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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-30

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Institut vostochnykh rukopisei RAN (IVR)


Otdel rukopisei i dokumentov
[Division for Manuscripts and Documents]

Telephone: +7 812 571-80-88

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://www.orientalstudies.ru/rus/ind...;  http://www.orientalstudies.ru/rus/ind...  (manuscript collection)

Head: Irina Fedorovna Popova (tel. +7 812 315-87-28); e-mail [email protected]; [email protected]


Holdings

Total: over 80,000 units

The Sector holds the largest collection of Oriental manuscripts and xylographs in Russia in forty-five different Oriental languages, with the earliest Egyptian papyrus dating from the tenth century B.C. and bronze tablets from the Southern Arabian peninsula. Among the largest collections are those in Arabic languages with over 5,000 manuscripts (11th–20th cc.), Turkic languages with 3,500 manuscripts (mostly 16th–early 20th cc.), about 3,000 Persian (and Tadzhik) manuscripts (some from as early as the 11th c.), and over 1,000 Hebrew (and Yiddish) manuscripts. Other significant collections from the Middle East include Kurdish, Syriac, Pashto, and Ethiopic manuscripts, as well as early manuscripts in Tocharian, and some Sogdian documents and manuscripts of the eighth century from the Mugh Mountains east of Samarkand. From the Caucasus there are important Armenian and Georgian manuscripts. India is represented with manuscripts in Sanskrit, Hindi, and the Punjabi languages.
        From the Far East there are manuscripts in Mongolian, Buriat, Manchu, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean. The Chinese collection includes xylographs and manuscripts from the fifth through the eleventh centuries from Tunhuang. There are Tangut manuscripts from the tenth and eleventh centuries from the library of the lost city of Hara-Hoto in the Gobi Desert (the P.K. Kozlov collection).
        There are manuscripts written on many different materials—stone, metal, wood, leather, and palm leaves, in addition to those on parchment and paper. Manuscripts include religious and philosophical tracts, literary prose and poetry, scientific, geographic, and historical compositions, biographical literature, dictionaries, legal tracts, letters, and many other forms.


Working conditions:
Materials are delivered the day they are ordered (no more than 5–10 manuscripts).

Reference facilities:
All manuscripts are listed in inventory registers and card catalogues. Descriptions of many of the manuscripts have been published in scholarly catalogues. The Tibetan collections are now being catalogued. Efforts are underway to establish a computerized database covering all of the manuscript fonds.

Copy facilities:
Xerox, photographic copies, and microfilms may be ordered.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted