History of Science and Engineering Annotation << Back PRIVILEGE ON INVENTIONS – A SOURCE ON THE HISTORY OF DOMESTIC ENGINE BUILDING (FROM FUNDS RGIA 1868–1896) A.F. Smyk The history of technology is designed to provide answers to questions about when, by whom, where, how the means of labor, technology, technical objects and devices that functioned in a particular historical period were created. One of the sources on the history of the formation and development of domestic engine building is the archive fund, which contains documents related to the fi ling of requests for the granting of privileges for the improvement or invention of various engines or their separate parts. Questions related to the history of inventions of internal combustion engines in Russia in the period from 1868 to 1896 are considered. This initial stage of engine building in Russia is of interest for many reasons: domestic inventors in their activity to improve the known and create new engines were much inferior to foreign ones; Foreigners received privileges for their inventions almost simultaneously in their country and in Russia – among them the inventors of the fi rst internal combustion engines, G. Daimler and J.Zh.E. Lenoir. Inventions of world-class engineers, such as B.G. Lutsk and R. Diesel were also patented in Russia. In this connection, questions arise as to how the privileges granted for the development of engine-building and, in general, for the development of industry in Russia have affected. The article uses documents from the funds of the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) in St. Petersburg that contain information on petitions for granting privileges and a description of the privileges granted for improvements to known internal combustion engines and the invention of new engines. Keywords: internal combustion engine; invention; Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA). Contacts: E-mail: afsmyk@mail.ru Pp. 64-71.