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The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM) of the
Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...
(RAS; russian: Институт восточных рукописей Российской академии наук), formerly the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is a research institute in Saint Petersburg,
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
that houses various collections of manuscripts and early printed material in Asian languages, including
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
, Mongolian,
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
, and Tangut.


History

The origins of the IOM date back to 1818, when the Russian Academy of Sciences learned that Louis-Jacques Rousseau (1780–1831), the French consul at
Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...
and Tripoli (then both part of the Ottoman Empire), was selling his extensive collection of manuscripts written in the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
. In November of that year, the president of the RAS, Count
Sergey Uvarov Count Sergey Semionovich Uvarov (russian: Граф Серге́й Семёнович Ува́ров; 5 September Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._25_August.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O.S._25_August">O ...
, wrote to the Board of the RAS requesting that a separate room be put aside in the Academy's cabinet of curiosities for storing this collection of manuscripts (which was eventually purchased by the RAS in two tranches, in 1819 and 1825), as well as other medals, manuscripts and books of oriental origin already in the Museum of the Imperial Academy of Science. The result was the establishment of the
Asiatic Museum The Asiatic Museum (Азиатский музей) in Saint Petersburg was one of the first museums of Asian art in Europe. Its existence spanned 112 years from 1818 to 1930 when it was incorporated into the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the ...
(russian: Азиатский музей) of the RAS, in Saint Petersburg. The Asiatic Museum quickly established itself as the main institute for the collection and study of oriental manuscripts and books in Russia, as well as a major international centre for oriental studies, and by the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, almost a hundred years after its foundation, it housed one of the most extensive collections of oriental manuscripts and printed books in the world. Following the Russian Revolution, the Asiatic Museum continued under the same name until May 1930, when the Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was founded, and the Asiatic Museum was incorporated into this new institute. The IOS was originally located within the
Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (russian: Библиотека Российской академии наук (БАН)) is a large state-owned Russian library based in Saint Petersburg on Vasilievsky Island and open to employees o ...
in Leningrad (the name for Saint Petersburg during the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
era), but in 1949 it moved to its own premises in one wing of the
New Michael Palace The New Michael Palace (Ново-Михайловский дворец, ''Novo-Mikhailovsky Dvorets'') was the third Saint Petersburg palace designed by Andrei Stackenschneider for Nicholas I's children. It was built between 1857 and 1862 on th ...
(the other wing was occupied by the Institute for the History of Material Culture). Then two years later, in 1951, the institute was relocated to its own premises in Moscow. However, for practical reasons the institute's main library and its collections of manuscripts and early printed books remained at the New Michael Palace in Leningrad as the Department of Oriental Manuscripts of the IOS. Five years after the move of the IOS to Moscow, in February 1956, the Department of Oriental Manuscripts in Leningrad was reconstituted as the Leningrad Branch of the IOS. Whereas the main Moscow branch of the IOS concentrated on modern studies, the Leningrad branch specialized in the study of ancient and medieval oriental history, literature and languages, as well as in the production of critical editions of texts in its collections. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it continued as a branch of the IOS, albeit now renamed the Saint Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, until 2007. In 2007 the Saint Petersburg branch separated from the IOS to become an independent institute under the RAS. The new institute, which assumed the title of Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in late 2009, continues to occupy one wing of the New Michael Palace.


List of directors


Directors of the Asiatic Museum (1818–1930)

* Christian Martin Frähn (1818–1842) * Johannes Albrecht Bernhard Dorn (1842–1881) * Victor Romanovich Rosen (1881–1882) * Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann (1882–1885) * Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff (1885–1890) * Karl Germanovich Salemann (1890–1916) * Sergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg (1916–1930)


Directors of the Institute of Oriental Studies (1934–1956)

* Sergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg (1930–1934) * Aleksandr Nikolaevich Samoilovich (1934–1937) *
Vasily Vasilievich Struve Vasily Vasilievich Struve (russian: Василий Васильевич Струве) ( in Saint Petersburg, Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 15, 1965 in Leningrad) was a Soviet Union, Soviet oriental studies, orientalist from the Struve f ...
(1937–1938) * Aleksey Petrovich Barannikov (1938–1940) * Vasily Vasilievich Struve (1940–1950) * Serguey Pavlovich Tolstov (1950–1953) * Vsevolod Igorevich Avdiev (1953–1954) * Alexander Andreevich Guber (1954–1956)


Directors of the Leningrad/Saint Petersburg Branch of the IOS (1956–2007)

* Joseph Abgarovich Orbeli (1956–1961) * Andrey Nikolaevich Kononov (1961–1963) * Jury Ashotovich Petrosyan (1963–1996) * Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov (1997–2003) *
Irina Fedorovna Popova Irina Fedorovna Popova (russian: Ирина Фёдоровна Попова; born September 28, 1961) is a Russian sinologist and historian. Since April 2003 she has been the Director of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy ...
(2003–2007)


Directors of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (2007–present)

*
Irina Fedorovna Popova Irina Fedorovna Popova (russian: Ирина Фёдоровна Попова; born September 28, 1961) is a Russian sinologist and historian. Since April 2003 she has been the Director of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy ...
(2007–)


Collections

The IOM has a collection of more than 100,000 manuscripts and early printed books, encompassing about 65 different languages, including
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
,
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
, Ethiopian, Georgian,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
, Korean, Kurdish,
Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...
, Mongolian,
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, Sanskrit, Sogdian,
Tajik Tajik, Tadjik, Tadzhik or Tajikistani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Tajikistan * Tajiks, an ethnic group in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan * Tajik language, the official language of Tajikistan * Tajik (surname) * Tajik c ...
, Tangut,
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
, Turkic, and Uyghur.


Arabic collection

The foundation for the manuscript collection at the Asiatic Museum were some 700 Arabic script manuscripts belonging to Jean-Baptiste Louis-Jacques Rousseau that were acquired in 1819 (500 manuscripts) and 1826 (200 manuscripts). The first director of the Asiatic Museum, Christian Martin Frähn, augmented the museum's holdings in Arabic manuscripts, and by 1828 the museum housed some 851 Arabic, Persian and Turkic manuscripts. However, the collection of Arabic manuscripts did not grow substantially until the early 20th century. In 1915,
Vladimir Alexeyevich Ivanov Wladimir Alekseevich Ivanow (Влади́мир Алексе́евич Ивано́в; November 3, 1886- June 19, 1970) was a Russian orientalist. He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia and died in Tehran, Iran. He was a scholar of Islam, w ...
purchased some 1,057 manuscripts from Bukhara, and in 1916–1917, S. V. Ter-Avetisyan, curator of the Caucasian Museum in Tbilisi, sent a large number of manuscripts that he had collected to the Asiatic Museum, including more than a thousand Arabic manuscripts.


Tibetan collection

The IOM has one of the largest collections of Tibetan books and manuscripts in the world, comprising over 20,000 catalogued items, as well as many as yet uncatalogued items. The history of the collection dates back to the 1720s when Tibetan texts from a ruined monastery along the Irtysh River were brought back to Saint Petersburg. During the 18th and 19th centuries more Tibetan and Tibeto-Mongolian woodblock-printed books were collected from Buryat monasteries in Siberia. Other Tibetan and Mongolian books were sent back to Russia by members of the Russian Spiritual Mission in China during the 19th century. By the start of the 20th century the Asiatic Museum had the largest collection of Tibetan books and manuscripts in Europe, but it was still deficient in some areas. The remaining gaps in the collection were filled by Gombojab Tsybikov and B. Baradiyn (1878–1937) who visited Tibet in 1899–1902 and 1905–1907 respectively.


