Among Arabic Manuscripts: Memories of Libraries and Men

189 Pages·2016·1.26 MB·English

by  I.Y. Kratchkovsky

Among Arabic Manuscripts
Brill Classics in Islam
VOLUME 8
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bcii

figure 1 I. Y. Kratchkovsky (1883–1951).
Among Arabic Manuscripts
Memories of Libraries and Men
By
I. Y. Kratchkovsky
Translated from the Russian by
Tatiana Minorsky
With an Introduction by
Michael Kemper
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Originally published as Над арабскими рукописями
American Council of Learned Societies
Russian Translation Project Series No. 16
Published in 1953 as Among Arabic Manuscripts by Brill.
This edition published in 2016 with a new Introduction by Michael Kemper.
Cover illustration: The interior view of the Sultan Beyazıt Public Library, Abdullah Frères, Constantinople,
1880–1893. From the Abdul Hamid II Photo Collection. 9544.6. Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
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issn 1872-5481
isbn 978-90-04-31611-9 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-32135-9 (e-book)
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Contents
Prelude (1943) vii
List of Illustrations viii
Introduction 1
Michael Kemper
1 In the Manuscript Department 25
Prologue (1901) 25
1 An Ancient Book (1906) 26
2 A Translator of Krïlov (1922) 27
3 A Contemporary of Hulagu (1911) 28
4 The Hostage of a Double Prison (1912) 29
5 From Sicily via Persia to St. Petersburg (1928) 30
Epilogue (1941) 31
2 From Wanderings in the East 33
1 Books and Men (1908–1910) 33
2 Grammatical Treatise or Anti-Religious Tract? (1910–1932) 41
3 The Unwritten Thesis (1910) 45
4 The Manuscripts of Two Patriarchs or a Prophecy Fulfilled
(1900–1927) 49
3 Arab Writers and the Russian Arabist 56
1 The Philosopher of the Freyka Valley (1910–1940) 56
2 The Aristocrat-Fellāḥ of Cairo 60
3 The Poltava Seminarist 66
4 In the Asiatic Museum 73
1 Introduction to a Legend (1903–1934) 73
2 A Unique Manuscript and Scholars of a Dozen Nations, Eastern
and Western 82
3 A Contemporary of the First Crusade (1919–1921) 87
4 Vasco da Gama’s Pilot 91
5 In the University Library 96
1 The Librarians and the Library (1901–1930) 96
2 A First Experience as Examiner (1914) 106
vi contents
3 From Cairo to the Volkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg (1916–1930) 113
4 “Al-Andalus” and Leningrad (1906–1942) 120
6 “The Game Comes Running to the Hunter” 129
1 Bronze Tablets from the Land of the Queen of Sheba (1930) 129
2 A Letter from Sogdiana (1934) 135
3 The Kufic Qoran and the Arab Grandmother (1936) 142
4 A Russian Officer Attached to Shamīl in Kaluga (1918–1941) 146
7 Shades of Our Predecessors 152
1 A Martyr for Arabic Literature (1910) 152
2 The “Quiet” Girgas (1901–1941) 156
3 Half a Century of Work on One Manuscript (1903–1938) 163
Finale. “Requiem aeternam” . . . (1943) 169
Supplement. “The Bindingness of the Non-Binding” 171
Notes 175
Postscript 179
Prelude
Please do not take this book for the author’s personal memoirs. These reminis-
cences are not about myself but about Arabic manuscripts which either have
played an important part in my life, or which I have been lucky enough to dis-
cover or have made available to the learned world.
The manuscripts have often evoked memories of the various libraries which
housed them or of people who were in some way connected with them, and of
course personal memories as well. But above all I wish to show what a scholar
feels while working on manuscripts—those joys and disappointments which
he never mentions in his accounts of the results of his research, and of which
so many have not the slightest inkling who think of his work as tedious, dry and
detached from reality.
My story may appear too sentimental and romantic, but I do not fear this
reproach: that is how I felt at the time and how it comes back to me now.
I do not consciously seek to popularise science. It matters not to me whether
the reader will retain individual facts or names which this book contains. I have
confined myself to material which belongs entirely to the sphere with which I
am most familiar; much of it appears here for the first time and may therefore
have some scientific value. Yet this is not the point. I admit that my idea has
been to do a little propaganda for my branch of study and talk loudly about
Oriental scholarship. I have tried as well as I could to show that the scholars
who work in this field are not moved exclusively by personal and, as some will
have it, queer inclinations, and that these studies do not only attract mere
lovers of things exotic or escapist hermits. In recalling the emotions which
manuscripts have stirred in me, I want to show how the smallest details of
such work are connected with broad problems of the history of culture and
how in the final count it all goes to swell the mighty stream of human progress.
This is what filled my thoughts, and I would like these reflections to find
their way into the hearts and minds of my readers.
1 August 1943
Sanatorium “Uzkoye”
List of Illustrations
1 I. Y. Kratchkovsky (1883–1951) frontispiece
2 Baron V. R. Rosen (1849–1908) 35
3 Shaykh M. ʿA. Ṭanṭāwi (1810–1861) Professor at the University of
St. Petersburg 115
4 The letter from Dīvāhstī to Jarrāḥ (circa 100/719) 137
5 J. J. Reiske (1716–1774) 157