The work of the Learned Mining Committee in Imperial Russia: 1825–1917

The article describes activities of the Learning Mining Committee, an administrative body that existed in the Russian Empire from 1825 to 1917. It analyzes the reasons for creating the Committee and describes in brief the changes in the legal status of the Committee in the public administration system of the Russian Empire. It is analyzed the organization's Charter, as well as the conditions for joining it. Most of the article is devoted to the analysis of publications of the Committee on the history of metallurgy. One of the sources of research was the Journal of Mining. The Committee has published it from 1825 to 1917. The article identified and analyzed forty-seven publications on the history of metallurgy in the Journal of Mining. One of the research objectives was to determine the professional affiliation of the authors of historical articles. The analysis revealed that the mining engineers, officials and local historians were the authors of that works. However, in all publications, they paid more attention to socio-economic history than to the history of technology. The article also analyzes books on the history of metallurgy that were published by the Committee. The research data may be used in further research on the historiography of the history of metallurgy. The article is of interest to researchers of the history of science and technology.