Nikolai Konstantinovich Dmitriev (; 1898-1954) was Doctor of Philology, professor, an outstanding Orientalist-Turkologist, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, member of Russian Federation Academy of Sciences, Distinguished Scientist honoree of Turkmenia, Bashkiria, Chuvashia, and recognized member of the world Turkology.

Biography

Dmitriev was born on August 28, 1898, in Moscow, in a professional family. In 1916, after graduating with a gold medal the 3rd Moscow gymnasium, he joined the Historical-Philological faculty of the

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

, and in 1918 he entered in parallel Lazarev Near Eastern Institute (former Lazarev Oriental Languages Institute). In 1920. Dmitriev graduated from the Moscow University, and in 1922 Near Eastern Institute (renamed to Oriental Studies Institute) in three majors,

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

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 ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. Dmitriev also studied in depth

Classical languages According to the definition by George L. Hart, a classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large body of ancient written literature. Classical languages are usually extinct languages. Those that are still ...

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * Pertaining to Serbia in Southeast Europe; in particular **Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans ** Serbian language ** Serbian culture **Demographics of Serbia, includes other ethnic groups within the co ...

, Bulgarian, modern

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

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 around the ...

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

, Pehlevi,

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

, Bashkir and Kazakh, in addition to the main European languages (

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

. Dmitriev was also engaged in

Slavic Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

philology and then

Turkology Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and the Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative c ...

Information

Dmitriev's linguistic views formed under influence of school of F.W.Radloff, continued by P.M.Melioransky. The range of Dmitriev scientific interests was very wide. It developed right at the beginning of his career, when the scientist almost simultaneously started to work on

, Bashkir, Gagauz, Kumyk,

Azeri Azeri or Azeri Turk may refer to: * Azeri people, an ethnic group also known as Azerbaijanis * Citizens of Azerbaijan * Azeri language, the modern-day Turkic language * Old Azeri, an extinct Iranian language * Azeri Turk (journal), Academic jour ...

, Turkmen, and other languages of the extensive Turkic family that soon became a subject of his specialty. Dmitriev was a convinced supporter of the theory that stipulates a genetic unity of the Turkic languages. That led to the comparative and comparative-historical methods as the main tool in studies of the structure of Turkic languages; and to the synthetic approach to the problems of Turkology, which explain the overall unity of his thematically various research on the languages of Turkic group. Dmitriev took a primarily historical view of the linguistic phenomena. He was an expert on

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

lexicology Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that analyzes the lexicon of a specific language. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a language that can stand on its own, and is made up of small components called morphemes and even smaller elemen ...

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

, and history of the Turkic languages. When the ideas by N.Ya. Marr began being strenuously propagandized in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Dmitriev remained alien to the attempts to discover in Turkic languages "stadial reorganizations", and to the attempts to discover in Turkic languages inflection, prefixes, etc., which did not escape even some competent foreign Turkologists. He initiated a push against some errors that at times prevented a correct understanding of the phenomena typical for Turkic languages. After F.W. Radloff and V.A. Bogoroditsky, Dmitriev suggested a new, more specific definition and formulated relationship of

palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...

and labial vowel synharmonism, pointing to the subordinated character of the labial articulation. His position about phonetic variability of the root in the Turkic languages was an important development that corrected an existing postulate in Turkology according to which a root in the Turkic languages is unchangeable. A prominent place in the Dmitriev's works held the questions of lexicology. A special place in the Dmitriev's scientific biography addresses the problem of the Türko-Slavic linguistic relations. In the problem of the Turkic loans in Slavic languages, and first of all in Russian, Dmitriev's research brought in new dimensions, studying time, conditions and penetration paths of these loans into the Russian and Slavic languages. His brochure ''Structure of Turkish language'' expressed in a compressed form his valuable observations about loans in the Turkish vocabulary, historical conditions of their penetration in Turkish language, and the nearest intermediaries that conducted loans from territorially remote languages. The special Slavophonic training received by Dmitriev before his Turkological education allowed him to turn to Slavic languages and Turkic texts in a Slavic transcription as a major source on the history and dialectology of the Turkic, especially southern Turkic languages. His research in this area had even greater value for the Slavic philology, because it complemented studies on the influences of the Turkic languages on Slavic languages. In his last years Dmitriev started publishing his research on the Russian-Turkic language comparisons. In his last years Dmitriev's attention especially attracted the question on attitude of the Turkic languages to the category of

