Platonov was born in the city of
Chernigov,
Russian Empire and attended a private gymnasium in
St. Petersburg until 1878, when he went to the Department of History and Philology of
St. Petersburg University until 1882. He was a student of
Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who recommended that he be given the opportunity to "prepare to be a professor." Platonov belonged to the "St. Petersburg school" of Russian historiography, which focused on the study and publication of historical sources. He earned his master's degree in 1888 with a thesis on Old Russian Legends and Tales about the Seventeenth-Century Time of Troubles as a Historical Source, receiving the
Uvarov Award of the Academy of Sciences. Platonov's scholarly career was centered at the
University of St Petersburg, where he was held in highest repute for his detailed studies of the
Time of Troubles (1923) and
Oprichnina. His history textbooks, impeccably written and easily readable, enjoyed such popularity that he was asked by the tsar to teach history to his children. In 1909, he was admitted to the
Russian Academy of Sciences. Unlike some of his disciples (such as
Alexander Presnyakov), Platonov did not change his views after the
Revolution and stood aloof from the mainstream
Marxist historiography, as represented by
Mikhail Pokrovsky. Nevertheless, he was permitted to administer the
Archaeographic Commission in 1918-29, the
Pushkin House (i.e., the Russian Literature Institute) in 1925–1929 and the Academy's Library in 1925–1928. On 12 January 1930 Platonov was accused of taking part in
a royalist conspiracy, arrested and exiled to
Samara, where he died three years later on January 10, 1933. However, a number of his historical works continued to be reprinted later in the decade, and in 1967 he was formally
rehabilitated. ==Bibliography==