Metadata: Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR
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:
- http://isaran.ru
- Email:
- archive@spbrc.nw.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 302
- Title:
- Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR
- Title (official language):
- Ленинградское отделение Центрального института языка и письменности народов СССР
- Creator/accumulator:
- Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR
- Date(s):
- 1923/1938
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 779 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
The fonds contains material on the recordkeeping, personnel, finances and research operations of the Research Institute of the Comparative History of the Literature and Languages of the West and East (ILIaZV), including minutes of sessions of its Semito-Hamitic languages section (1923-38), as well as documents on the activities of the Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR (LOTsIIaP): manuscripts of research studies on linguistics and folklore, etc. (1937-38).
Materials on Jewish history and culture, concentrated primarily in ops. 2 and 4, include mainly the personal files of well-known Hebraists on the staff of the ILIaZV, GIRK, LNIIa and LOTsIIaP, including the file of I. I. Gintsburg, which contains Prof. P. K. Kokovtsov’s review of the former’s study “The Worldview of the Jewish Rationalists of the Middle Ages”; and Prof. P. Tikhomirov’s response to a report by I. I. Gintsburg on the same topic, etc. (1928-31); the file of I. G. Frank-Kamenetskii, which contains a report on his research activities (1925-31); of N. V. Iushmanov, including his personnel record, a completed questionnaire, curriculum vitae and positive evaluations of his research activity by Academicians P. K. Kokovtsov and I. Iu. Krachkovskii (1924-29); of I. M. Zel’tser, including his autobiographical statement, which mentions his enrolment from 1912 to 1917 in Odessa’s 1st State Jewish School (1931); of I. G. Bender, with documents on his enrolment in graduate school and as a researcher for the ILIaZV and a mention (in his autobiographical statement) of his graduation from the Leningrad Jewish Labour School, etc. (1924-30); of M. N. Sokolov, which contains, along with a questionnaire form and curriculum vitae, an application to the ILIaZV collegium requesting leave in connection with a trip to Evpatoriia to analyse a Karaite library at the invitation of the Evpatoriia Archeological and Ethnographic Museum; a report on his research work for 1925; etc. (1924-31 ); etc.
The fonds also includes a “Survey of the Institute’s Works on Semito-Hamitic Linguistics for 1917-29” compiled by V. V. Struve, M. N. Sokolov and N. V. Iushmanov; an article by the Hebraist B. I. Toporovskii titled “A Comparison with the Greek (and partly Latin) Words of Certain Hebrew Words of the ‘Songs of Songs,’” and a review of this work by N. V. Iushmanov.
- Archival history:
- The Academy’s archive was established by decree of Emperor Peter I in 1728 to house documents of the Conference (supreme assembly) of the Academy of Sciences. 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-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 c.) and the Committee of the Board of the Academy of Sciences (the chancellery’s institutional successor; documents date from 1803), and 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 storage units.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR was established in 1919 at Petrograd University. Initially called the A. N. Veselovskii Institute, in 1921 it was renamed the Research Institute of the Comparative History of the Literature and Languages of the West and East (ILIaZV), but was often referred to in the literature as “the former Veselovskii Institute”. The institute’s budget and staffing were approved directly by the People’s Commissariat of Education. The structure of the ILIaZV also included the library of the former St. Petersburg Historical-Philological Institute.
The ILIaZV was governed by a collegium headed by a chairman (N. S. Derzhavin remained in this post until the institute’s reorganisation). The staff consisted of full members, researchers, scientific and technical personnel as well as graduate students. The institute included departments of language and literature, with their subsequent division into sections and groups.
In 1930, the ILIaZV was reorganised as the State Institute of Speech Culture (GIRK; also referred to in documents as the Research Institute of Speech Culture), which existed until 1933, when its language sector was used as the basis to found the Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of Linguistics (LNIIa), which in turn was reorganised in 1936 as the Leningrad Branch of the Central Institute of Language and Literature of the Peoples of the USSR (LOTsIIaP). In 1938, the LOTsIIaP was merged with the N. Ia. Marr Institute of Language and Thinking.
- Access points: locations:
- Evpatoriia
- Leningrad
- Russia
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises four inventories in thematical order, and in part ordered alphabetically.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary