Sergei Fedorovich Oldenburg

There is an ancient noble family of Mecklenburg, whose members migrated to Russia under Peter the. Born in 1863. He graduated from the course on the eastern department of St. Petersburg University. He holds a candidate for a thesis: "Essay on phonetics and morphology of the Prakrit dialects Magadhi", worked abroad in the libraries of Paris, London and Cambridge, mainly over the Buddhist manuscripts. In 1889, Mr.. began to lecture at St. Petersburg University. After receiving a master's degree in Sanskrit literature for his thesis: "The Buddhist legend. Part I. Bhadrakalpavadana Jatakamala "(St. Petersburg, 1894), was appointed professor. Not tolerating extremely shy terms of university life at that time, Oldenburg in 1899. left the University. In 1900, Mr.. elected as an academician and 1904. is Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. The main content of it is not vast in volume, but many (over 150) scientific papers - religion, poetry and art, antiquities and history of India, the Persian and Western literature. Following Minaev, Oldenburg especially zealously engaged in the study of northern Buddhism, has passed into the Tibet and China. Of particular importance in this area is undertaken by them, with the participation of many European scholars, the publication of Buddhist literary works (with notes): "Bibliotheca Buddhica", published under his editorship. Discoveries of ancient Indian manuscripts in Kashgar and other areas of Central Asia have attracted his attention to the Indian Palaeography, he owns a successful decryption mentioned manuscripts. In the field of comparative history of literature, he studied mainly the influence of Oriental literature in the medieval European. In the study of the epic tale of India, he started from the idea, . that final judgments on the transition of Indian motifs in other literature should be deferred pending clarification of the relations of different collections of Indian tales among themselves, . and it can not ignore borrowing from Brahmanical literature, . the existence of which in the north-Buddhist literature has repeatedly pointed Oldenburg,
. Oldenburg contribute much to the collection and the development of story material of Russian and foreign, as chairman of the ethnographic department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Recently, his attention was attracted by the history of Buddhist art and modern history of Tibet, especially the study of Ancient Chinese Turkestan. In 1909 - 1910 he. Oldenburg led an expedition of exploration in Chinese Turkestan, in 1914 - 1915 he. was there a second time, both the expedition yielded rich results. Proceedings of Oldenburg published mainly in journals of the Academy of Sciences, Russian Archaeological Society (Secretary of the Eastern Branch whose within 7 years consisted of Oldenburg), "Journal of the Ministry of National Education" and "Live Antiquities". They are prepared for the press and published a number of works п?.п?. Minaev. Since 1912. is a member of the State Board of Elections from the Academy of Sciences and the University of. Biographical information about him and a list of scientific works of his sm. "Imperial Academy of Sciences 1889 - 1914". This dictionary Oldenburg wrote the article "Buddhist Art".