Alexander Samoylovich

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Alexander Nikolaevich Samoylovich (Russian: Александр Николаевич Самойлович, 1880-1938) was a Russian Orientalist - Turkologist, academician of USSR Academy of Sciences (1929), one of the greatest Turkologists of the 20th century, Rector of Leningrad Oriental Institute (1922 - 1925), academic secretary of Humanities Branch of USSR Academy of Sciences (1929 - 1933), director of Institute of Oriental Studies of USSR Academy of Sciences (1934 - 1937). Alexander Samoilovich was arrested by NKVD in the beginning of October 1937 in the wave of Stalinist repressions, and killed on February 13, 1938.

[edit] Biography

A.Samoilovich was born in Nizhny Novgorod, in the family of the director of the Nizhny Novgorod grammar school, and graduated from the Nijniy Novgorod Institute for Nobles, and then the Oriental department of the Saint Petersburg University, majoring in Arabo-Persian-Türkic-Tatar languages. From 1907 A.Samoilovich taught at the St.-Petersburg University the Türko-Tatar languages. In 1921 and 1922 A.Samoilovich went to Turkestan ASSR, after which he became a rector of a "Türkological seminar". A.Samoilovich was a supporter of unifying the Russian Turkologists. In 1924 he was elected a corresponding member, and in 1929 a full academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. With an anthropological group of the Kazakhstan expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1927 A.Samoilovich traveled in the Altai Mountains, where he studied locations of ethnic groups of the Kazakh people.

A. Samoilovich conducted research and scientific linguistic works, and works on ethnography of Kazakhs, helping the scientists spetsialiing in these subjects and in the history of the Kazakh people. A.Samoilovich became an initiator of a "scientific definition" of the ethnonym "Kazakh". A. Samoilovich participated in Stalinist campaign of replacement the written languages of the Türkic peoples in the former USSR.

After his election as academician, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences involved him in organizational work in science. His academical position involved him in the state relations with the USSR regions, he was heading the Kirgiz, Kazakh, and Uzbek sections of the Council on study of productive forces in the regions of national minorities. In 1932 Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences created a Kazakhstan base, and A.Samojlovich was appointed its chairman. A.Samojlovich continued to live in Leningrad, where he was in charge of the most perspective for the Kazakhstan region direction in the development of global expansion of studies of mineral deposits, and assistance for the industry in extraction of minerals. A.Samojlovich was an initiator of scientific sessions gathered to address these production problems of Russian all-Union rate.

In 1933 the Kazakhstan base of the USSR Academy of Sciences held a session devoted to the development of the Karaganda coal basin, the state plan of creation Uralo-Kuznetsk combinate. Then A.Samojlovich chaired a session of the Academic council of the Kazakhstan base of the USSR Academy of Sciences with a special-purpose of studying the deposits of nonferrous metals in Altai and Zhezkazgan, for the development of the polymetallic industry, search and study of minerals (oil and others) in the western Kazakhstan. In these scientific forums A.Samojlovich involved leading scientists of that time, academicians Alexander Fersman, Ivan Gubkin, Andrey Arkhangelsky, and yet unknown geologists V.Nehoroshev and N.Kassin, engineers K.Satpaev and M.Gutman.

A.Samojlovich was instrumental in organization in Kazakhstan of a National Culture scientific research institute, with a view that in the further the development of the academic science in Kazakhstan should be directed to the prospecting of utilization, among them the to the geology. From his base in Leningrad, A.Samojlovich believed that creation of branches and bases of the USSR Academies of Sciences, and their growth will contribute to the scientific and cultural life in the USSR in general.

But his designs were cut short. In the country of USSR began a purging of the Academy of Sciences from the "enemies of people". In October 1937 A.Samojlovich was arrested, and found himself in the torture chambers of the USSR People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. In February 1938 he was sentenced to "10 years without a right of correspondence", and immediately shot to death. He was excluded from the USSR Academy of Sciences by a General meeting in April 1938.

Documents from the archives of Russian FSB show that A.Samojlovich case was signed to "reprisal of the first category" (execution) in the list No 123, called "Moscow-center", dated January 3, 1938, with names of 163 persons, initiated by GUGB NKVD chief V.E.Tsesarsky, and approved by signatures of Zhdanov (OK), Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. A.Samojlovich was sentenced on accusation of espionage for Japan, and creation of counter-revolutionary Pan-Türkic nationalist organization. ^[1].

A.Samoilovich spent his life studying language, folklore, and life of Türkic-speaking peoples in Crimea, Volga, Northern Caucasus, South Caucasus, Middle Asia, Kazakhstan, and Altai. A. Samoilovich authored major works on language, literature, folklore and ethnography of Türkic peoples, general problems of Turkology, genetic classification of Türkic languages, and many others. Among dozens of various classifications of the Türkic languages, the classification developed by A.Samoilovich is most widely recognised (Samoilovich A.N. "Some additions to the classification of the Türkic languages", St. Petersburg, 1922). However, the regime-proscribed handling of "repressed" people was an obliteration of any memory of them, removal of any traces from printed media, photographs, libraries, and history. The scientific works of A.Samojlovich underwent a nearly complete eradication, they were totally unknown to the following generation of the Orientalists and Turkologists, until the present they have not been re-published, the citations of his observations and studies are practically non-existent, and only single copies of his books have or have not been preserved in special storage archives for prohibited material organized within the secret police authority. The practical result is that no information collected and processed by A.Samojlovich is available for modern researchers.