Sergey V. Kuzminykh^1,* and Irina V. Belozerova^2,**

¹Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
²State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia

*E-mail: kuzminykh@alr.msk.su
**E-mail: irina.belozero@yandex.ru

Keywords: A.Ya. Bryusov, State Historical Museum, State Academy for the History of Material Culture, Institute for the History of Material Culture, Institute of Archaeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, history of Russian archaeology.

The article considers the contribution of A.Ya. Bryusov to studying the Neolithic and Early Metal Ages of the central and northern Russian Plain. His professional becoming as an archaeologist took place in the Gorodtsov scientific school of the 1920s. Students of V.A. Gorodtsov, including Bryusov, remained faithful to the Gorodtsov typological method in archaeological research throughout the 1930s–1940s. The paper examines the researcher’s role as the originator of the most important scientific trends in Eastern European archaeology, the organizer of the activities of the Field Research Department, and the pioneer of introducing natural science methods into the field and research practice of the Institute of Archaeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The authors show his efforts to evacuate and save the State Historical Museum collections during the Great Patriotic War and search for lost national treasures in the post-war years. Bryusov’s name is largely associated with the emergence of Soviet archaeologists in the international scientific community during the Cold War. In the 1930s–1960s, Aleksandr Yakovlevich Bryusov was one of the recognized leaders of Soviet archaeology.