Asiatic Museum
In 1818, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) learned that Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1780–1831), the French consul at Aleppo and Tripoli (then both part of the Ottoman Empire), was selling his extensive collection of manuscripts written in the Arabic script. In November of that year, the president of the RAS, Count Sergey Uvarov, wrote to the Board of the RAS requesting that a separate room be put aside in the Academy's cabinet of curiosities for storing this collection of manuscripts (which was eventually purchased by the RAS in two tranches, in 1819 and 1825), as well as other medals, manuscripts and books of oriental origin already in the Museum of the Imperial Academy of Science. The result was the establishment of the Asiatic Museum (Russian: Азиатский музей) of the RAS, in Saint Petersburg.
List of directors
- Christian Martin Frähn (1818–1842)
- Johannes Albrecht Bernhard Dorn (1842–1881)
- Victor von Rosen (1881–1882)
- Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann (1882–1885)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff (1885–1890)
- Karl Germanovich Salemann (1890–1916)
- Sergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg (1916–1930)
References
- ^ Popova, Irina F. (10 June 2005). "History of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts". Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. Retrieved 2012-02-01.
- ^ Khalidov, A. B. (1 May 2006). "Historical Account of the Formation of the Collection of Arabic Manuscripts and Their Study". Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. Retrieved 2012-02-01.