Portrait of the landowner and Slavophil V.A. Panov

The purpose of this paper is to analyze V.A. Panov’s activities. He was one of the early representatives of Slavophilism. His biography is of great interest in the context of the Russian social thought history. The author characterizes V.A. Panov’s main activities in scientific, editorial and publishing fields. The author also shows his cooperation with N.V. Gogol. It is shown that the most important aspect of V.A. Panov’s activities was his work on two editions of the Slavophil anthology «The Moscow literary and scientific collection». This edition brought together almost all prominent representatives of this social thought and caused a considerable resonance. The author’s use of the Ulyanovsk Region state archive materials helped to portray the personality of the landowner Panov in his family history. The copies of charters, studied by the author, show that the consolidation of the economic positions of the Panovs’ family in the Volga region dates back to the 17th century. This process was associated with the active participation of V.A. Panov’s ancestors in the fighting on the side of the Tsardom of Muscovy against the Polish Prince Vladislav during the Russo-Turkish war 1672-1681. V.A. Panov owned lands in three provinces (Simbirsk province, Penza province, and Nizhny Novgorod province). A notable fact of his economic activity was his participation in the holding of a special land survey.