representatives of Italian science, such as Antonio Anzilotti, Gaetano Salvemini, Ernesto Codignola and others. But the greatest role in Nicola Ottokar’s integration was played by Gioacchino Volpe, who known as one of the controversial and complicated representatives of Italian historiography in the XX century. The published letters, which are stored in Gioacchino Volpe’s archive in Santarcangelo di Romagna, characterize not only the subject, related to the personal relationships of the two historians, but also raise a very complex question about the relationship between Nicola Ottokar and Italian fascism. Moreover, the published letters are interesting for determining the general nature of the development of Italian historical science in the first half of the 20th century. At first, the author of the article finds interesting the element of Ottokar’s reflection about his work. At second, we can see a very curious attempt to start a discussion about the place of Gioacchino Volpe in Italian historiography and his belonging to «School of Economics and Law», which was formed in Italy in the XX century. The immediate cause for this discussion was several articles that were published in the early 1920s by the famous Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce. He ranked Gioacchino Volpe as one of the main representatives of «School of Economics and Law» of Italian medieval science. Nicola Ottokar was disagreeing with this conclusion of his colleague. In letters to Gioacchino Volpe and in a theoretical article, published in 1930s in «Civilta moderna» journal, Ottokar tried to show that unlike most of «School of Economics and Law» representatives, Volpe’s work is characterized by the fundamental depth of the problems considered. But the discussion about the place of Gioacchino Volpe in modern Italian science did not take place: there were not any responses, and Volpe himself, as we could see, rather agreed with Benedetto Croce’s interpretation of his work. Letters ofNicola Ottokar, addressed to Gioacchino Volpe, are published by written autographs, which are stored in Fondo «G. Volpe» (Biblioteca comunale di Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN), Italy, Fondo «G. Volpe», Carteggi) in the original language with translation into Russian by the author of this article, with permission of the archive administration.

Nicola Ottokar, Gioacchino Volpe, Benedetto Croce, School of Economics and Law, Italian historiography