Fifty Years of Hebraic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
(1956—2006)

Hebraic Studies is a complex discipline that focuses on the Hebrew language and literature. It is one of the traditional disciplines of Oriental studies in Russia. Since the very beginning, St Petersburg was viewed as the “Mecca” of the Russian Hebraic Studies. It suffices to mention names of the most pre-eminent Petersburg Hebraists such as D.A.Khvolson (1819—1911), A.J.Garkawi (1835—1919), P.K.Kokovtsov (1861—1942), S.E.Viner (1860—1929), I.L.Tsinberg (1872/73—1938/39?). In the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries, the development of the St Petersburg Hebraist Studies was defined much with the fact that a great number of Jewish texts and documents were housed in both academic and private collections of the city. Among the most important collections, there were two of S.A.Firkovich (1787—1874) bought by the National Library in 1862 and 1876 respectively, those of M.A.L.Friedland (1826—1899) and D.A.Khvolson acquired by the Asiatic Museum in 1892 and 1910, and the family collection of Barons Ginzburg (now kept at the Russian State Library in Moscow).

Old Hebraist traditions kept in St Petersburg/Leningrad and unique manuscript collections resulted in Hebrew experts being enrolled into the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies (now the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts) from the time of its foundation in 1956.

Hebraic Studies at the Institute covered the history and literature of the Ancient East, the complex study of the history, culture and religions of Near East, the academic description of manuscript and old-printed books kept at the Institute, and comparative Semitic Studies. The work resulted in the development of a few principal academic trends such as Biblical Studies, Qumran Studies, Jewish codicology and paleography, plus research into Hebrew literature and bookwork. Scholars who developed the trends worked at three Departments – i.e. the departments of the Ancient East, the Near East and of Oriental manuscripts and documents.

Among them the Qumran Studies began developing right at the time when the major academic trends of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies were taking shape. Qumran, or rather the caves of Qumran, is a region on the North-Western coast of the Dead Sea where in unique scrolls (around 40 thousand fragments) were found during 1947—1956, which belonged to a Jewish community that lived there in the 2nd century B.C. through the first century A.D. The exploration of the Qumran scrolls gave a great impetus to the development of modern Hebraic Studies, first of all Biblical Studies. From the very beginning, Qumran Studies was carried out at the Institute by Dr Joseph D. Amusin (1910—1984), Dr Klavdia B. Starkova (1915—2000) and Dr Margarita M. Elizarova (1938—1978). No doubt, the historian J.Amusin and the philologist K.Starkova were the leading scholars of the Soviet Qumran Studies. Together they were able to reconstruct the historic context of the life of the ancient Jewish community, scrutinise the sect’s ideology and provide Russian-speaking readers with annotated translations of the original texts by Qumran writers. From the end of the 1980s, they were succeeded in the study of the manuscripts of the Dead Sea by Prof Dr Igor R. Tantlevsky (born 1961), who worked at the Institute from 1990 to 2000. Thus, he made an attempt to reconstruct the history of the Qumran community and explore the principal stages of the development of the eschatological concept of the Messiah that existed among the Qumran people. I.Tantlevsky also published a number of papers on Biblical Studies and Biblical history.

It is no surprise that many scholars at the Departments of Ancient East and Near East explored various aspects of the Biblical Studies such as Biblical historiography. But Hebraic Studies in the narrow sense was primarily developed by Dr Igor M. Diakonoff (1915–1998) and Dr Ilia Sh. Sfiffmann (1930—1990). The great historian and linguist I.Diakonoff published a comparative description of Hebrew (in the book The Languages of Ancient Near East. Moscow, 1967, pp. 352—426), an essay Ancient Jewish Literature and translations into Russian of some parts of the Old Testament such as The Song of Songs and The Book of Ecclesiastes (in Poetry and Prose of Ancient East. Moscow, 1973, pp. 537—550, 625—652), Jeremiah's Lament (in co-op. with L.E.Cohen), etc. I.Shiffmann, like other scholars of his generation, had an extensive Orientalist and Classical educational background. His complex historical research into the Jewish Bible and annotated academic translation of several parts of it (e.g. Pentateuch) into Russian are the most significant in the context of Hebraic Studies. For many years, both I.Diakonoff and I.Shiffmann offered individual Hebrew lessons to the Institute’s scholars who were interested in reading Biblical literature.

Works of other scholars are also worth mentioning, such as linguistic papers and the translation of Qumran texts by Anatoly M. Gazov-Ginzberg (1929—1995), studies of Mediaeval Jewish Grammar by Dr Meir N. Zislin (1916—1998?) and studies of Mediaeval Jewish literature by Gita M. Gluskina (born in 1922), who worked at the Institute in 1959—1961.

Academic activities of Dr Klavdia B. Starkova proved extremely important for the development of the Soviet Hebraic Studies. K.Starkova contributed much to the trends of the Hebraic Studies maintained at the Institute. She began as a researcher into Mediaeval Jewish poetry, especially texts of the Jewish poets of the “Golden Age” such as Yehuda Halevi (before 1075—1141?) and Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021/22—1057/58). Then she turned out to be one of the founders of the Soviet Qumran Studies. Moreover, she spent many years on the academic description of the Jewish manuscripts kept at the Institute (this aspect of her work is not well-known).

