Alexander Grebenshchikov

Aleksandr Vasil'evich Grebenshchikov (Александр Васильевич Гребенщиков; 1880-15 October 1941) was a Soviet scholar of the Tungusic languages.^[1] He was specifically interested in the origin and development of Manchu writing.^[2]

Education and career

He attended the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok beginning in 1902, where he was educated as a Sinologist, and upon his graduation in 1907 began working as an instructor there; he became a full professor in 1918. From 1908 until 1927 he made a number of trips to Northeast China to perform fieldwork.^[3] His focus on his work in collecting Manchu folklore led him to miss out on the extent of language shift to Chinese among the Manchu people; from this, he erroneously concluded that the Manchu language was not endangered.^[2] He moved to Leningrad in 1935 to work with the Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.^[3] In 1936, he established the Manchu studies section of the IOS, and became its first chairman, with B. I. Pankratov (1892-1979), K. M. Cheremisov (1899-1982), and V. A. Zhebrovsky working under him.^[4] He died during the Siege of Leningrad.^[3] He was survived by his wife N. A. Grebenshchikova, who donated his personal archives to the IOS.^[4]

Influence

Grebenshschikov was one of the last of the early 20th-century Soviet scholars of Manchu to have done his undergraduate education in Sinology; the trend in the mid-20th century was for such scholars to come from a Mongolian studies background.^[2] His works on Tungusic languages numbered more than 50, including publication of his еarly collected manuscripts of some important Manchu oral folklore such as the Tale of the Nisan Shaman.^[3]

Notes

1. Pang 1995, p. 33
2. Konakov 1947, p. 421
3. Pang 1995, p. 34
4. IOS 2005

References

• Konakov, A. P. (September–October 1947), "Манчжуристика в россии и в СССР", Известия академии наук союза ССР: отделение литературы и языка 6 (5): 417–424
• Pang, T. A. (1995), "Rare Manchu manuscripts from the collection of the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences" (PDF), Manuscripta Orientala 1 (3): 33–46
• Маньчжуроведение в Санкт-Петербургском Филиале Института Востоковедения Российской Академии Наук, St. Petersburg: Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2005-11-05, retrieved 2009-12-15