Viktor Ivanovich Shunkov

Born Apr. 6 (19), 1900, in the city of Kuznetsk, in what is now Kemerovo Oblast; died Nov. 9, 1967, in Moscow. Soviet historian. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1962). Member of the CPSU from 1942.

A student of S. V. Bakhrushin’s, Shunkov graduated from the department of social sciences of Moscow University in 1925. From 1936 to 1941 and again from 1946 to 1949 he was on the staff of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. From 1949 to 1967, Shunkov was director of the V. P. Volgin Fundamental Library of Social Sciences, and from 1955 to 1960 he was editor in chief of the journal Istoricheskii arkhiv. In 1959 he became deputy academician-secretary of the Division of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Shunkov’s most important works dealt with the history of peasant colonization of Siberia, Siberian local lore, archaeography, the study of sources, bibliography, and library science. Shunkov was awarded the Orders of the Great Patriotic War First and Second Class and various medals.