Russian Diplomat Vasily Nikitin and Polish Oriental Studies. Nikitin’s letters to Professor Tadeusz Kowalski
Russian Diplomat Vasily Nikitin and Polish Oriental Studies. Nikitin’s letters to Professor Tadeusz Kowalski

Summary/Abstract: Vasily Nikitin (1.1.1885–6.6.1960) - a former Russian consul in Urmia, Iranian studies researcher and Kurdologist - corresponded with professor Tadeusz Kowalski for over a quarter of a century. His letters sent to Krakow in the years 1922-1948 are held in the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU). The aim of this article is to present the relationship of Vasily Nikitin with Polish Oriental studies and Orientalists on the basis of an analysis of the letters sent by him to Tadeusz Kowalski. The correspondence changed during this time. At the beginning, Nikitin sought help from Kowalski in finding a job at the Jagiellonian University. With time, when his financial situation in Paris - where he was in exile - stabilized, he was interested in working with Polish Orientalists at a distance. Due to Kowalski’s efforts, Nikitin became a foreign member of the Polish Oriental Society and the PAU’s Oriental Commission. Thanks to this, he received publications issued by these organizations. He also published in the oldest Polish Oriental journal - the Yearbook of Oriental Studies (Rocznik Orientalistyczny) - and in other journals.

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