Otto John Maenchen-Helfen (in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

: Otto Mänchen-Helfen) (July 26, 1894 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 – January 29, 1969 in Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

) was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n academic, sinologist, historian, author, and traveler.

From 1927 to 1930 he worked at the Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

-Engels

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...

 Institute in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and from 1930 to 1933 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, he returned to Austria, and after the Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

 in 1938 he emigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, eventually becoming a professor at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He was the author of several oft-cited books, including a history of the Huns.

He was the first non Russian to travel and report on the central asian country of Tannu Tuva. He obtained permission to travel there and study its inhabitants in 1929 He later published his experiences in a book, Reise ins asiatische Tuwa .

Selected List of Works

• Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1931). Reise ins asiatische Tuwa. Berlin: Der Bücherkreis. Translated into English in 1992 (see below).
• Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1932). Rußland und der Sozialismus : von der Arbeitermacht zum Staatskapitalismus Berlin : Dietz
• Nicolaevsky, Boris
  Boris Nicolaevsky
  Boris Ivanovich Nicolaevsky was a revolutionary Russian Marxist activist, archivist, and historian. Nicolaevsky is best remembered as one of the leading Menshevik public intellectuals of the 20th Century.-Early years:...
  
  (author), and Maenchen-Helfen, Otto (translator) (1936). Karl Marx: Man and Fighter. (First published 1933 in German. Many English editions; some of them restore the notes, appendices, and bibliography omitted from the first English edition.)
• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1944-45a). Huns and Hsiung-Nu. Byzantion, vol. 17, pp. 222-243.
• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1944-45b). The Legend of the Origin of the Huns." Byzantion, vol. 17, pp. 244-251.
• Maenchen-Helfen, O. (1945). "The Yueh-chih Problem Re-examined." Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 65, p. 71-81.
• Maenchen-Helfen, O. (1951). "Manichaeans in Siberia." Semitic and Oriental Studies Presented to William Popper, ed. by Walter J. Fischel. University of California Publications in Semitic Philology, vol. 9. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973). The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. Ed. by Max Knight. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press. ISBN 0-520-01596-7. (Edited and enlarged in a 1978 German translation; see below.)
• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1978). Die Welt der Hunnen: Eine Analyse ihrer historischen Dimension. Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf.
• Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1992). Journey to Tuva. Trans. and annotated by Alan Leighton, with an introduction by Anna Maenchen. Ethnographics Press Monographs Series, edited by Gary Seaman, no. 5. Los Angeles: Univ. of Southern California Ethnographics Press. ISBN 187898604X.