Mikhail Korelin

Born Aug. 30 (Sept. 11), 1855, in the village of Komlevo, Moscow Province; died Jan. 3 (15), 1899, in Moscow. Russian medievalist.

Korelin graduated from the department of history and philology at Moscow University, where he studied under V. I. Ger’e. In 1892 he was appointed a professor at Moscow University. He specialized in the Italian Renaissance.

In 1892 he defended his master’s dissertation, Early Italian Humanism and Its Historiography (2nd ed., vols. 1-4, 1914), for which he was at once awarded a doctorate. In this work he brought a considerable number of new sources to the attention of scholars. He studied the humanist world view and showed that humanism was not merely a revival of classical culture. Korelin, however, did not associate the rise of humanism with social and economic change but viewed it as a self-contained ideological movement. He ascribed great importance to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, worked with the Committee on Literacy, gave lectures on scientific subjects designed for the general public, and wrote several books on cultural history for students and the public.