Sergey Malov
Encyclopedia
Sergey Efimovich Malov was a Russian
Turkologist who made important contributions to the documentation of archaic and contemporary Turkic languages
, classification of the Turkic alphabets, and the deciphering of the Turkic Orkhon script
.
in the Museum of Anthropology
and Ethnography
, affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences
.
For the Foreign Ministry, S.E. Malov studied languages and customs of Turkic peoples
living in China
(Uyghurs
, Salars, Sarts
, and Kyrgyz). He collected various rich materials about folklore
and ethnography
, made musical records, and acquired precious ancient manuscripts, including the most important work of medieval Uyghur Buddhist literature - the Uyghur manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra
, later published in cooperation with Vasily Radlov
.
In 1917, Malov became a professor in Kazan
University and a director of Numismatic collection. Simultaneously he studied the ethnography and dialect
s of the Volga Tatars
, being one of the first to investigate the Mishar dialect of the Tatars
.
In 1921, Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming the Xinjiang Turkic to Uighur at the Tashkent Conference.
In 1922, Malov returned to Petrograd (former Saint Petersburg
) and was elected a lecturer in the Petrograd University. He continued working in Leningrad
(former Petrograd) universities, museums, and research, and Oriental and Linguistic institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences. As a University Professor and Dean of Turkic philology
, S.E. Malov taught Chagatai
, Uzbek
, Oirot, and other languages, as well as the linguistics of ancient Turkic monuments. In 1929, Malov published his discovery of the Talas script, a third known variant of the old Turkic "runiform" alphabet.
In 1931, Malov initiated a transfer to the Oriental Department “to register and inventory books, newspapers and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and, mainly, in all Turkic languages”. The work in the library afforded him an exceptional and uncensored “access to the current literature in Turkic languages”. In 1933, after the beginning of the Communist government's campaign to switch the writing of the Turkic peoples to Latinised scripts, Malov left the Oriental Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1939, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in language and literature. During World War II, Malov worked in Alma-Ata
as a Professor in the Kazakh University
and Kazakh Pedagogical Institute.
S.E. Malov is known as a brilliant expert on live and extinct Turkic languages of the USSR and adjacent countries. He penned around 170 publications on the language, folklore, history and ethnography of the Turkic peoples of the central and western China
, Mongolia
, Central Asia
and Kazakhstan
, Siberia
and Volga regions. He was the first to scientifically describe a number of Turkic languages; discovered, researched, and published many ancient Turkic written monuments; and is credited with the creation of alphabets and orthographic rules for languages of the peoples of the USSR who did not have their own national historical script.
Malov was one of the few scientists who attracted the Sekler alphabet, among other Eastern Europe runiform alphabets, in his comparative studies. Another of his achievements was the conclusion that the Enisei runiform inscriptions included diverse ethnic groups of the Kirgiz Kaganate. In his capital 1952 work, The Enisei Script of the Turks: Texts and research, S.E. Malov covered texts written in the Enisei runiform script, irrespective of their geographical location (Khakassia
, Tuva
, Mongolia
), and successfully combined a paleographical, historical and sociopolitical approach to classify the alphabets of those monuments. It was the scientific analysis of Malov and J. Nemeth that allowed A.M. Scherbak to develop his seminal conclusion that “the Turkic runiform script has arisen in Central Asia as transformation of a preceding alphabet, and from there it spread in two opposite directions: to the east and to the west”.
S.E. Malov had a very active scientific life. He participated in the preparation of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference guides. S.E. Malov is revered as an icon of Russian Turkology. His works are prized for erudition, detailed knowledge, scientific honesty, and scrupulous research.
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
Turkologist who made important contributions to the documentation of archaic and contemporary Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, classification of the Turkic alphabets, and the deciphering of the Turkic Orkhon script
Orkhon script
The Old Turkic script is the alphabet used by the Göktürk and other early Turkic Khanates from at least the 7th century to record the Old Turkic language. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire...
.
Biography
Malov studied at the Kazan Theological Academy. He later graduated from the Petersburg University in Oriental Languages. During his school years, he was drawn to the circle of Baudouin de Courtenay and attended Nechaev's course for Experimental Psychology. S.E. Malov majored in Arabic, Persid and Turkic languages. Early in his carrier he studied the Chulym Turks. After graduation he worked as a librarianLibrarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
in the Museum of Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and Ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
.
