Richard Vasmer

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Richard Vasmer (Atelier Boris Jefremowitsch Flaks, 1912)

Richard Wilhelm Georg Richardowitsch Vasmer ( Russian Рихард Вильгельм Георг Рихардович Фасмер ; born October 9, jul. / 21st October  1888 greg. In St. Petersburg , † 22 February 1938 in Tashkent ) was a Russian numismatists , Orientalist and Arabist German origin.

Life

Vasmer came from a wealthy German family. His parents were Richard Julius Friedrich Vasmer and Amalia Maria Julia nee Schaub. He was baptized Evangelical Lutheran , and his siblings were Max and Maria. In 1898 Richard Vasmer entered the St. Petersburg private high school Karl Johann Mays. Nikolai Vekšin was his classmate. In 1906 he left high school with a silver medal.

In 1906 Vasmer went to Leipzig and studied Turkish , Persian , Arabic and Arabic literature at the philosophical faculty of the University of Leipzig . In 1907 he submitted the documents for study at the University of St. Petersburg . He then studied until 1910 in the Arabic-Persian-Turkish- Tatar Department of Oriental Studies - Faculty of the University of St. Petersburg. He heard lectures from Pawel Konstantinowitsch Kokowzow on Semitic epigraphy , Hebrew and Syriac and from Wassili Wladimirowitsch Bartold on Islamic numismatics as well as lectures from Nikolai Alexandrowitsch Mednikow , Valentin Alexejewitsch Schukowski , Alexander Eduardowitsch Schmidt and Alexander Nikolajewitsch Samoilowitsch .

In the St. Petersburg Hermitage , many exhibits were not cataloged , so in 1908 a committee was established to solve the problem. Only the heads of the numismatics department Alexei Konstantinowitsch Markow and Otto Retowski worked on the problem, apart from assistants. After completing his studies in 1910, Vasmer was brought to the Hermitage to inventory the oriental coins . Upon recruitment, he received Russian citizenship. These were Vasily Mikhailovich Alekseev and Nikolai Pavlovich Bauer set. In 1911 Vasmer was appointed college secretary (10th class ). In the same year he applied for admission to freelance work in the Hebrew-Arabic-Syriac class of the Oriental Studies Faculty of the University of St. Petersburg. He created the eight-volume catalog of the Kufi coins in the Hermitage. In January 1914 Vasmer received the rank of titular councilor (9th grade class). In October 1914 he married the German Alide Pawlowna Nipp.

During the First World War , Vasmer entered the St. Petersburg Nikolai Engineering School of the Imperial Russian Army in November 1914 . In 1916 he came to the rear 1st motorcycle workshop. After the October Revolution and demobilization in spring 1918, Vasmer returned to the Hermitage and in September 1918 became assistant and then curator for oriental coins. In December 1919 he became a research assistant and later secretary of the Permanent Commission (later Section) for Numismatics and Glyptics of the State Academy for the History of Material Cultural Goods (now the Archaeological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences ). In the commission he presented hundreds of reports. In the spring of 1920, after the death of the chief curator Alexei Konstantinowitsch Markow, he took over his office. In 1923 he became a research associate of the commission headed by Alexei Alexejewitsch Ilyin . The Russian Archaeological Society elected him to be secretary of its numismatic department. In 1925 he organized the first exhibition of the coins of the Near , Middle and Far East and of the European colonies in the east of the USSR . In 1930 he became head of the Department of Eastern Numismatics at the Hermitage.

Coin of the Saffarid emir Ahmad ibn Muhammad

A central research focus of Vasmer was the Kufi coins. He developed a standard method for analyzing Kufic coin treasures. The accuracy of its chronological classifications has been confirmed by many new finds. He studied the circulation of the Kufic Dirham in Eastern Europe . Another research topic was the creation of money by the small Muslim dynasties in the 9th – 11th centuries. Century. In 1927 Vasmer's publication appeared on the Transcaucasian Janids and in 1928 that on the Sajids. He discovered and described the dirham minting of the seven emirs of the Volga Bulgarians . He also examined the coinage of the Golden Horde . Other focal points were the Sassanid and Bactrian coins. Some of Vasmer's essays were included in Friedrich von Schrötter's dictionary of coinage . Vasmer was an external member of the Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Academies . A pupil of Vasmer was Alexander Andreevich Bykov .

