Nicholas N. Poppe (russian: Никола́й/Ни́колас Никола́евич Поппе, ''Nikoláj/Níkolas Nikolájevič Poppe''; 27 July 1897 – 8 August 1991) was an important

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-ei ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

. He is also known as Nikolaus Poppe, with his first name in its German form. He is often cited as N.N. Poppe in academic publications. Poppe was a leading specialist in the

Mongolic languages The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language ...

and the hypothetical (and controversial) Altaic language family to which the Mongolic, Turkic, and

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

belong. Poppe was open-minded toward the inclusion of Korean in Altaic, but regarded the evidence for the inclusion of Korean as weaker than that for the inclusion of Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic.

Life

Nicholas Poppe's father was stationed in China as a consular officer in the Russian diplomatic service. Poppe was born in

Yantai Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, on 27 July 1897. Poppe's boyhood and youth were marked by wars: the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an Xenophobia, anti-foreign, anti-colonialism, anti-colonial, and Persecution of Christians#China, anti-Christian uprising in China ...

, the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

, the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, and the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

, which was followed by the establishment of the Soviet regime. Later, he experienced Stalin's

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

and the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Poppe graduated from the Mongolian Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Petrograd University in 1921 where his main mentor B. Ya. Vladimirtsov. He began teaching at the Institute for Modern Oriental Languages before he had completed his studies in 1920 at the age of 23. Three years later, in 1923, he began teaching at the University of Leningrad. In 1931, he was appointed head of the Department of Mongolian Studies in the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1933, at the age of 36, he was elected as the youngest associate member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Poppe lived in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

, in a region which was overtaken by the Germans. Poppe served as a translator between the local population and the German invaders. When the Germans withdrew he and his family also took the opportunity to leave the Soviet Union. In 1943 Poppe moved with his family to Berlin. There, Poppe began working at the SS-affiliated Wannsee Institut, a research institute that studied the politics and economics of the Soviet Union. After the war, he spent several years underground in hiding from the Soviets. In 1949, he managed to emigrate to the United States, where he joined the faculty of the Far East and Russian Institute at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

. He continued teaching there up to his retirement in 1968. In 1968, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences in 1968 and again in 1977. In May 1989, a group of graduate students interested in Central and Inner Asian Studies initiated the first Nicholas Poppe Symposium. Poppe attended its first meeting in 1989 and the second in 1990. He was invited to the third meeting in May 1991 but was unable to attend on account of the state of his health. Poppe died on 8 August 1991 in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

at the age of 94.

Academic career

Poppe spoke fluent Mongolian and attained an unmatched familiarity with Mongolian oral literature. His research focused on studies of the Altaic language family, especially Khalkha-Mongolian and Buryat-Mongolian, and on studies of the folklore of these and related languages. He wrote manuals and grammars of written and colloquial Khalkha-Mongolian and Buriat-Mongolian, Yakut, the Alar dialect, and Bashkir. His publications in the realm of Mongolian oral literature include eleven volumes of Mongolian epics, collections of Mongolian sayings, songs, and fairy tales, and Mongolian versions of works in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

. After 1949, Poppe wrote mostly in German and English, in addition to Russian. Regardless of the language he used, his writing was remarkable for its simplicity and clarity. As a result, his works are easily comprehensible to specialists and non-specialists alike.

Works

Poppe was a highly prolific scholar. A bibliography of his publications from 1924 to 1987 includes 284 books and articles and 205 book reviews. Between 1949 and 1968 — a period during which he was teaching 16 to 17 hours a week at the University of Washington, with only three months in the summer for uninterrupted research — he wrote 217 works, including over 40 books. The secret of his high productivity, as he jokingly described it, was that while other people were enjoying "the beautiful surroundings of Seattle, climbing the mountains or sailing the waters", "he sits at his desk, wearing out one typewriter after the other like other people wear out their shoes".

