Aleksandr Mongait (1915-1974) was a Soviet Russian archaeologist. His most important achievement was his fundamental work on prehistoric archaeology of Europe in 2 volumes which in fact made available achievements of the Western "bourgeois" archaeology to Soviet students.

In his book Archaeology in the USSR published in 1959 Mongait made reference to Victor Petrov, which at that time had a reputation of a Ukrainian nationalist stolen by Soviet secret services. Ironically, this reference helped emigrants understand that Petrov in fact was alive and cooperated with KGB, simply because any reference to "enemies of the people" would be impossible in Soviet publications.

Viktor Petrov (1894-1969) was a prominent Soviet Ukrainian existentialist writer. Although Petrov is remembered as a writer today, during his life he was a scientist in the first place. He wrote papers on archaeology, anthropology, history, philosophy and literature.

Viktor Petrov was born on 10 October 1894 in Yekaterinoslav (today's Dnipropetrovsk). During the World War II he was in the territory occupied by Germans where he worked in several Ukrainian magazines and newspapers.

After World War II Petrov stayed in emigration in Germany. At a later time Petrov disappeared from Germany under unknown circumstances. Later it was discovered (due to a reference to him in A. Mongait's survey book) that he returned to the Soviet Union and kept working at the Institute of Archaeology in Kiev. Petrov died in 1969 and is buried in Kiev.