Joseph Orbeli ( hy, Հովսեփ Աբգարի Օրբելի, Hovsep Abgari Orbeli; russian: Иосиф Абгарович Орбели, Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli; 20 March ( O.S. 8 March) 1887 – 2 February 1961) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

- Armenian orientalist, public figure and academician who specialized in medieval history of

Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

and administered the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the larges ...

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

from 1934 to 1951. Of Armenian descent, he was the founder and first president of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences (1943–47). Yuzbashyan, Karen ''«Օրբելի, Հովսեփ Աբգարի»'' rbeli, Hovsep Abgari

Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia'' ( hy, Հայկական սովետական հանրագիտարան, ''Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran''; ASE) publishing house was established in 1967 as a department of the Institute of History of the Armen ...

. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1986, vol. 12, pp. 584–585.

Biography

Early life and education

Born into the Orbelian Dynasty in Kutaisi, Russian Georgia in 1887, Joseph Orbeli completed his secondary education at a classical gymnasium in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

. Anon. "Հովսեփ Օրբելի" ovsep Orbeli '' Patma-Banasirakan Handes'' 12/1 (1961), pp. 229–234. In 1904, he was accepted to Saint Petersburg University. He studied history and philology (with a particular emphasis in Latin and Greek) and graduated from the university in 1911. During his student years, Orbeli accompanied his professor,

Nikolai Marr Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (, ''Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr''; , ''Nikoloz Iak'obis dze Mari''; — 20 December 1934) was a Georgian-born historian and linguist who gained a reputation as a scholar of the Caucasus during the 1910s before embarking ...

, to Russian Armenia, where he took part in excavations of the ruins of the medieval Armenian capital of Ani. Marr pushed his pupil to fully immerse himself in the fields of archaeology, literature,

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

and linguistics; otherwise, Marr reasoned, he would find himself unprepared in his research and his studies.

Archaeological studies

Following his graduation, Orbeli departed for Armenia once more. He became the director of an on-site museum that was established at Ani and, during Marr's absences, frequently headed the excavations himself. He also traveled to

Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh ( ) is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, within the mountainous range of Karabakh, lying between Lower Karabakh and Syunik, and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is m ...

(more precisely, to the historical region of the Principality of Khachen), gathering and categorizing lithographic material. Orbeli also managed to travel to

Western Armenia Western Armenia (Western Armenian: Արեւմտեան Հայաստան, ''Arevmdian Hayasdan'') is a term to refer to the eastern parts of Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire) that are part of the historical homeland of the Armenians. Weste ...

, where he was able to study Armenian, Seljuq, and Urartian monuments and conduct research on Armenian and Kurdish dialects. Gradually, Orbeli was emerging as the leading authority on Armenian antiquities in the world. In 1912, he became a member of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society and in 1914, he began teaching Armenian and Kurdish studies at Saint Petersburg University. In 1916, he participated in a Russian archaeological expedition around the

Lake Van Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...

region; it was here where he discovered an inscription attributed to the Urartian king

Sarduri II Sarduri II (ruled: 764–735 BC) was a King of Urartu, succeeding his father Argishti I to the throne. The Urartian Kingdom was at its peak during his reign, campaigning successfully against several neighbouring powers, including Assyria. Th ...

. He continued his work at Saint Petersburg University; in 1917, he was appointed an assistant professor of Armenian-Georgian studies, but occasionally taught at Moscow's Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages as well.

Academic work

In the years leading up to the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

, Orbeli published a number of books, including a catalogue of artifacts found at Ani and a series of studies dealing with classical philology, Armenian history, archaeology and art. This led to his appointment to the

in July 1934, which he would steer through the hardships of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

's purges. In December 1941, the deadliest month of the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of ...

, Orbeli led a festival dedicated to

Ali-Shir Nava'i 'Ali-Shir Nava'i (9 February 1441 – 3 January 1501), also known as Nizām-al-Din ʿAli-Shir Herawī ( Chagatai: نظام الدین علی شیر نوایی, fa, نظام‌الدین علی‌شیر نوایی) was a Timurid poet, writer ...

, a medieval Turkic poet and philosopher. Orbeli considerably enhanced the museum's holdings of Oriental art, making it one of the top Oriental art museums in the world. No less important was Orbeli's role as head of the national school of Caucasus studies. Orbeli underscored the importance of linguistic studies for proper understanding of historical processes. In 1934, as a member of the Soviet delegation, he went to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

for the

Ferdowsi millennial celebration The Ferdowsi millennial celebration ( fa, جشن هزاره فردوسی) was a series of celebrations and scholarly events in the year 1934 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of Ferdowsi's birth. The Ferdowsi millennial was held at the ...

s and visited the cities of

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

and

Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province and has a po ...

. A year later he organised the 3rd International Congress of Iranian Art and Archeology at the Hermitage Museum and the accompanying exhibition therein. The other spiritus movens of the congress was

Arthur Upham Pope Arthur Upham Pope (February 7, 1881 – September 3, 1969) was an American scholar, art historian, and architecture historian. He was an expert on historical Persian art, and he was the editor of the ''Survey of Persian Art'' (1939). Pope was also ...

. In 1955–60, he was in charge of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the renamed Leningrad University.

Later life

He was buried at Bogoslovskoe Cemetery in Leningrad. He was featured in the movie '' Russian Ark'' as the director of the Hermitage.

In stamps

File:1987 CPA 5814.jpg, Orbeli on a 1987 Soviet stamp File:Iosif Orbeli ArmenianStamps 2012.jpg, Joseph Orbeli on an Armenian stamp, 2012

References

Select bibliography

* ''Избранные Труды'' elected works Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1963. * "Akademik Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli: (biograficheskiy ocherk" he academician Joseph Abgarovich Orbeli: a biographical essay pp. 12 in: Strube V. V. (red). ''Issledovaniia po istorii kul'tury narodov Bostoka: sbornik v chest' akademika I. A. Orbeli''. Moskva Leningrad. Izdatel'stvo Akademiii Nauk SSSR, 1960, 527 p.