Letters to the Editor

On the Portrait of Academician V. V. Petrov

In the article “A Valuable Find” (Literaturnaya gazeta, June 21, 1952), a portrait of an unknown person was presented as a portrait of the famous physicist V. V. Petrov.

The editors of the journal Tekhnika molodezhi, without verifying the correctness of this important assertion, hastened (in No. 10 for 1952) to publish the editorial article “Portrait of a Great Physicist,” in which they write: “…the search for a portrait of V. V. Petrov has recently been successfully completed. The journal is pleased to place it on its pages for the first time.”

In V. V. Kudryavtsev’s book V. V. Petrov, 1952, on p. 91 there is a photograph of the same portrait with the caption “the supposed portrait of V. V. Petrov,” and on page 90 it is stated that “Soviet scholars succeeded in discovering, in the reserve collections of the State Hermitage, a portrait in which, as is presumed, V. V. Petrov is depicted.”

In 1953 M. A. Sidorov’s little book From the Ray to the Electrician appeared. In it, likewise, on p. 23, a “portrait” of V. V. Petrov is placed.

In the journal Priroda, No. 8 for 1953, a review of V. V. Kudryavtsev’s book was published. The author of the review, B. Ya. Rozen, writes: “The book reproduces for the first time a portrait of V. V. Petrov, recently found in the Hermitage” (p. 121).

In all these cases the source of the information about the “portrait” is one and the same—the report by V. L. Chenakal published in Literaturnaya gazeta; apart from him, no one has dealt with this question.

The author of the article substantiates his assertion only by referring to a conversation with a scholar that took place in 1950.

Meanwhile, the State Hermitage, where this portrait is kept, does not consider the publication in Literaturnaya gazeta sufficiently substantiated and does not recognize this portrait as an image of V. V. Petrov.

Thus the “portrait” appeared in print and gained circulation despite the absence of reliable evidence that would make it possible, even tentatively, to regard it as an image of V. V. Petrov.

It is obvious that the further dissemination of a fictitious “portrait” of V. V. Petrov must be prevented, and that one must henceforth adopt a more cautious attitude toward the publication of historical documents.

V. N. Goloushkin