Metadata: F. P. Adelung
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:
- F. 1
- Title:
- F. P. Adelung
- Title (official language):
- Аделунг Ф. П.
- Creator/accumulator:
- Adelung, Fedor Pavlovich
- Date(s):
- 1734/1844
- Language:
- Russian
- German
- French
- English
- Extent:
- 38 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
[See also the description of f. 7 of the Manuscripts Department of the National Library of Russia, “F. P. Adelung”.]
The fonds contains the following sets of documents: materials pertaining to F. P. Adelung’s scholarly works, grouped under two subsections: “Russia and the East” and “Russia and the West”; in particular, manuscripts from the first quarter of the 19th century about Bukhara and Khiva, their geographical position, flora, trade routes and the everyday life of the local population; an inventory of government documents (letters and writs) addressed to Central Asian khans and clans (1737-89); extracts from reports on relations between Russia and the peoples of Central Asia housed in the St. Petersburg archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs (1743-1812); commemorative notes, historical anecdotes, and an 1824 manuscript copy of remarks and quotations made by Emperor Paul I in the margins of the Memoirs of the statesman the Duke of Sully (1800-27). There are also materials pertaining to F. P. Adelung’s biography, including his personal documents, among them a journal (1793-95); particular biographical records (1840); lists of his works (no earlier than 1830); an offprint of an article by Academician A. M. Shegren titled “On the Books and Manuscripts of F. P. Adelung”; correspondence of F. P. Adelung (1820s-40s); and works of other persons (1820-43). Pertaining to Jewish history is a manuscript copy of a treatise titled “Relations between Russia and Bukhara in the 16th century”, which contains information on the language, life and occupations of Bukharan Jews (no earlier than 1818); and a manuscript titled “From the Stories of the Bukharan Nasir Khan”, one chapter of which mentions Bukharan Jews as being occupied in the extraction of gold dust in the environs of the city of Falgar (c. 1820).
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Fedor (Friedrich) Pavlovich Adelung (1768-1843) was a historian, linguist, bibliographer, archaeologist and corresponding member (1809) and honorary member (1838) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. After graduating from the University of Leipzig, where he studied philosophy and jurisprudence, he traveled extensively throughout Europe, coming to St. Petersburg in 1794. In 1795, he received a service post in Mitau (now Jelgava, Latvia). In 1797, he returned to Petersburg, where he engaged in commercial affairs with the court banker Rahl. He also served as a German book censor and, from 1801 on, as director of St. Petersburg’s German Theatre. In 1803, Emperor Alexander I appointed F. P. Adelung tutor to Grand Princes Nikolai Pavlovich (the future Emperor Nicholas I) and Mikhail Pavlovich. For several years he taught them German language and literature. He made one of the first attempts to organise a codex of ethnographic, geographic and other information about the territory of Russia on the basis of materials of foreign travellers. Together with Academician A. K. Shtorkh he compiled a Systematic Survey of Literature in Russia during the Five Years from 1801 to 1806 (in two parts, published in 1810-11), which laid the foundation for the study of Russian book statistics. He compiled a bibliography of the Sanskrit language that received international recognition and a bibliography of foreign maps of Russia from 1306 to 1699. In 1824, he became director of the Institute of Oriental Languages that had been established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held this post for almost twenty years, until his death. In 1831, he was actively involved in the establishment of the Rumiantsev Museum in St. Petersburg, later transferred to Moscow. He was the author of German-language works on source studies, linguistics, bibliography and book statistics, including: Übersicht aller bekannten Sprachen und ihrer Dialekte (A Survey of All Known Languages and their Dialects; St. Petersburg, 1820); Kritisch-literarische Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 1700, deren Berichte bekannt sind (A Critical-Literary Survey of Travellers in Russia to 1700 and of their Writings, in 2 vols.; Leipzig, 1840); etc.
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:
- Bukhara
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises a single series arranged according to the structural-thematic principle.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
