Samuil Goratsyevich Lozinsky (August 26, 1874, Bobruisk, Minsk province — June 26, 1945) — Russian and Soviet historian, co-editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia (1907-1913).

Biography

He was born in September 1874 in the city of Bobruisk, Minsk province, into a wealthy Jewish family. Brother — Lozinsky Moisey (Moishe-Chaim) Goratsyevich (1873-1903) — a revolutionary movement figure. In 1895 he graduated from the classical gymnasium in Slutsk. In the same year, L. entered the historical and philological faculty of Kyiv University. He studied in the specialization of the socio-economic history of the late Middle Ages and modern times under the scientific supervision of Professor I. V. Luchitsky. During the same years (1895-97) he attended lectures at the University of Berlin. During his student years he was fascinated by the ideas of reviving Jewish statehood, largely under the influence of his older brother Moses (Chaim Moshe) (1873-1903), one of the organizers of the Zionist movement in Russia.

In 1897, L. was arrested for participating in a student demonstration in support of M.F. Vetrova. In 1899, due to his participation in the student movement, Lozinsky was suspended from university for three years. He continued his education abroad. He attended lectures at the University of Brussels. In 1904, he graduated from the Higher School of Social Sciences (École des Hautes Études Sociales) in Paris. In the fall of 1904, L. returned to Kyiv, where, under the patronage of his university teacher I.V. Luchitsky, he became editor of the foreign department of the newspaper «Kievskie otkliki». In 1906 he moved to St. Petersburg, and in 1908 he passed exams at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. In 1913 he worked in the archives of the city of Barcelona (Spain) on topics related to the Inquisition. He was arrested again and was under police surveillance until February 1917.

In the period 1919-1925 he was the rector of the Jewish University (since 1920 — the Institute of Higher Jewish Studies) in Petrograd, where he taught specialized courses on the history of the Jews. In 1921, he was confirmed in the academic rank of professor. During this period, Lozinsky was actively involved in editorial activities, in particular, he was a co-editor of the collections «Jewish Chronicle» (1923-1926), where he published, among other things, his own works on the history of the Jewish people. From 1923-1929 L. was a comrade (deputy) chairman of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society and co-editor of the almanac «Jewish Antiquity» published under its auspices. In 1921-1922 — professor at the Department of History of the Jewish People at the Belarusian State University. In 1921-1926 Lozinsky held the position of professor at the Institute of Extracurricular Education; in 1921-22 (and later concurrently) — in the same position at the Department of General History at the A.I. Herzen Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute.

In 1926-1931 — professor at the North Caucasian State University and the North Caucasian Communist University in Rostov-on-Don. In 1927-1929 — chairman of the Rostov local committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). On December 1, 1930, Lozinsky received the post of consultant of the foreign sector of the anti-religious department at the Public Library in Leningrad. During 1931-1933, he was a professor of history at the Higher Finance and Economics Institute. On October 17, 1932, he left his job at the Public Library and focused on teaching: in 1930-1932, he taught at the Leningrad Cultural and Educational Institute named after N.K. Krupskaya; in 1935-1939, he was a professor at the Planning Institute; from 1937, he was a professor, and from 1939, he was the head of the history department at the 1st Leningrad Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. In 1933-1936, he was a professor at LIFLI. From December 1938, he received the post of head of the Department of Religion and Atheism in the West and America in the Age of Capitalism in the 16th-19th Centuries at the Museum of the History of Religion of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1939, due to age and deteriorating health, he withdrew from exhibition work and delved into scientific research. During the same period, the Museum of the History of Religion filed a petition to award Lozinsky the academic degree of Doctor of Science, but due to bureaucratic difficulties, this issue had not been resolved by the beginning of 1941. After the start of the blockade, in November 1941, along with a number of other employees of the Academy of Sciences, Lozinsky and his daughter were evacuated by plane to Kirov, where until the fall of 1944 he headed the Department of General History at the Pedagogical Institute. After returning to Leningrad, he continued teaching, despite serious problems with his eyesight.

He died in 1945 and was buried at Literatorskie Mostki in St. Petersburg.

Research interests, significance in science

Soviet historian, specializing in world history. In his youth, he was fascinated by Zionist ideas under the influence of his brother Moses. He was engaged in editorial and publishing activities. In 1904-1906, he was the editor of the foreign department of the Kievskie Otkliki newspaper. L. collaborated with the publishing house of V. I. Rapp and V. I. Potapov, where he prepared for publication the book History of the 2nd French Revolution (1848-1852), published in 1904. He was the editor and author of the Jewish Encyclopedia, and is one of the compilers of the New Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Political Encyclopedia by L. Z. Slonimsky. One of the central themes in L.’s scientific work was the history of the Middle Ages and the New Age, as well as the history of Catholicism and the papacy. He did not manage to defend his dissertation on the history of the Inquisition in Spain due to World War I and the temporary abolition of academic degrees after the October Revolution. In 1939, the Museum of the History of Religion filed a petition to award L. the academic degree of Doctor of Sciences, but due to bureaucratic complications, this issue had not been resolved by the beginning of 1941.

Major Works

History of the Second French Republic. Kyiv, 1904.

Political Parties and the National Question in Austria. Moscow, 1907.

History of Belgium and Holland in Modern Times. St. Petersburg, 1909.

Social Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages and in Modern Times. 1929.

History of the Papacy. Moscow, 1934.