The bulk of the collection of Jewish manuscripts was acquired by the Asiatic Museum at the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. As outlined above, two collections of the businessman and benefactor Moses Friedland and Prof Daniil A. Khvolson were first to be acquired. But the most important part (in both quantity and academic value) is that of Karaim and Krymchak; manuscripts that were given to the Institute in 1930—1931. The entire collection, gathered from many sources, includes texts and documents of different contents that reflect all the principal trends of the development of the Jewish written culture. There are manuscripts from the 10(?)th — 19th centuries in numerous Jewish languages (though texts in Hebrew are predominant) such as Hebrew, Aramean, Judeo-Arabic, Karaim, Judeo-Persian and Yiddish. At the moment, there are 1,217 codices and 79 scrolls at the collection.

The academic description and cataloguing of the collection was carried out by Iona J. Ginzburg (1871—1942) in 1936—1941. The catalogue was ready to be published but the tragedy of the Siege of Leningrad resulted in the death of its author. Then, after the end of WW 2, some political circumstances delayed its publication for many years. At the beginning of the 1960s, K.Starkova and A.Gazov-Ginzberg were eager to prepare the Ginzburg catalogue for the final publication. Their work, though, was much more than just editing. Indeed, it was quite a new description of a high academic level. Thus, the catalogue was replenished with new chapters such as Philology and Science, manuscript convolutes were described in detail, the dating and localization of many texts were corrected, an extensive introduction was added. Unfortunately, the change of the political climate in Russia, and deteriorating diplomatic relations with the state of Israel, resulted in the edited catalogue never being published (though it is still kept at the Institute’s Archive of Orientalists). It should be noted though that the original version of the Ginzburg catalogue was published in the USA (The Catalogue of the Jewish Manuscripts of the Saint-Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences. New York: Norman Ross Publishing Inc., 2003). The edition was prepared by three young scholars who have Hebraic and Semitic academic backgrounds: Igor F. Naftulyev, Serguei A. Frantsouzoff and Boris I. Zaikovsky.

K.Starkova also published a number of papers on certain manuscripts of the Jewish collection and some problems and achievements of Semitology and Hebraic studies at the Institute. She consulted extensively Pavel B. Kondratiev, who wrote a general review of the Jewish collection of the Institute. Moreover, for many years she ran a seminar on Biblical and Post-Biblical literature for the Institute’s scholars.

At the moment, Hebraic Studies at the Institute are only represented in papers by the author of this article. They deal with various aspects of Jewish codicology, paleography, incunabula manuscripts, the history of Jewish bookwork and the history of the formation of Russian collections of Jewish books. It is a shame that certain disciplines, which are quite natural for the Institute, such as Qumran and Biblical Studies, are no longer carried on by any current scholars.

Nevertheless, I would like to conclude the account of the history of the Hebraic Studies at the Institute with a positive statement. There are three doctoral students at the Institute who are exploring the Hebraic academic field. These are D.V.Tsolin (Biblical Studies), A.A.Shepetova (religious law system in the early Middle Ages) and S.G.Parizhsky (mediaeval Jewish literature). I hope they will complete their PhD dissertations successfully and contribute to the development of Russian Hebraic Studies.

Dr S. Iakerson

Translated by Dr A.Zorin
Proofread by J.Young

Selected Bibliography of Papers in major European languages published by the scholars of the Institute

Iakerson S. אהל חיים. Ohel Hayim. A Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts of the Manfred and Anne Lehmann Family. Vol. 3: Printed Books. Incunabula and Sixteenth Century Books. New York, 1996. [49], 314, XXIII pp. (The Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation Series. 22). (на англ. и ивр. яз.).

Iakerson S. Catalogue of Hebrew Incunabula from the Collection of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Vol. 1 — 2. New York and Jerusalem. 2004 — 2005. (10), LXXVII, 568, 670, [נח] p. 155 ill. (парал. текст на англ. и ивр. яз.).

Tantlevskij I.R. Two Wicked Priests in the Qumran Commentary on Habakkuk. The Qumran Chronicle, Appendix C, 1995.

Tantlevskij I.R. Melchizedek in Qumran? Some Peculiarities of Messianic Ideas and Elements of Mysticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Enigma Press. The Qumran Chronicle, vol. 12, 2004.

Iakerson, 2003a — Iakerson S.M. Hebrew Incunabula in the Asiatic Museum of St. Petersburg // Slavic and East European Information Resources. Vol. 4, №2/3. 2003. P. 37–57. Reprint: Judaica in the Slavic Realm, Slavica in the Judaic Realm: Repositories, Collections, Projects, Publications. New York – London – Oxford. 2003. P. 37–57.

Starkova C.B. Fragment of a leather Scroll of the Pentateuch from the collection of N.P.Lichachev // Studie Semitica Ioanni Bakos Dicata. Bratislava 1965. P. 235–243.

Starkova C.B. Les plus anciens manuscrits de la Bible dans la collection de l`Institute des études orientales de l`Académie des Sciences de l`U.R.S.S. // La paléographie hébraïque médiévale. Paris 11-13 septembre 1972. Paris 1974. P. 37–42 (Colloques internationaux du centre national de la recherche scientifique. №547).