Aleksey Aleksandrovich Shakhmatov was a Russian philologist and historian credited with laying the foundations for the science of textology. Shakhmatov held the title of Doctor of Russian language and philology. He was a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1899 and a chair of the Department of Russian language and philology of the Academy of Sciences (1908–1920), a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (1905) and the Russian Empire State Council (1906–1911).