Metadata: Kh. D. Fren
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. 778
- Title:
- Kh. D. Fren
- Title (official language):
- Френ Х. Д.
- Creator/accumulator:
- Fren, Khristian Danilovich
- Date(s):
- 1803/1898
- Language:
- German
- Arabic
- Persian
- English
- Latin
- Italian
- French
- Hebrew
- Russian
- Extent:
- 540 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The fonds contains manuscripts of Kh. D. Fren on numismatics, geography, history, ethnography and literary history; materials used in writing his scholarly works; documents related to his work at the Asiatic Museum; and letters from various persons. Material pertaining to Jewish history and culture may be provisionally divided into the following thematic groups:
1) Manuscripts of Kh. D. Fren, including vocabulary notes, outlines of articles, excerpts, and other undated documents collected in a folder with the heading “Hebraica”; these include notes on the Jewish traveler Rabbi Petachiah of Regensburg; an outline for an article titled “Rabbi Petachja über die Polowzer oder Komanen. Eine Nachlese. Voran etwas über die geographische Litteratur der Juden” (“Rabbi Petachiah on the Polovtsians or Kumans: For Research on Jewish Geographical Literature”); Kh. D. Fren’s commentary on Rabbi Petachiah’s treatise Sibbub ha-Olam; excerpts from works of Jacob Abendana, Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel, and David Kimhi; materials for commentaries on biblical texts from the Books of Genesis and Ruth; a Hebrew alphabet showing the numerical values of letters; a glossary with interpretations of biblical terms; etc.
2) Materials pertaining to Kh. D. Fren’s activities at the Asiatic Museum, in particular, minutes of a meeting of 18 September 1846 at which Fren proposed to recruit foreign cuneiform specialists to decipher discoveries from Babylonia (on the river Euphrates) presented by M. Medem; a folder with copies of inscriptions from Derbent (Inschriften von Derbend, Von Fraehn, 1828); a notebook titled “Jews in Mohammedan Lands. Part 1. Judeo-Persian Peuts [sic]”, which includes the texts of verses recorded in Hebrew lettering, with markup and comments in English (1893); a list of books of the Imperial Public Library, including Bible translations, as well as a translation of the New Testament into “the conversational Jewish language” (i.e., Yiddish, 1820-21).
3) Kh. D. Fren’s correspondence, including drafts of letters, among them a letter in German in Hebrew lettering addressed to Leopold Row; letters from Imperial Public Library Director A. N. Olenin that deal with, among other things, the question of the appearance of ancient Hebrew priests, the deciphering of Hebrew inscriptions on coins, etc. (1818-41); and from the Odessa Society of Lovers of Antiquities requesting Kh. D. Fren’s assistance in deciphering inscriptions discovered by A. S. Firkovich in Derbent (1840-42); as well as letters from the Hebraists and Orientalists F. W. Gesenius (1822, 1823, 1837), G.-L. Fleischer (1829-50), Heinrich Ewald (1835), and others.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Khristian Danilovich Fren (Khristian-Martin, 1782-1851) was a specialist in Arabic, Iranian and Turkic studies and a numismatist. He was educated at the University of Rostock (1800-03) under the guidance of theology professor O. G. Tychsen. He subsequently attended lectures at Göttingen and Tübingen, and taught Latin at the pedagogical institute of I. G. Pestalozzi in Burgdorf (Switzerland). In 1807, he accepted an invitation to join the department of Oriental languages of Kazan’ University. In late 1815, he was appointed to a post at the University of Rostock, but, upon passing through St. Petersburg, became interested in the Academy of Sciences’ coin collection and in 1817-19 undertook a description thereof on the academy’s behalf. In 1818, he became head of the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences and was elected a full academician in 1820. His further studies of coins culminated in the work Recensio numorum muhammedanorum Acad. Imp. Scient. Petropolit (St. Petersburg, 1826). He authored 143 publications on ancient Rus, the Volga Bulgars, Khazars, etc., including: Veteres memoriae Chasarorum ex Ibn Foszlano, Ibn-Haukale et Schems-Eddino Damasceno; Ibn-Foszlan’s und anderer Araber Berichte über die Russen älterer Zeit; Die ältesten arabischen Nachrichten über die Wolga-Bulgaren aus Ibn-Foszlan’s Reiseberichten.
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:
- Derbent
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises two series arranged thematically (op. 1) and alphabetically (op. 2).
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
