Open Access“Arabian letters” of Sergiy Donich: from biography of oriental scholar and archaeologist
Author(s) -
D. Radivilov,
Olena Romanova
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
materìali ì doslìdžennâ z arheologìï prikarpattâ ì volinì
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2223-1218
DOI - 10.33402/mdapv.2019-23-419-435
Subject(s) - orientalism , ukrainian , arabic , history , biography , style (visual arts) , context (archaeology) , classics , literature , oriental studies , amateur , art , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology
The paper introduces into academic discourse two letters by S. Donich to the famous Ukrainian orientalist A. Krymskyi. The letters were written in January, 1927, before the Donich’s academic career as an Egyptologist, an archaeologist and a museum curator was started. Both letters were compiled in Arabic; the first letter was more thorough and was compiled as a sample of traditional Arabic letter (it includes coloured basmala and colophon), another letter was brief and written in European style. Such way of communication was chosen by S. Donich (amateur who independently studied oriental languages at that moment) to demonstrate his competence in Arabic to A. Krymskyi, the leading Arabist of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, and USSA at that time. S. Donich wrote about his interest in oriental languages and their study, about his fascination for Oriental Studies, and about his difficult life circumstances that interfered him to become an academic orientalist. Donich emphasized he was a devotee of the Arabic language and informed about his translation of “The Thousand and One Night”. Some fragments of his translation into Russian he included into the letter. Thus S. Donich hoped to declare himself as a potential candidacy for further oriental study. The analysis of the content of the letters in a broader historical context, and in combination with other archive documents related to S. Donich, A. Krymskyi, and the academic Oriental Studies institutions of USSR, make it possible to uncover the circumstances in which of the individual orientalists lived and made their careers in the 1920s. It also provides us with some new facts of the biography and professional activity of S. Donich, as well as it makes possible to verify some previously known information about him. An assumption was made that these letters led to a new period of the Donich’s life, his turning to the Oriental Studies, with his later career as an Egyptologist, a museum curator and an archaeologist with his continuous interest in Arabic studies and other fields of Oriental Studies.The appendix provides a complete translation of the Arabic letters into Ukrainian together with and photographs of the documents.Key words: Ukrainian Museum Egyptology, History of Ukrainian Science, History of Ukrainian Humanities, History of Egyptology, History of Oriental Studies in Ukraine, S. Donich, A. Krymskyi.