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

. On the material of Azeri language, Dmitriev published a special article on this subject, suggesting a presence of vestiges or hints on the grammatical gender in the modern Turkic languages. Dmitriev wrote baseline scientific descriptions for many of Turkic languages, including Kumyk, Bashkir, Turkmen, and Gagauz. The "Grammar of Kumyk language" was a first in a Turkology scientific description of this language with general Turkological impact. The Gagauz language for the first time was investigated by Dmitriev, one of his two works is devoted to

, and another gave its

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

and

lexical Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * Lexical ...

description. Dmitriev described the strong palatalisation of the Gagauz consonants, and noted morphological, and especially

syntactic In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...

and lexical features of the Gagauz language that distinguish it from others. This characterization helped to establish its relationship with it southwest group of the Turkic languages. Dmitriev sent two decades' worth of materials he had collected on the Azeri language to be published as a large scientific grammar, but during the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...

it was lost, together with the first edition of the "Bashkir language grammar". Dmitriev devoted to the Bashkir language a major part of his research, and the best of them, "Bashkir language grammar", together with his other fundamental works became desktop book of the Turkologists. For comparative purposes Dmitriev also involved other language families,

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

(

Western European Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

languages,

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, certainly

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Uralic The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers abo ...

( Hungarian and others) allowing wide linguistic interpretation. Under Dmitriev's editorship was published "Russian-Bashkir Dictionary" with a grammatical sketch the Bashkir language. Another monumental lexicographic works of Turkology was the "Russian- Chuvash dictionary" under Dmitriev editorship with a grammatical sketch the Chuvash language. Dmitriev co-authored

Khakas The Khakas are a Turkic indigenous people of Siberia, who live in the republic of Khakassia, Russia. They speak the Khakas language. The Khakhassian people are direct descendants of various ancient cultures that have inhabited southern Siberia ...

grammatical book. Dmitriev was not only a linguist Turkologist, but also an expert on Turkic

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

. He published or co-authored works on Crimean-Tatar,

, Turkmen, and

folklore, and Azeri songs in

transcription. Dmitriev established the Kumyk, Bashkir, Turkmen,

and Chuvash branches of Turkic linguistics. For 16 years (1925–1941) Dmitriev was closely connected with the

Leningrad State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

and Oriental Institute, where he headed the faculty of Turkic philology. His energy and efforts led to creation of Oriental Branch at the Philological faculty of the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, which he headed till the last days of his life. He also worked to establish methodology of teaching Russian in Turkic schools. During Dmitriev's 30-years pedagogical work he created a large number of university courses, including Turkic

paleography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

. Dmitriev's outstanding achievement was preparation of scientists in the field of Turkology. Under his leadership completed post-graduate work and received post-graduate and doctoral degrees many tens of ethnically Turkic students. The leading Turkological scientists of the central and local linguistic centers are mostly Dmitriev's pupils. His pupils work in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

Ashkhabad Ashgabat (Turkmen language, Turkmen: ''Aşgabat'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag, Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, approximately 50 km (30 ...

Alma-Ata Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains in southern Kazakhstan, near the border wi ...

Bishkek Bishkek, formerly known as Pishpek (until 1926), and then Frunze (1926–1991), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. Bishkek is situated near the Kazakhstan ...

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

, Ufa,

Makhachkala Makhachkala, previously known as Petrovskoye (1844–1857) and Port-Petrovsk (1857–1921), or by the local Kumyk language, Kumyk name of Anji, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Dagestan, Russia. ...

Cheboksary Cheboksary is the capital city of Chuvashia, Russia. It is a port on the Volga River. Geography The city is located in the Volga Upland region and stands on the shore of the Cheboksary Reservoir. Its area is .Resolution #2083 The satellite city ...

Yakutsk Yakutsk ( ) is the capital and largest city of Sakha, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the ...

Abakan Abakan ( ; , ) is the capital city of Khakassia, Russia, located in the central part of the Minusinsk Depression, at the confluence of the Yenisei and Abakan Rivers. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 165,214—a slight incre ...

and other cities. Among them are members of Academies, Doctors of sciences and professors, prominent figures in culture and education.

