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TEHRAN -- Iran’s cultural attaché’s office in Moscow plans to publish a book on the life story of the Russian Orientalist and Iranologist Vladimir Minorsky (1877-1966).
The Iranian scholars Gudarz Rashtiani and Nahid Abdotajeddini have compiled the book.
The office will publish the book in Persian in the near future.
Minorsky is best known for his contributions to the studies of Kurdish and Persian history, geography, literature and culture.
In writing the book, Rashtiani and Abdotajeddini used Minorsky’s personal manuscripts, which are kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The archive contains Minorsky’s academic research, personal and family documents, academic projects conducted by other scholars, his personal photos, and a collection of his articles published in magazines and newspapers.
The letters, which Minorsky received from Iranian literati including Sadeq Hedayat, Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh, Iraj Afshar, Mojtaba Minavi and Manuchehr Sotudeh, are also kept in the archive.
Minorsky made his first trip to Iran in 1902. In 1903, he entered the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving from 1904 to 1908 in Iran, first in the Tabriz Consulate-General and then the Tehran Legation, and from 1908 to 1912 in Saint Petersburg and Tashkent.
His surveys in Iran also provided invaluable material for his 1915 work, “Materials for the Study of the East”, published by the Imperial Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, St. Petersburg.
Minorsky received numerous honors during his lifetime, including being made a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1943, Honorary Member of the Société Asiatique of Paris in 1946, and Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Brussels in 1948.
SB/YAW
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