Manuscripts from Khara-khoto

The IOM holds the world's foremost collection of manuscripts written in the extinct
Tangut language Tangut (Tangut: ; ) is an extinct language in the Sino-Tibetan language family. Tangut was one of the official languages of the Western Xia dynasty, founded by the Tangut people in northwestern China. The Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongo ...
, which were collected by the explorer
Pyotr Kozlov Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (russian: Пётр Кузьми́ч Козло́в; 3 October 1863 in Dukhovshchina – 26 September 1935 in Peterhof) was a Russian and Soviet traveller and explorer who continued the studies of Nikolai Przhevalsky in ...
from the Western Xia fortress city of
Khara-Khoto Khara-Khoto (; mn, Khar Khot; "black city") is an abandoned city in the Ejin Banner of Alxa League in western Inner Mongolia, China, near the Juyan Lake Basin. Built in 1032, the city thrived under the rule of the Western Xia dynasty. It has been ...
in Inner Mongolia during 1907–1909. The city had been abandoned in the late 14th century, and had been largely buried in sand for several hundred years. Kozlov unearthed thousands of manuscripts and woodblock prints, mostly written in the dead Tangut script, which had been preserved beneath the sands of Khara-Khoto. The manuscripts, books and archaeological artefacts that Kozlov brought back from Khara-Khoto were originally housed in the museum of
Alexander III of Russia Alexander III ( rus, Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, r=Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894. ...
in Saint Petersburg, but the manuscripts and printed books were transferred to the Asiatic Museum in 1911. In addition to the several thousand Tangut texts, the Kozlov Collection includes about 660 manuscripts and printed books in Chinese, mostly Buddhist texts, as well as about 120 Tibetan texts.


Manuscripts from Turpan and Dunhuang

Sergey Oldenburg Sergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg (russian: Серге́й Фёдорович Ольденбу́рг; 26 September 1863, in Byankino, Transbaikal Oblast – 28 February 1934, in Leningrad) was a Russian orientalist who specialized in Buddhist stud ...
, director of the Asiatic Museum from 1916, made two expeditions to Central Asia (1909–1910 and 1914–1915). During the first expedition Oldenburg explored a number of sites around Turpan, including Shikchin, Yarkhoto and Kucha, and collected murals, paintings, terracottas, and about one hundred manuscripts, mostly fragments written in the Brahmi script. During his second expedition Oldenburg surveyed the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, and revisited some of the sites in Turpan that he had visited during his first expedition. He found a large number of artefacts and manuscript fragments (nearly 20,000 fragments, some of them tiny) at Dunhuang, and also purchased about 300 scrolls from local people. The IOM holds the more than 19,000 manuscript fragments and 365 manuscript scrolls collected from Dunhuang by Oldenburg, as well as about thirty manuscripts collected by Sergey Malov during an expedition to Khotan during 1909–1910, and some 183 Uyghur manuscripts collected by N. N. Krotkov, the Russian Consul in Urumqi and
Ghulja YiningThe official spelling according to (), also known as Ghulja ( ug, غۇلجا) or Qulja ( kk, قۇلجا) and formerly Ningyuan (), is a county-level city in Northwestern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China and the seat of the Ili Kazakh A ...
.


Individual manuscripts and printed books

* Nova N 176 — the only known complete manuscript of the extinct
Khitan language Khitan or Kitan ( in large script or in small, ''Khitai''; , ''Qìdānyǔ''), also known as Liao, is a now-extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people (4th to 13th century). It was the official language of the Liao Empi ...
, written in the
Khitan large script The Khitan large script () was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language (the other was the Khitan small script). It was used during the 10th–12th centuries by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in nor ...
. *
Pearl in the Palm The ''Pearl in the Palm'' or the ''Timely Pearl'' ( Tangut: ; ) is a bilingual glossary between the Chinese and Tangut languages. It survives as a single complete copy of a 12th-century woodblock printed book that was discovered in the Tangut ...
 — 12th century woodblock printing of a bilingual
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
Tangut glossary


See also

*
International Dunhuang Project The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese city of Dunhuang and ...


References


External links


Web site of the Institute of Oriental manuscripts
{{Authority control Asian studies