Nikolai Iosifovich Konrad (; 13 March 1891 – 30 September 1970) was a Soviet philologist and historian, described in the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

'' as "the founder of the Soviet school of Japanese scholars".Robert M. Croskey
N. I. Konrad and the Soviet Study of Japan
''Acta Slavica Iaponica'', Vol. 9, pp.116–133

Life

Konrad was born in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

to a

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 ...

father who was a railway engineer while his mother was the daughter of a priest from the

Oryol Governorate Oryol Governorate () was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 to 1928. Its seat was in the city of Oryol. Administrative division Oryol Governorate consisted of t ...

. He studied at the Oriental Faculty of

Saint Petersburg 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 ...

, attending lectures by

Lev Sternberg Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg () ( – August 14, 1927) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer of Jewish origin who from 1889 to 1897 studied the Nivkhs (Gilyaks), Oroks, and Ainu on Sakhalin and in Siberia for the American Museum of N ...

at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. After graduation he traveled to Japan and Korea, studying the languages and undertaking ethnographic study.

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

prevented his return to Russia until 1917. Konrad then taught at Leningrad University, and became professor of Japanese language and literature there from 1922 to 1939. He knew

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

in the 1920s, and Bakhtin later cited Konrad,

Dmitry Likhachov Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev (, also spelled ''Dmitrii Likhachev'' or ''Dmitry Likhachov''; – 30 September 1999) was a Russian medievalist, linguist, and a former inmate of Gulag. During his lifetime, Likhachev was considered the world's fore ...

and

Juri Lotman Juri Lotman (; 28 February 1922 – 28 October 1993) was a prominent Russian-Estonian literary scholar, semiotician, and historian of Russian culture, who worked at the University of Tartu. He was elected a member of the British Academy (1977), ...

as the three most important Russian literary theorists. After his fellow scholar Nikolai Nevsky and his wife were arrested on charges of spying, Konrad found their two-year-old daughter left in their apartment; he brought the girl up as his own after her parents' execution. In 1941 he became professor at the

Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (, abbreviated МИВ (''MIV'')) was a university-level educational institution that operated in Moscow, Russia, from 1920–1954. It was created as a result of merging Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languag ...

Awards and honors

* Two

Orders of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

(June 10, 1945; March 27, 1954) * Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour *

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese honors system, Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge feat ...

, 2nd class (1969) *

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize () was one of the Soviet Union’s highest civilian honours, awarded from its establishment in September 1966 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It recognised outstanding contributions in the fields of science, mathem ...

Works

* ''Zapad i Vostok'' (West and East), Moscow, 1966. Translated by H. Kasanina and others as ''West-East, inseparable twain; selected articles''. Moscow, 1967

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Konrad, Nikolai 1891 births 1970 deaths Russian people of German descent 20th-century Russian male writers Scientists from Riga Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class Recipients of the USSR State Prize Scholars of Japanese literature Translators to Russian Russian Japanologists Russian literary critics Russian orientalists Russian sinologists Soviet literary critics Soviet orientalists Soviet sinologists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Inmates of Butyrka prison