Publications

Books authoredCirtautas, Arista Maria. 1982. "NICHOLAS POPPE BIBLIOGRAPHY 1977-1982". Central Asiatic Journal 26 (3/4). Harrassowitz Verlag: 161–66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41927364. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41927364?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

*1926 ** Yakut Grammar for students. *1927 **The Chuvash and their neighbours. **Materials for the investigation of the Tungus language: the dialect of the Barguzin Tungus. **The Finno-Ugric peoples: a sketch. *1930 **The Alar dialect. Part I, Phonetics and morphology *1931 **The Alar dialect. Part II, Texts **Practical manual of colloquial Mongolian (Khalkha dialect) **Materials on the Solon Language *1932 **Manual of Mongolian **Specimens of Khalkha-Mongolian folklore: North Khalkha dialect **Notes on the dialect of the Aga Buriat *1933 **Buriat-Mongolian linguistics **Linguistic problems of East Siberia *1934 **The language and collective farm poetry of the Buriat-Mongols of the Selenga region *1935 **Annals of the Barguzin Buriats: texts and investigation **Annals of the Khori-Buriate. First issue: The chronicles of Tugultur Toboev and Vandan Yumsunov *1936 **Annals of the Selenga Buriats. First issue: Chronicle of Ubashi Dambi Jaltsan Lombo **Tserenov of 1868 **Khalkha-Mongolian structure **Buriat-Mongolian folkloristic and dialectological collection *1937 **Khalkha-Mongolian heroic epics **Grammar of written Mongolian **Grammar of the Buriat-Mongolian language *1940 **Annals of the Khori-Buriats. First issue: Chronicles of Tugultur Toboev and Vandan Yumsunov **Manual of Mongolian *1941 **History of the Mongolian Script. Vol.1: The square script *1951 **Khalkha-Mongolian grammar: with bibliography, texts, and glossary. *1954 **Grammar of written Mongolian. *1955 **Introduction to Mongolian comparative studies. **Mongolian folklore: sayings, songs, fairytales and heroic sagas. *1957 **The Mongolian monuments in the 'Phagspa script *1960 **Comparative grammar of the Altaic languages. Part I: Comparative phonology. ** Buryat Grammar *1964 ** Bashkir manual *1965 **Introduction to Altaic linguistics *1967 **The twelve deeds of the Buddha: a Mongolian version of the ''Lalitavistara''

Mongolian texts with English translation and notes

*1970 **Mongolian language handbook *1971 **The Diamond Sutra: three Mongolian versions of the ''Vajracchedikaaprajnaapaaramitaa'': texts, translations, notes, and glossaries **Khalkha-Mongolian heroic epic *1972 **The language and collective farm poetry of the Buriat-Mongols of the Selenga region *1975 **Mongolian epics I **Mongolian epics II **Mongolian epics III **Mongolian epics IV *1976 **Mongolian epics V *1977 **Mongolian epics VI *1978
Tsongol folklore (the language and Collective Farm poetry of the Buriat-Mongols of the Selenga Region)Tsongol folklore : transl. of the collection, the language and collective farm poetry of the Buriat Mongols of the Selenga region / by Nicholas Poppe.
*1980 **Mongolian epics IX *1985 **Mongolian epics XI

References

*Poppe, N.N., Walther Heissig, and Klaus Sagaster. 1989: ''Gedanke Und Wirkung : Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag von Nikolaus Poppe.'' ''Asiatische Forschungen'' Bd. 108. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISSN 0571-320X. *Cirtautas, Arista Maria. "Nicholas Poppe: A bibliography of publications from 1924-1977." ''Parerga'' 4. Seattle: Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies, University of Washington, 1977. * Алпатов В. М. ''Лингвистическое наследие Н. Поппе'' // ВЯ. 1992, №3. С.119-125. * Алпатов В. М. ''Николай-Николас Поппе'' // Бюллетень Общества монголоведов РАН. 1993. * Алпатов В. М. ''Советское востоковедение в оценках Н. Поппе ''// Mongolica, III. Санкт-Петербург. Фарн. 1994. С.38-46. * Алпатов В. М. ''Николай-Николас Поппе.'' М. Восточная литература. 1996. 144 с. * Алпатов В. М. ''Переписка Н.Н. Поппе с советскими востоковедами''// Известия РАН, серия литературы и языка. 2000, №5. С.52-57.

External links

several dozens of Poppe works available on-line

Includes biographical material and photos. {{DEFAULTSORT:Poppe, Nicholas 1897 births 1991 deaths Writers from Yantai Mongolists 'Phags-pa script scholars Russian collaborators with Nazi Germany Russian orientalists Linguists from the Soviet Union 20th-century linguists Paleolinguists Linguists of Altaic languages Saint Petersburg State University alumni Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Soviet defectors to the United States