Nikolai Iosifovich Konrad (; 13 March 1891 – 30 September 1970) was a Soviet philologist and historian, described in the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'' as "the founder of the Soviet school of Japanese scholars".Robert M. Croskey
N. I. Konrad and the Soviet Study of Japan
''Acta Slavica Iaponica'', Vol. 9, pp.116-133

Life

Konrad was born in

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

to a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

father who was a railway engineer while his mother was the daughter of a priest from the

Oryol Governorate Oryol Governorate (russian: Орловская губерния, ''Orlovskaya guberniya'') or the Government of Oryol, was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the early Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 to 1 ...

. He studied at the Oriental Faculty of

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 ...

, attending lectures by

Lev Sternberg Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg (russian: Лев (Хаим-Лейб) Я́ковлевич Ште́рнберг) (, Zhitomir, Russian Empire – August 14, 1927, Dudergof, now Mozhaisky, Soviet Union) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer ...

at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. After graduation he traveled to Japan and Korea, studying the languages and undertaking ethnographic study.

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

prevented his return to Russia until 1917. Konrad then taught at Leningrad University, and became professor of Japanese language and literature there from 1922 to 1939. He knew

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...

in the 1920s, and Bakhtin later cited Konrad,

Dmitry Likhachov Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov (russian: Дми́трий Серге́евич Лихачёв, also ''Dmitri Likhachev'' or ''Likhachyov''; – 30 September 1999) was a Russian medievalist, linguist, and a former inmate of Gulag. During his lifet ...

and

Juri Lotman Juri Lotman (russian: Ю́рий Миха́йлович Ло́тман; 28 February 1922 – 28 October 1993) was a prominent Russian-Estonian literary scholar, semiotician, and historian of Russian culture, who worked at the University of Tart ...

as the three most important Russian literary theorists. After his fellow scholar Nikolai Nevsky and his wife were arrested on charges of spying, Konrad found their two-year-old daughter left in their apartment; he brought the girl up as his own after her parents' execution. In 1941 he became professor at the

Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (russian: Московский институт востоковедения, abbreviated МИВ (''MIV'')) was a university-level educational institution that operated in Moscow, Russia, in 1920–1954. It w ...

Awards and honors

* Two

Orders of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...

(June 10, 1945; March 27, 1954) * Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour *

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...

, 2nd class (1969) *

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...

Works

* ''Zapad i Vostok'' (West and East), Moscow, 1966. Translated by H. Kasanina and others as ''West-East, inseparable twain; selected articles''. Moscow, 1967

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Konrad, Nikolai 1891 births 1970 deaths 20th-century Russian male writers Scientists from Riga Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class Recipients of the USSR State Prize Japanese literature academics Translators to Russian Russian Japanologists Russian literary critics Russian orientalists Russian sinologists Soviet literary critics Soviet orientalists Soviet sinologists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery