Metadata: Ernst-Eduard Kunick
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Holding institution (official language):
- Санкт-Петербургский филиал архива Российской академии наук
- Postal address:
- 199034, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaia naberezhnaia, d. 1
- Phone number:
- (812) 323-08-21
- Web address:
- www.ranar.spb.ru
- Email:
- archive@spbrc.nw.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 95
- Title:
- Ernst-Eduard Kunick
- Title (official language):
- Куник А. А.
- Creator/accumulator:
- Kunick, Ernst-Eduard
- Date(s):
- 1814/1899
- Language:
- Russian
- German
- Hebrew
- Swedish
- Extent:
- 2,532 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The fonds contains manuscripts of scholarly works by Ernst-Eduard Kunick and materials pertaining to them (1814-98), letters to him from various persons (1833-99), drafts of his letters to various persons (1849-98), biographical materials (1828-99), manuscripts of works by other persons (1809-97), an inventory of papers of Ernst-Eduard Kunick transferred from the archive of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History to the Archive of the Academy of Sciences 1717-1887) and biblioGraphic materials of Ernst-Eduard Kunick and E. Bonnel (18th-19th century).
Materials pertaining to Jewish history and culture may be provisionally divided into three thematic groups:
1) Scholarly works by Ernst-Eduard Kunick and materials pertaining thereto, including German-language memoranda by him on providing an article “that deals with the question of whether the Tatar princely name Tokhtamysh could have been used by Jews in the 3rd c.” (1864) and “on the protestation on the part of the late Firkovich’s son regarding Harkavy’s use of his father’s personal correspondence” (1876); articles in German: “Tokhtamysh and Firkovich (on a Dispute regarding Two Distorted Hebrew Inscriptions and Two Fictitious Chronologies)” (with addenda added in 1870); “Therapeuten (on an Ascetic Religious Sect of Alexandrian Jews in the 2nd c. B.C.)” (undated); draft notes and excerpts used to write the studies “Judenchristenthum” (“Judeo-Christianity”); “Das Stillschweigen des Flavius Joseph über Jeschua als Beweis gegen die historische Existenz eines jüdischen Demagogen dieses Namens” (“Josephus Flavius’s Silence on Jesus as Evidence against the Historical Existence of a Jewish Demagogue with this Name”, 1846); “Die Romfahrt des Pharisäers Flav. Josephas im J. 63” (“The Journey to Rome of the Pharisee Josephus Flavius in the Year 63”, 1882); etc.; excerpts from D. Strauss’s book Ueber Vergängliches und Bleibendes im Christentum (The Temporary and the Permanent in Christianity; Altona, 1839); excerpts from printed sources on Aryans and Semites (1850s); a review of a manuscript by D. Khvol’son titled “Die Saabier und der Saabismus” (“The Sabians and their Religion”, 1856); an inventory of works by Ernst-Eduard Kunick on archaeography, source study and the history of religion; a card file titled “Sabica”; notes on Karaites; a bibliography of Hebrew books (undated); etc.
2) Ernst-Eduard Kunick’s correspondence with the Semitics scholars, Hebraists and historians Abraham Harkavy (1867-86), A. Zeipel’ (1888), M. Mindelssohn (1869), A. Neubauer (1874-77), E. Renan (1854-62), T. Tobler (undated), Z. A. Firkovich (1877-85, and undated), D. A. Khvol’son (1856, 1867-92), M. Steinschneider (1862, 1870-71) and others.
3) Materials of other persons, including a review by A. S. Firkovich of an article titled “The History of the Acquisition of Certain Very Precious Manuscripts” (1863); “A Memorandum by the Chief Karaite Teacher and Preceptor Abraham Firkovich, a Member of the Geographic and Other Societies, on his Archaeological Studies” (undated); comments by D. A. Khvol’son regarding a piece by M. P. Pogodin on Khvol’son’s study “On Volga Rus: An Analysis of Ibn Dasta (Ibn Rustah)’s book News of the Khazars, Burtas, Slavs, and Russes” (1870); a piece by D. A. Khvol’son titled “On the Meaning of the word Atlija” (undated), and fragments of notes on John of Ephesus (undated); Baron V. R. Rozen’s translation of “On the Cossacks (According to Jewish History)”, with a comment by Ernst-Eduard Kunick (undated); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Ernst-Eduard Kunick (also referred to as Arist Aristovich Kunik; 1814-99) was a historian and collector of documents on the history of Russia of the 17th-18th century. In 1835-36, upon graduating secondary school in Liegnitz, he took courses from Prof. A. F. Stenzel at the University of Breslau. In 1836, Kunick transferred to the University of Berlin, from which he graduated in 1838 with a doctorate. In 1839, he moved to Moscow. From 1841 on, he worked with M. P. Pogodin at the journal Moskvitianin. After a brief stay in Germany, in 1842, he returned to Russia, where he studied Russian language and history and in 1844 became curator of Russian coins and antiquities at the Numismatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In the same year, he was elected a provisional academician and in 1850, an adjunct academician. From March 1851 on, he was a member of the Archaeographic Commission and editor-in-chief of the foreign documents it published. In 1857, he made an archaeological trip to Staraia Ladoga and Novgorod. From February 1858 on, he served as librarian of the first department of the Library of the Academy of Sciences (in 1846, 1867 and 1871, he temporarily held this post for the second department). In 1859, he became curator of Russian coins and in 1864 curator of the Peter the Great gallery at the Hermitage. In 1876, he was elected a doctor of history honoris causa by the council of St. Vladimir University in Kiev. In 1892, Ernst-Eduard Kunick represented the Imperial Academy of Sciences at an archaeological congress in Vil’na. He was the author of 185 published works, including “Tokhtamysh and Firkovich” (Proceedings of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1876, v. 27, no. 3), “On the Influence of the Iranian Tribe on the Fates of the Semitic Peoples. An Experiment in Applying an Ethnological View to the Development of Ancient History” (The Journal of the Ministry of Education, May 1866), etc.
The archive of the Academy of Sciences was established by decree of Emperor Peter I in 1728 to house documents of the Conference (supreme assembly) of the Academy. At the same time, Academy of Sciences President L L Bliumentrost appointed Gerhard Friedrich Müller, a student of the Academy gymnasium (subsequently an academician, and the first historiographer to the Russian Empire), to organise the files of the Conference of the Academy of Sciences. During the 18th to 20th centuries, separate archives of other subdivisions of the Academy of Sciences existed as well: the archives of the Chancellery of the Academy of Sciences (18th century) and the Committee of the Board of the Academy of Sciences (the chancellery’s institutional successor; documents date from 1803) as well as archives of departments. In 1922, all Academy archives were merged into a single Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, renamed in 1930 the Archive of the USSR Academy of Sciences (and in 1991, once again the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences). In 1936, a Moscow branch of the archive was created in connection with the Academy’s relocation to that city. In 1963, the Archive of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad was reorganised as the Leningrad Branch of the Archive of the USSR Academy of Sciences, while the Archival Directorate was transferred to Moscow. In 1991, the Leningrad branch was renamed the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPF ARAN). The archive houses over 1,600 fonds containing approximately one million items.
- Access points: locations:
- Russia
- Access points: persons/families:
- Renan, Ernest
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises six series (op. 2 in 2 parts), arranged by structure, theme and alphabetically.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
