Metadata: B. A. Turaev
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- The State Hermitage Museum. Department of Manuscripts and Document Fonds
- Holding institution (official language):
- Государственный Эрмитаж. Отдел рукописей и документального фонда
- Postal address:
- 190000, Russia, St. Petersburg, Dvortsovaia naberezhnaia, d. 34; Bol’shoi (Staryi) Ermitazh
- Phone number:
- (812) 710-96-46
- Email:
- archives@hermitage.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 10
- Title:
- B. A. Turaev
- Title (official language):
- Title (official language):
- Creator/accumulator:
- B. A. Turaev
- Date(s):
- 1877/1920
- Language:
- Russian
- German
- English
- French
- Hebrew
- Official Aramaic (700-300 BCE); Imperial Aramaic (700-300 BCE)
- Extent:
- 409 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Housed in the fonds are manuscripts, mostly published, on the history of the ancient East, Egypt, and Egyptian, Coptic, Abyssinian, and Phoenician literatures, and preparatory materials thereto; biographical documents (1877-1920) of B. A. Turaev; materials on his scientific, pedagogical, editorial-publishing, and public activities, as well as his correspondence (1892-1919). Materials pertaining to Jewish history and culture include certain of B. A. Turaev’s manuscripts, including lecture notes titled “The History of Assyro-Babylonia” which have sections on “Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature,” “An Introduction to the Study of the Hebrew Language,” “Hebrew Grammar,” and a glossary in Hebrew and Aramaic (1878); “Assyro-Babylonian Antiquities” (1893-94); a notebook containing notes on Josephus’s History (undated); a bibliographic index of literature for the publication The History of the Ancient East, including numerous works on biblical history, the origin of the Semitic alphabet, and other topics; an offprint of V. V. Struve’s study “Israel and Egypt” (1919); documents of the Imperial Russian Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO), including an offprint with markup by B. A. Turaev titled “A conference on the issue of Russian scholarly interests in Palestine,” regarding the possibility of studying Canaanite, Aramaic, Jewish, and Christian monuments in Palestine upon the conclusion of a peace treaty with Turkey; draft regulations on the Palestine Committee, drafted by the commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1917); correspondence with the council of the Imperial Russian Orthodox Palestine Society (1910-17); a resolution on the “Conference on Palestine” regarding property rights in Palestine and Syria and the preservation of monuments (undated); correspondence with the Semitologists, archaeologists, and historians I. R. Veinberg (1905-17), N. N. Glubokovskii (1903-19), E. G. Kagarov (1911-15), K. K. Kokovtsov (1913), P. K. Kokovtsov, (1903-18), I. Iu. Krachkovskii (1908-13), I. G. Frank-Kamenetskii (1911-18), and others.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Boris Aleksandrovich Turaev (1868-1920) was an Orientalist, a founder of the study of the history and philology of the ancient East (particularly ancient Egypt and Nubia) in Russia; and was made a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1918. In 1891 he graduated from St. Petersburg University’s faculty of history and philology, where he studied the history of the ancient East under Oskar Lemm; he was then sent abroad to study with Gaston Maspero and Adolf Erman and conduct museum research in Berlin, Paris, London, and several cities in Italy. In 1898, he was awarded a master’s degree in general history for his thesis “The God Thoth: An Effort in the Research of the History of Ancient Egyptian Culture” (Leipzig, 1898); and was awarded his doctorate in 1902 for his work “Studies in the Field of Hagiological Sources on the History of Ethiopia” (St. Petersburg, 1902). In 1896, he was made a privat-docent at St. Petersburg University; in 1904, an adjunct professor; and in 1911, a full professor. From 1896 on, he lectured at that institution on ancient Eastern history, and taught the ancient Egyptian language. In 1912 he became curator of the collection of Egyptian antiquities of the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. B. A. Turaev was a member of the Imperial Russian Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO), and in 1917 was elected to its council. His main work is The History of the Ancient East (parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1911-12; 2nd ed.: parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1913; new ed.: 1-2, Leningrad, 1935). Works by this scholar pertaining to Jewish history and culture include “An Essay on the History of the Study of Phoenician Antiquity" (St. Petersburg, 1893); “On the History of the Hittite Question” (Proceedings of the Russian Archaeological Society 12, no. 3-4, 1901); and “The Sinai Cult” (Ha-kedem, St. Petersburg, 1907. Jg. 1, no. 2). Students of B. A. Turaev included I. Iu. Krachkovskii, V. V. Struve, I. M. Volkov, and others. B. A. Turaev bequeathed his collection of Egyptian antiquities to the Hermitage. The Hermitage Archive received this fonds from the scholar’s widow E. F. Turaeva in 1920.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory systematised by structure.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
