Odessa Society of History and Antiquities

a scholarly society, devoted to the comprehensive study of the history of southern Russia, that existed from 1839 to 1922. From 1840 the society had its own museum, which in 1858 acquired the holdings of the Municipal Museum of Antiquities (founded 1825). The society directed a museum in Feodosiia and had curatorship of the Sudak and Akkerman architectural monuments and the Melek-Chesma kurgan in Kerch’. Between 1844 and 1922, the society published Zapiski (Notes; 33 volumes in all), which printed articles on history, archaeology, epigraphy and numismatics, ethnology, the geography and statistics of the territory, and annual reports and minutes of meetings.

From 1839 the society conducted archaeological excavations on Zmeinyi Island, then in Chersonesus and other sites on the Black Sea. The society’s scientific research pursuits are continued by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.