Liavdanskii, Aleksandr

Born Aug. 29 (Sept. 10), 1893, in the village of lur’evo in present-day Smolevichi Raion, Minsk Oblast; died 1942. Soviet archaeologist.

From 1925 to 1927, Liavdanskii taught at the University of Smolensk. He investigated a large number of Smolensk town sites and worked out their classification. In 1927 he began working in Minsk, becoming in 1931 the scientific secretary and head of the archaeology section of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR. Liavdanskii organized an extensive study of the archaeological remains in Byelorussia from the Paleolithic period to the early Middle Ages. He brought to light and dated the principal archaeological cultures of the Iron Age in the Byelorussian SSR. He was the first to advance the correct idea that the ancient town sites of central Byelorussia belonged to the ancient Baits.