Richard Vasmer after the arrest

In 1934 (or 1936?) Vasmer was arrested as one of the last by the Leningrad OGPU in the affair of the Russian National Party ( Slavist affair ). The indictment was based on Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code and on his association with his brother Max Vasmer, who had lived in Germany for a long time , was a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and was wrongly labeled a National Socialist . Vasmer had sent money through Vladimir Ivanovich Wernadski , who was visiting Max Vasmer in Germany. From 1929 Vasmer visited Vernadski repeatedly for two years and received 100 rubles every two months after Max Vasmer had sent money to Vernadski's daughter in Prague . In 1932 a member of the German embassy who had attended Max Vasmer's lecture had visited Vasmer's apartment and offered to help the Vasmer family move to Germany. In 1933 Vasmer had asked the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Peter in Leningrad for an Aryan certificate for his brother, which he then sent to his brother with the note not to use it in the Soviet Union . Vasmer was declared leader of Cell No. 8 of the Russian National Party, which would include Ivan Georgievich Spassky , Nikolai Pavlovich Bauer, Alexander Nikolayevich Sograf , Georgi Yulievich Walter, Alexander Alexandrovich Avtonomov and Emil Ivanovich Lindros. During this time an exhibition was being prepared in Kharkov with old weapons, including weapons from the Hermitage, which should have been used as weapons in terrorist attacks . Avtonomov and Lindros were arms collectors and involved in the preparations. Spassky worked in Kharkov, but had nothing to do with the exhibition. Vasmer confirmed his guilt. Vasmer's sister-in-law Maria Pavlovna Nipp was also arrested. She lived in her brother's apartment, received German newspapers from him and translated them for listeners. She was sentenced to three years' exile in Bashkiria , ended up living in Luga and rehabilitated in 1956. Vasmer himself was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp. He was first sent to the Bamlag ( Baikal - Amur camp) and then to a camp in Tashkent , where he worked in the office of the Central Asian labor camp administration . 1935 asked Vasmers woman Alide Pavlovna, as an accountant in the Leningrad Volodarsky - sewing factory worked, in a letter to Vernadsky to work to ensure that Vasmer not for office work, but to work as numismatics specialist in museums in and would be used in Tashkent, in which there were boxes with uncatalogued coins. Wernadski then wrote a corresponding letter to Ignati Julianowitsch Kratschkowski . Vasmer died of pneumonia . Rehabilitation took place in 1956.

Max Vasmer dedicated his Russian Etymological Dictionary to his father and brother. There was no dedication in the Russian translation (1959–1961). The Hermitage Numismatics Department celebrated Vasmer's 125th birthday with a lecture on Vasmer's numismatics. As part of the Last Address project , a plaque was placed in the courtyard of the Hermitage Theater in 2017 on the house where Vasmer last lived.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Ivanov Anatol: Fasmer (Vasmer), Richard Richardovich . In: Encyclopædia Iranica , Vol. IX, fascicle 4 . London 1999, p. 392-394 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Kravtsov Konstantin V .: RR Vasmer and His Hand-written Catalog of Tabarestan drachms . In: Journal of Persianate Studies . tape 6 , no. 1–2 , 2013, pp. 143–152 , doi : 10.1163 / 18747167-12341254 ( [1] accessed October 26, 2018).
  3. ↑ a b Благово Н. В .: Фасмер (Vasmer) Георгий (Рихард) Рихардович (Ричард Ричардович, Роман Романович) . In: Немцы России (энциклопедия), Т. 3 . Общественная Академия наук российских немцев, Moscow 2006, ISBN 5-93227-002-0 , p. 629-630 .
  4. ↑ a b c Валиев М. Т .: Макс и Рихард Фасмеры - время и судьбы . In: Немцы в Санкт-Петербурге: Биографический аспект. XVIII – XX вв. Вып. 7 . МАЭ РАН, St. Petersburg 2012, ISBN 978-5-88431-208-1 , p. 291-294 .
  5. ↑ a b c Moscow Money Museum: Обзор докладов Фасмеровских Нумизматических Чтений (Санкт Петербург, Эрмитаж, October 16, 2013) (accessed October 27, 2018).
  6. ^ Vasmer R .: The Kufic coin find from Friedrichshof in Estonia . In: Proceedings of the Estonian Scholarly Society, 1925 . C. Mattiesen, Dorpat 1927 ( [2] accessed on October 27, 2018 [PDF]).
  7. ^ Vasmer R .: A find of Kufic coins made in the village of Staryi Dedin in Belarus . Akad. Förlag, Stockholm 1929.
  8. ^ Vasmer R .: To Prof. Horowitz essay Hamdaniden und die Šīá . In: Islam . tape XV , 1926, p. 409-411 .
  9. ^ Vasmer R .: Contributions to the Muslim coinage. I. The coins of the Abu Da'udids. II. About the coins of the Volga Bulgarians . In: Numismatic Journal, Vienna . tape 58 , 1925, pp. 49-84 .
  10. ↑ Walter Anderson : Der Chalifenmünzfund von Kochtel (With contributions by Richard Vasmer) . In: Acta et commentationes Universitatis Dorpatensis : B, Humaniora . tape VII.2 , 1926, p. I – XXII, 1–156 ( [3] accessed on October 27, 2018 [PDF]).
  11. ↑ a b c d Aschnin FD , Alpatow WM : " Дело славистов ". 30- е годы . Наследие, Moscow 1994, ISBN 5-201-13215-4 .
  12. ↑ Wassilkow JW , Гришина А. М., Перченок Ф. Ф: Репрессированное востоковедение: Востоковеды, подвергшиеся репрессиям в 20–50-е годы . In: Народы Азии и Африки . No. 5 , 1990, pp. 96-106 .
  13. ^ Norman G .: The Hermitage. The Biography of a Great Museum . Jonathan Cape, London 1997, ISBN 0-224-04312-9 , pp. 332, 336 .
  14. ↑ Мемориальная табличка Фасмеру (accessed October 27, 2018).
personal data
SURNAME Vasmer, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vasmer, Richard Wilhelm Georg Richardowitsch (full name); Фасмер, Рихард Вильгельм Георг Рихардович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian numismatist, orientalist and Arabist of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1938
Place of death Tashkent