Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Не́вский; the surname is also transcribed Nevskij; 24 November 1937) was a Russian and Soviet linguist, an expert on a number of East Asian languages. He was one of the founders of the modern study of the

Tangut language Tangut (Tangut: ; ) is an extinct language in the Sino-Tibetan language family. Tangut was one of the official languages of the Western Xia dynasty, founded by the Tangut people in northwestern China. The Western Xia was annihilated by the Mo ...

of the

Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...

Empire, the work for which he was awarded the degree of

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

in Philology during his life, and Lenin Prize posthumously. He spent most of his research career in Japan before returning to the USSR. He was arrested and executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

; his surviving manuscripts were published much later, starting in 1960.

Early life

He graduated from

Rybinsk Rybinsk ( rus, Рыбинск, p=ˈrɨbʲɪnsk), the second largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia, lies at the confluence of the Volga River, Volga and Sheksna Rivers, 267 kilometers north-north-eas ...

Gymnasium in 1909 with a silver medal, the second class of distinction, and entered the St Petersburg Institute of Technology. However, after a year, he transferred to the Department of Oriental Languages of the

Saint Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

, where he graduated in 1914. Among his teachers were

Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Alekseyev Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Alekseyev (russian: Василий Михайлович Алексеев, , Saint Petersburg – May 12, 1951, Leningrad (''ibidem'')) was an eminent Soviet Union, Soviet sinologist and a member of the Soviet Academy of Science ...

and

Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov (russian: Алексе́й Ива́нович Ивано́в; ; 1878–1937) was a Russian Sinologist and Tangutologist. Biography Ivanov entered Saint Petersburg University in 1897, where he studied Chinese and Manchu ...

In Japan

In 1915, Nevsky was sent to Japan for two years, but the

Russian Revolutions The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

and the

Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...

made him remain there for fourteen years. In Japan, he travelled around the country, studying the Ainu language and the

Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Y ...

as well as the

Miyako language The Miyakoan language ( ''Myākufutsu/Myākufutsї'' or ''Sumafutsu/Sїmafutsї'') is a diverse dialect cluster spoken in the Miyako Islands, located southwest of Okinawa Island, Okinawa. The combined population of the islands is about 52,00 ...

of the

Miyako Islands The (also Miyako Jima group) are a group of islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, belonging to the Ryukyu Islands. They are situated between the Okinawa Island and Yaeyama Islands. In the early 1870s, the population of the islands was estim ...

and the

Tsou language Tsou () is a divergent Austronesian language spoken by the Tsou people of Taiwan. Tsou is a threatened language; however, this status is uncertain. Its speakers are located in the west-central mountains southeast of the Chiayi/ Alishan area in ...

of the

Tsou people The Tsou ( Tsou: ''Cou''; ) are an indigenous people of central southern Taiwan. They are an Austronesian ethnic group. They reside in Chiayi County and Nantou County. The Tsou numbered around 6,000, approximately 1.19% of Taiwan's total Indigen ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

(then part of the

Japanese Empire The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

). He published research articles in Japanese journals. He started learning Miyako from a student named Ueunten Kenpu, who entered Tokyo Higher Normal School in 1919. He visited the Miyako Islands in 1922, 1926 and 1928. He invented a Cyrillization of Miyako; recorded Miyako's epic songs, called āgu and left an unpublished Miyako lexicon. In 1925, Nevsky began to decipher manuscripts in Tangut that had been discovered in 1909 in

Khara-Khoto Khara-Khoto (; mn, Khar Khot; "black city") is an abandoned city in the Ejin Banner of Alxa League in western Inner Mongolia, China, near the Juyan Lake Basin. Built in 1032, the city thrived under the rule of the Western Xia dynasty. It has b ...

Pyotr Kozlov Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (russian: Пётр Кузьми́ч Козло́в; 3 October 1863 in Dukhovshchina – 26 September 1935 in Peterhof) was a Russian and Soviet traveller and explorer who continued the studies of Nikolai Przhevalsky in ...

. While in Japan he married Iso (Isoko) Mantani-Nevsky (Исо (Исоко) Мантани-Невская, 萬谷イソ, 萬谷磯子, 1901–1937), with whom he had a daughter, Yelena (1928–2017).

Return to Russia

Persuaded by Soviet scholars and officials, Nevsky returned to Leningrad, renamed from St. Petersburg, in the autumn of 1929, leaving his wife and young daughter in Japan. He worked at the Leningrad State University, the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History; Институт философии, литературы и истории, the Institute of Oriental Studies (then based in Leningrad) and the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...

