Otto John Maenchen-Helfen (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

: Otto Mänchen-Helfen; July 26, 1894 – January 29, 1969) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n academic,

sinologist Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...

, historian, author, and traveler. From 1927 to 1930, he worked at the Marx-Engels Institute in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, and from 1930 to 1933 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

. When the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

came to power in Germany, he returned to Austria, and after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germa ...

in 1938 he emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, eventually becoming a professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. He was the author of several oft-cited books, including a history of the

Hun The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

s. He was the first non-Russian to travel and report on Tannu Tuva. He obtained permission to travel there and study its inhabitants in 1929. He later published his experiences in a book, ''Reise ins asiatische Tuwa'' (Travels in Asiatic Tuva).

Selected list of works

* Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1931). ''Reise ins asiatische Tuwa.'' Berlin: Der Bücherkreis. Translated into English in 1992 (''see'' below). * Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1932). ''Rußland und der Sozialismus. Von der Arbeitermacht zum Staatskapitalismus''. Berlin: Dietz. * Nicolaevsky, Boris (author), and Maenchen-Helfen, Otto (translator) (1936). ''Karl Marx: Man and Fighter.'' (First published 1933 in German. Many English editions; some of them restore the notes, appendices, and bibliography omitted from the first English edition.) * Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1944-45a). ''Huns and Hsiung-Nu.'' ''Byzantion'', vol. 17, pp. 222–243. * Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1944-45b). ''The Legend of the Origin of the Huns." ''Byzantion'', vol. 17, pp. 244–251. * Maenchen-Helfen, O. (1945). "The Yueh-chih Problem Re-examined." ''Journal of the American Oriental Society,'' vol. 65, p. 71–81. * Maenchen-Helfen, O. (1951). "Manichaeans in Siberia." ''Semitic and Oriental Studies Presented to William Popper,'' ed. by Walter J. Fischel. University of California Publications in Semitic Philology, vol. 9. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. * Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973). ''The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture.'' Ed. by Max Knight. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press. . (Edited and enlarged in a 1978 German translation; ''see'' below.) * Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1978). ''Die Welt der Hunnen: Eine Analyse ihrer historischen Dimension.'' Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf. * Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1992). ''Journey to Tuva.''; Trans. and annotated by Alan Leighton, with an introduction by Anna Maenchen. Ethnographics Press Monographs Series, edited by Gary Seaman, no. 5. Los Angeles: Univ. of Southern California Ethnographics Press. .

Selected list of works

References

Further reading