Verbitsky Vasily

Verbitsky Vasily (1827–1890) – Missionary of the Altai Ecclesiastic Mission, linguist, ethnographer, specialist in Turkology, researcher of traditional culture of the peoples of Altai and Mountainous Shoria.

In 1846, he graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Spiritual Seminary, then he taught at the parish school. Since 1854, in Siberia, he served as a priest at the travel mission church of All-Merciful Saviour in Ulala. He taught children the basic principles of faith, Russian reading and writing, and ecclesiastic singing. Since 1855, he made missionary travels to Altai, worked at various missions, and become the first researcher of ethnography and religion of the Mountainous Altai; he wrote much about the mythology, folk beliefs and life of the Altai people – and his works are still actual. Till the Revolution 1917, there were his 104 published works on the history, language, culture, mythology, religious beliefs and economical life of the Altai peoples. Much data about the indigenous people of the region are available now from his works only. He also studied local Altai languages and published ‘The Short Grammar of the Altai Language’ (edit. N. I. Ilminsky; 1869), and then ‘The Dictionary of the Altai and Aladag Dialects of the Turkic Language’ (Kazan’, 1884).

Compositions

Healing at Kalmyks – Altai People // Tomskie gubernskie vedomosti. 1863, No 24, 25. (in Rus.)
Prejudices and Superstitions of the Altai Peasants // Ibid. 1863, No 12. (in Rus.)
People Transformed from Animals into Birds: from the Natural History of the Altai People // Ibid. 1869, No 39. (in Rus.)
Worldview and Folk Creativity of Siberian Allogeneous Tribes: Ethnographical Materials // Literary Collection: Research and Literary articles on Siberia and the Asian East. St. Petersburg, 1885, pp. 337-351. (in Rus.)
Altai Inorodtsy (Allogeneous Peoples): Collection of Ethnographical Articles and Research works by the Altai Missionary, Archpriest V. I. Verbitsky / Edit. А. А. Ivanovsky. Moscow, 1893, 249 p. (in Rus.)

Bibliography

A List of Works [by V. I. Verbitsky] // Etnograficheskoe obozrenie. 1891, No 1. (in Rus.)
Bibliographical Index of the Works by V. I. Verbitsky by the 100th anniversary of His Death / Comp. Archdeacon А. Remov, introd. Archpriest B. Pivovarov. Novosibirsk, 1990. (in Rus.)

About him

Ivanovsky А. А. The Altai Missionary Archpriest V. I. Verbitsky: Obtuary // Etnograficheskoe obozrenie. 1891, book 8, No 1, pp. 176-179. (in Rus.)
Derevyanko О. А. The Traditional Culture of the Northern Altai People in the Research by V. I. Verbitsky (late 1850-s – 1890) // Vestnik of the Leningrad State University. 1982, No 20. Series of the History of Russian Language and Literature. Iss. 4, pp. 102-105. (in Rus.)
Collins N. David. The role of the orthodox missionary in the Altai: Archimandrite Makary and V. I. Verbitsky.: University of Leeds. London, 1988. 35 p.
Tsepennikova Е. P. A Manuscript by V. I. Verbitsky: ‘Main Rules, the First Travel Church of the Altai Mission’, as a Source for the History of Orthodox Missions at Altai // Polzunovsky almanac. Barnaul, 1998, No 1, pp. 134-136. (in Rus.)
Katash S. S. Pioneers of the Altai Folkloristik // Rozmysl. Biisk, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 220-223. (in Rus.)
Pavlova О. А., Archpriest Boris Pivovarov. Verbitsky V. I. // The Orthodox Encyclopedia. Vol. 7, pp. 705-706. (in Rus.)

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