. His wife and daughter joined him in Leningrad in 1933. In January 1935 he was awarded a

degree based on the sum of his work without submitting a thesis.

Arrest and death

In the night of 3–4 October 1937 he was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

on the charge of being a Japanese spy. On 24 November 1937, he was executed, along with his wife. Their daughter, Yelena, was initially looked after by N. I. Konrad, but in 1941 was adopted by a distant relative of Nevsky, Viktor Leontyevich Afrosimov.

Legacy

He was rehabilitated in 1957. He was posthumously awarded, in 1962, the Lenin Prize for the book "Tangut Philology". It was published in 1960 and was based on some of his surviving materials on the Tangut language. His other surviving manuscripts continued to be published, but many of his materials seem to be irretrievably lost.

Works

* Колпакчи Е.М., Невский Н.А. Начальный учебник японского разговорного языка. Л., 1933. 128 стр. 500 экз.// Kolpakchi E.M., Nevskiy N.A. ''Introductory course of spoken Japanese''. Leningrad, 1933. 128 p. 500 copies. * Колпакчи Е.М., Невский Н.А. Японский язык. Начальный курс. Л., 1934. 232 стр. Kolpakchi E.M., Nevskiy N.A. ''Japanese language: Introductory Course'', Leningrad, 1934. 232 p. * Материалы по говорам языка цоу. М.-Л., Изд-во АН. 1935. 134 стр. 1000 экз. ''Materials on the Tsou dialects''. Moscow-Leningrad, Academy of Sciences Publishing House. 1935. 134 p. 1000 copies. * Тангутская филология. Исследования и словарь. В 2 кн. М., ИВЛ. 1960. 1000 экз. Кн.1. Исследования. Тангутский словарь. Тетради I-III. 602 стр. Кн.2. Тангутский словарь. Тетради IV-VIII. 684 стр. // ''Tangut philology. Research and dictionary''. In two volumes. Moscow, Oriental Literature Publishing House, 1960. 1000 copies. Volume One: ''Research. Tangut Dictionary. (Notebooks I-III)''. 602 pp. Volume Two, ''Tangut Dictionary. (Notebooks IV-VIII)''. 684 p. * Айнский фольклор. / Исследования, тексты и пер. М., Наука. 1972. 175 стр. 2000 экз. * ''The Ainu Folklore: Research, Texts, and Translagtions''. Moscow, Nauka Publishers. 1972. 175 pages 2000 copies. * Фольклор островов Мияко. М., Наука. 1978. 192 стр. 7000 экз.// ''The Folklore of the

'. Moscow, Nauka Publishers. 1978. 192 pages 7000 copies. * Материалы по говорам языка цоу; Словарь диалекта северных цоу. М., Наука. 1981. 292 стр. 950 экз. ''Materials on the Tsou dialects; A Dictionary of the Northern Tsou Dialect''. Moscow, Nauka Publishers. 1981. 292 p. 950 copies.

Sources

* ''Громковская Л. Л., Кычанов Е. И.'' Николай Александрович Невский. (Серия «Русские востоковеды и путешественники»). М., Наука (ГРВЛ). 1978. 216 стр. Тираж: 10000 экз. L. Gromkovskaya, E.I Kychanov. ''Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky''. Moscow, Nauka Publishers. 1978. 216 pages. 10000 copies. * На стёклах вечности… Николай Невский. Переводы, исследования, материалы к биографии // Петербургское востоковедение. Выпуск 8. СПб., Центр «Петербургское востоковедение», 1996. С. 239—560. (вып. 8) ISSN 0869-8392 Тираж: 1000 экз. ''The Windows of Eternity... Nikolai Nevsky'' // St. Petersburg Journal of Oriental Studies. Volume 8. St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Centre for Oriental Studies. 1996. pp. 239–560. 1000 copies.

References

External links

* Alexander Kabanoff
Unpublished Materials by Nikolai Nevsky on the Ethnology of the Ryûkyû Islands
St Petersburg, 1993 * Aleksandra Jarosz
Nikolay Nevskiy's Miyakoan dictionary: reconstruction from the manuscript and its ethnolinguistic analysis
PhD dissertation, Adam Mickiewicz University, 2015.
N.A. Nevsky
- on the site of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (former St Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nevsky, Nikolai Aleksandrovich 1892 births 1937 deaths Great Purge victims from Russia Linguists from the Russian Empire NKVD Paleolinguists People from Yaroslavl Political repression in the Soviet Union Soviet rehabilitations Tangutologists Linguists from the Soviet Union