Metadata: [Manuscripts of Works and Materials Related to the Study of the Peoples and Countries of the Foreign East and Asia]
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Holding institution (official language):
- Институт восточных рукописей Российской Академии наук
- Postal address:
- 191186, St. Petersburg, Dvortsovaia nab., d. 18
- Phone number:
- (812) 315-87-28
- Web address:
- http://www.orientalstudies.ru
- Email:
- iom@orientaistudies.ru
- Reference number:
- Category I
- Title:
- [Manuscripts of Works and Materials Related to the Study of the Peoples and Countries of the Foreign East and Asia]
- Title (official language):
- [Рукописи трудов и материалы, связанные с изучением народов и стран зарубежного Востока и зарубежной Азии]
- Creator/accumulator:
- Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Date(s):
- 1711/1962
- Language:
- Russian
- Latin
- German
- Hebrew
- Arabic
- Italian
- English
- Persian
- Armenian
- Turkish
- Official Aramaic (700-300 BCE); Imperial Aramaic (700-300 BCE)
- Syriac
- Extent:
- 1,222 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- CartoGraphic material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
This fonds contains manuscripts of works and materials pertaining to the study of peoples and countries as indicated by the headings: “China”, “Manchuria”, “Mongolia and Tibet”, “Japan and Korea”, “India and Indonesia”, “Iran and Afghanistan”, “Turkey”, “Arab countries”, “Polyglotta”, “Palestine” and “Africa”, including studies by prominent Orientalists, materials acquired in the course of operations of the corresponding offices of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, documents of scholarly and state institutions, as well as lexicoGraphic materials: dictionaries, grammars, logs of expeditions, folkloric materials, translations of manuscripts, articles and monographs, selections of press materials, etc.
Material pertaining to Jewish history and culture (ops. 8-10) includes the following documents: in op. 8 there is an autograph manuscript of a review by the linguist and Caucasus specialist B. T. Rudenko of a monograph by I. I. Gintsburg titled “Totemism in Language in Light of the New Teaching on Language”, which analyses the application of N. Marr’s language theory to the study of Semitic languages, specifically Arabic and Hebrew (1941). Op. 9 contains the manuscript of the “Our Father” prayer in various languages, including Hebrew (1877-80); documents of the Italian-Jewish politician Umberto Elia Terracini; materials from a Jewish charitable society of the Italian city of Aequi, received as a gift from the bookseller Ia. M. Ginzburg of Bobruisk (1921); a manuscript by the missionary Makarii (secular name: M. Ia. Glukharev) titled “A Short Grammar of the Hebrew Language” (undated), “A Short Philological Dictionary of Jewish Proper Names Occurring in Church and Biblical History” (1850) and a manuscript by A. N. Murav’ev titled “A Detailed Grammatical Analysis of the Book of Tehillim” (1854).
Materials of op. 10, “Palestine”, all pertain to Jewish history and culture. These include manuscripts of articles by I. G. Bender: “Azariah dei Rossi (1513-78) as a Researcher of the Ancient History of the Jews” (1936-37) and “A History of the Decipherment of the Ras Shamra Alphabet” (1930); of an article by V. V. Struve titled “The Reasons for the Destruction of the Jewish Temple on Elephantine Island in 410 BCE” (1936); by B. Ia. Kokenai titled “Certain Data from a Karaite Dictionary” and commentary by V. A. Gordlevskii on this article (1937, 1939); I. Iu. Krachkovskii, “A Jewish Merchant in the Era of Al-Muqtadir”, about a narrative from the collection of geographical stories “Miracles of India” compiled by Buzurg ibn Shahriyar (1941); reports and abstracts thereof, including A. P. Kovalevsky’s “The National Question in Palestine”; etc. (1948); a card catalogue of publications (reference books, bibliographies, lists, etc.) on Jewish literature, in particular, a list compiled by K. G. Zaleman of books donated to the Asiatic Museum by the Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia (OPE) (1900), and a list compiled by A. Freiman of Judeo-Persian manuscripts acquired for the Asiatic Museum by V. A. Ivanov in Bukhara in 1915 (1918); two geographical maps: “A Physical Map of the Hemispheres (in Yiddish)” (1935), and a handmade map of Palestine, with a note in pencil: “From the book: Levison, V. A., A Trip to Nablus. A Journal (Jerusalem, 1860); the autograph manuscript of a letter from I. N. Sorkin to Actual Privy Councilor Count P. A. Valuev on the plight of Russian Jews, with a request that the count accept the book The Sword of Damocles (a translation of I.-B. Levinson’s study Efes Damim), which argues against the medieval accusation that Jews used Christian blood (1884); an untitled study by B. I. Toporovsky on the connection between Egyptian hieroglyphs and three-letter roots in Hebrew (undated).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IVR RAN) is a research institute in the Academy of Sciences system. Its operations are focused mainly on the comprehensive study of landmarks of the literature of the East, as well as of the ancient and medieval history of the countries of Asia and North Africa. The fonds of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts currently contain a significant collection of Jewish materials reflecting both the rabbinical and Karaite traditions: approximately 50,000 printed books in Hebrew (including 66 incunabula and approximately 300 paleotypes); about 10,000 printed books in Yiddish; over 1,700 manuscripts (among them, 1,217 codices and 79 scrolls), not counting a great number of fragments; and about 5,000 copies of Jewish newspapers (published before 1917). The Hebrew fonds was formed during the 19th and 20th centuries from the private collections of L F Friedland, D A Khvol’son, D G Maggid, V V Radlov, E Ross, P K Kokovtsov and other collectors, mandatory copies of all books printed in the territory of the Russian Empire and books expropriated after the October Revolution from synagogues and Jewish schools. Some of the publications were acquired as ‘trophies’ of the Second World War.
- Access points: locations:
- Russia
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises eleven series arranged thematically.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