For the Foreign Ministry, S.E. Malov studied languages and customs of Turkic peoples
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
living in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(Uyghurs
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
, Salars, Sarts
Sarts
SARTS or Sarts can have several meanings:* Singapore Amateur Radio Transmitting Society* Sarts, a group of Central Asian people...
, and Kyrgyz). He collected various rich materials about folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, made musical records, and acquired precious ancient manuscripts, including the most important work of medieval Uyghur Buddhist literature - the Uyghur manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra
Golden Light Sutra
The ' , is a Buddhist text of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism...
, later published in cooperation with Vasily Radlov
Vasily Radlov
Vasily Vasilievich Radlov or Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff was a German-born Russian founder of Turkology, a scientific study of Turkic peoples....
.
In 1917, Malov became a professor in Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
University and a director of Numismatic collection. Simultaneously he studied the ethnography and dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of the Volga Tatars
Volga Tatars
The Volga Tatars are the largest subgroup of the Tatars, native to the Volga region.They account for roughly six out of seven million Tatars worldwide....
, being one of the first to investigate the Mishar dialect of the Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
.
In 1921, Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming the Xinjiang Turkic to Uighur at the Tashkent Conference.
In 1922, Malov returned to Petrograd (former Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) and was elected a lecturer in the Petrograd University. He continued working in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
(former Petrograd) universities, museums, and research, and Oriental and Linguistic institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences. As a University Professor and Dean of Turkic philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, S.E. Malov taught Chagatai
Chagatai language
The Chagatai language is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia, and remained the shared literary language there until the early twentieth century...
, Uzbek
Uzbek language
Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
, Oirot, and other languages, as well as the linguistics of ancient Turkic monuments. In 1929, Malov published his discovery of the Talas script, a third known variant of the old Turkic "runiform" alphabet.
In 1931, Malov initiated a transfer to the Oriental Department “to register and inventory books, newspapers and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and, mainly, in all Turkic languages”. The work in the library afforded him an exceptional and uncensored “access to the current literature in Turkic languages”. In 1933, after the beginning of the Communist government's campaign to switch the writing of the Turkic peoples to Latinised scripts, Malov left the Oriental Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1939, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in language and literature. During World War II, Malov worked in Alma-Ata
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
as a Professor in the Kazakh University
Al-Farabi University
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University , also called KazGU or KazNU, is a university in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Named after the Muslim scholar, it is the country's primary and largest university....
and Kazakh Pedagogical Institute.
S.E. Malov is known as a brilliant expert on live and extinct Turkic languages of the USSR and adjacent countries. He penned around 170 publications on the language, folklore, history and ethnography of the Turkic peoples of the central and western China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and Volga regions. He was the first to scientifically describe a number of Turkic languages; discovered, researched, and published many ancient Turkic written monuments; and is credited with the creation of alphabets and orthographic rules for languages of the peoples of the USSR who did not have their own national historical script.
Malov was one of the few scientists who attracted the Sekler alphabet, among other Eastern Europe runiform alphabets, in his comparative studies. Another of his achievements was the conclusion that the Enisei runiform inscriptions included diverse ethnic groups of the Kirgiz Kaganate. In his capital 1952 work, The Enisei Script of the Turks: Texts and research, S.E. Malov covered texts written in the Enisei runiform script, irrespective of their geographical location (Khakassia
Khakassia
The Republic of Khakassia or Khakasiya is a federal subject of Russia located in south-central Siberia. Its capital city is Abakan, which is also the largest city in the republic...
, Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...
, Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
), and successfully combined a paleographical, historical and sociopolitical approach to classify the alphabets of those monuments. It was the scientific analysis of Malov and J. Nemeth that allowed A.M. Scherbak to develop his seminal conclusion that “the Turkic runiform script has arisen in Central Asia as transformation of a preceding alphabet, and from there it spread in two opposite directions: to the east and to the west”.
S.E. Malov had a very active scientific life. He participated in the preparation of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference guides. S.E. Malov is revered as an icon of Russian Turkology. His works are prized for erudition, detailed knowledge, scientific honesty, and scrupulous research.
Major works
- "Ancient Turkic gravestones with inscriptions in the basin of r. Talas". News of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IAN), 1929
- Monuments of Ancient Turkic Writing: Texts and research. М.; L., 1951
- The Enisei Script of the Turks: Texts and research. М.; L., 1952
- Monuments of Ancient Turkic Writing of Mongolia and Kirgizia. М.; L., 1959