The Two Sides of the Iron Curtain. Professor Mikhail P. Lesnikov and the Displaced Tallin City Archives in Göttingen in the 1950s — 1970s

The article is dedicated to Professor Mikhail Pavlovich Lesnikov (1892—1983), specialist in medieval trade, who is known as the publisher of trade books of the merchant Hildebrand Veckinchusen (late 14th — early 15th century). His scientific biography is a clear illustration of how displacements of cultural heritage during the Second World War could have affected scholarly research. In addition, the example of Lesnikov demonstrates how a medievalist, whose subject was far from current political issues, could become an unwitting victim of the political relations between the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, and personally encounter the “two-sided” nature of the latter.