Portrait of Tatiana Passek.
Many women were involved professionally in Soviet archaeology, but usually as auxiliary personnel, rarely progressing up the career ladder beyond the position of research assistant. Occasionally, however, women managed to become expedition leaders and a few women were awarded doctoral degrees. Examples of women taking senior positions in academic institutions or periodicals were extremely rare. The great Soviet encyclopedia (Reference ProkhorovProkhorov 1978: 322a)—the most comprehensive reference encyclopedia of the Soviet Union—listed 30 archaeologists but only one of them was female: Tatiana Sergeevna Passek.
Passek was the principal specialist in the study of the Neolithic–Eneolithic Tripolye culture which extended across large parts of modern-day Ukraine, Moldavia and Romania, c. 4800—3000 BC. She was the only female editor of a central Soviet archaeological periodical, editing the Brief Reports of the Institute for the History of Material Culture between 1945 and 1968. Along with Soviet Archaeology magazine, this was the main periodical for Soviet archaeologists. She was awarded the USSR State Prize and a number of orders and medals. To this day, Russian archaeologists still celebrate their professional holiday on Passek’s birthday (15 August).
Passek was born in 1903, in Saint Petersburg. She came from a famous aristocratic family and was a relative of Alexander Herzen, the father of Russian socialism. Tatiana’s parents chose collaboration with the Soviet government over emigration; their daughter’s perfect knowledge of French and impeccable manners were their legacy. Contemporaries remembered Tatiana as someone “always calm, tactful, quite lively, cordial, [and who] could make a good joke” (Reference FormozovFormozov 2003: 157). It also cannot be ignored that Passek was a rare beauty (see Belanovskaya 2001–2002: 11; Reference FormozovFormozov 2003: 156).
In 1924, Passek graduated from the Social Sciences faculty of Leningrad University and was accepted for postgraduate study. She chose Trypillian pottery as the theme of her dissertation, a choice which determined her future academic career. Accompanied by her colleague and friend, Boris Latynin, Passek spent three years travelling numerous museums in the south of Russia, thoroughly gathering materials (Reference GorbunovaGorbunova 2000). Without excavating a single Trypillian site, she based her study on the formal analysis of pottery. From this, Passek was able to describe the geographical extent and the developmental phases of the Tripolye culture. By the end of 1928 Passek’s dissertation was complete, but she was not allowed to defend it until 1931—and not in Leningrad but in Moscow, where Tatiana moved to live with her husband, Ivan Gremislavskij, an artist at the Moscow Art Theatre (Reference GulievGuliev 1967). Her dissertation came to print only after the Communist Party’s decision to resume the teaching of history in 1934 (Reference KlejnKlejn 2012: 27–30; Reference PlatonovaPlatonova 1999: 469–70). The well-illustrated book was published in French and it made Passek a famous scholar (Reference PassekPassek 1935). Later, further large-scale research verified the correctness of her scheme, only adding minor changes.
Pottery of the Trypillian culture from Passek’s excavation. Dated to 3600 BC.
Passek (back row, middle) and other expedition participants, 1936.
In 1934, Tatiana started excavations of a Tripolye site, Kolomijshchina 1, which continued for seven years (1932–1938). In 1937, the leaders of the excavation were repressed as Ukrainian nationalists, so Passek published the site materials (Reference PassekPassek 1940). She continued to head archaeological expeditions for over 30 years, in Ukraine (until 1947) and then in Moldavia. A brilliant field researcher, she developed her own methodology for studying Tripolye sites, and engaged a wide range of experts to take part in excavations such as ichthyologists, palaeoanthropologists and petrologists (Dergachev 2001–2002: 38). The materials gathered in Ukraine were summarised in Passek’s doctoral thesis, defended in 1947 and published as a book two years later (Reference PassekPassek 1949).
Following Stalin’s death, Soviet scholars were permitted to visit other Socialist countries. Passek used this opportunity to familiarise herself with the literature on the archaeology of Eastern Europe. In 1962, she presented a synchronisation of the archaeological cultures of the Dnieper and the Danube from 5000–3000 BC at the International Congress of Historians in Rome (Reference PassekPassek 1962). This marked the beginning of her international recognition, but by this time she was seriously ill. She died in hospital on 4 August 1968, remaining aristocratically calm and charming until her last days.
Half a century later, Passek’s works remain the foundation for the study of the Tripolye culture (for the full list see Reference GruenbergGruenberg 1969). To a generation of archaeologists of the former Soviet Union she is still known as the ‘Soviet countess’.