Bibliography of N. Dmitriev works

The extensive bibliographical listing does not attempt to list all works of N. Dmitriev, but only to give a representative sample of the breadth and depth of N. Dmitriev's contributions to Türkology and associated sciences. * Elements of Turkish language in Serbian folk poetry (Turkisms in folklore collection of Vuk Karadjich), 1916–1918, ''"Linguistics"'', (''"Элементы турецкаго языка въ сербской народной поэзiи (Турцизмы въ фольклорныхъ сборникахъ Вука Караджича)"'') * Chansons populaires tatares, 1. Les chansons populaires tatares et leur formation, «Journal asiatique», CCVIII, № 2, Paris, 1925–1927, ''"Journal asiatique, vol. CCVIII, No. 2, CCXII, No. 2, Paris, 1925-1927"''; (''"Tatar folk songs"'') * Beitrdge zur Osmanischen Mimologie // ''"Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes. Bd. XXXIV, Hf. 1-2, 3-4, Wien"'', 1927, (''"To studies of Osmanian mimology"'') * Notes on Bolgaro-Turkish vernaculars, 1927, DAN-B, No. 10 (''"Заметки по болгаро-турцким говорам"'') * Etudes sur la phonetique bachkire, 1927, ''"Journal asiatique, vol. CCX, Paris, 1927"'' * Skizze der Südtürkischen Mimologie, 1929, // ''"WZKM, Bd. XXXVI, Hf. 1-2"'', 1929, (''"Sketch of southern Turkic mimology"'') * "Th" in Modern Turkich languages, 1929, // ''"Le monde oriental, Vol. XXIII, 1929"'' * Turkish elements in Russian argo, 1931, // ''"Language and Literature, vol. 7, Leningrad, 1931"'' (''"Турецкие элементы в русских арго"'') * Gagausische Lautlehre, I-II, 1932–1933, ''"Archiv Orientální, 1932, vol. IV, No 2-3; III—1933"'' (''"Gagauz etudes"'') * Azerbajdschanische Lieder in armenischer Transkription, WZKM, Bd. 41, Hit. 1-2, Wien * Methodology in studies of Crimea-Tatar dialects and folklore, 1934, // ''"Economy and Culture of Crimea, No. 9-12"'' (''"О методике изучения крымско-татарских диалектов и фольклора"'') * Morfologia della lingua turca dei cummuchi (Caucaso), 1935 // ''"Rivista degli studi Orientali. Roma, 1935, Vol. XV, fasc. I, II-III"'' (''"Morphology of Kumyk language"'') * Materialen zur kumuckischen Phonetik, 1936 // ''"Le monde oriental, 1936, XXX"'' * Grammar of Bashkir language, 1948, ''"Moscow-Leningrad"'', (''"Грамматика башкирского языка"'') * Languages of Northern Caucasus and Dagestan, 1949, issue 2, Moscow-Leningrad, (''"Языки Северного Кавказа и Дагестана"'') * Grammar of Azeri language, Part. 1, Baku, 1951 (''"Грамматика азербайджанского языка"'') *Article is a brief of E. V. Sevortian, 1955, ''From the development history of the Soviet Turkology (in Memory of N.K. Dmitriev)'
''in Russian''

References

* G.F. Blagova ''"Scientific heritage of N.K. Dmitriev in the Archive of RAN ussian Academy of Sciences(Review)"'' (Г.Ф.Благова ''"Научное наследие Н.К.Дмитриева в Архиве РАН (Обзор)"'
''In Russian''
* Dilyara Tumasheva, acad. AN RT, 1998, ''"A word about a teacher (to 100-year anniversary of N.K. Dmitriev birthday)"'' (Диляра Тумашева, академик АН РТ (''"Слово об учителе (к 100-летию со дня рождения Н.К.Дмитриева)"''
''In Russian''
* Arakin V.D., 1972 ''"Nikolai Konstantinovich Dmitriev (1898-1954)"'', Moscow University//Remarkable scientists of Moscow University. (Аракин В.Д., 1972 ''"Николай Константинович Дмитриев (1898-1954)"'', Изд-во Московского ун-та//Замечательные ученые Московского ун-та ''In Russian'') * Korsh F.E., 1962 // Remarkable scientists of Moscow University, 33, Moscow, 1962, (''"Замечательные ученые Московского университета"'' ''In Russian'') {{DEFAULTSORT:Dmitriev, Nikolai 1898 births 1954 deaths Linguists of Turkic languages Russian philologists Russian orientalists Linguists from Russia Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Writers from Moscow 20th-century linguists 20th-century philologists Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies alumni