High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sergey Fyodorovich Platonov (Russian: ) (born June 28 [June 16, Old Style], 1860, Chernigov, Russia died Jan. 10, 1933, Samara, Russia, U.S.S.R.) was a Russian historian who led the official St Petersburg school of imperial historiography before and after the Russian Revolution.Platonov was born in Chernigov 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."