Veselovsky Nickolay

Veselovsky Nickolay (1848–1918) – historian of the Middle Asia, archeologist.

In 1869, he enrolled to the Faculty of Oriental Languages of the St. Petersburg University, at the Arabic and Turkish Sector. In 1873, he got the golden medal for the composition ‘On the taxes and duties imposed by Mongols on the defeated nations’, the topic was offered him by his teacher V. V. Grigoriev. Under the influence of the Khiva Campaign 1873, V. took for his Master thesis another theme: ‘An Essay of Historical and Geographical Data on the Khanate of Khiva from the Most Ancient Times till Nowadays’; he defended it in 1877. In 1878, he became Docent; in 1890 – Professor of the St. Petersburg University. In 1884-1885, he had a year-long travel to the Turkestan Region from the Imperial Archeological Commission for the archeological studying the region. In 1899-1917, he excavated Scythian mounds in Tavrida, and in the Kuban’ Region. In 1908, he was elected as Head of the Oriental Department of the Russian Archeological Society; in 1909, he became Chairman of the Sector of Archeology and Archeography of the Russian Military Historical Society. Since 1914, he was Correspondent Member of the Ac. of Sc.

Compositions

An Essay of Historical and Geographical Data on the Khanate of Khiva from the Most Ancient Times till Nowadays. St. Petersburg, Panteleev Brothers Typography, 1877. (in Rus.)
Russian Slaves in the Middle Asian Khanates // Materials for Describing the Khiva Campaign 1873. [7], 1881. (in Rus.)
Reception in Russia and Seeing Off the Middle Asian Envoys in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / On the Base of Documents from the Moscow Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. St. Petersburg, V. S. Balashev Typography, 1884. (in Rus.)
Monuments of Diplomatic and Trade Relations of Moscow Rus’ and Persia. St. Petersburg, 1890-1898. (in Rus.)
Khan from Temniks (Tumen-bashi) of the Golden Horde – Nogai and His Time // Zapiski of the Ac. of Sc. at the Historical and Philological Department. Vol. 13, No 6, 1922. (in Rus.)

Bibliography

Zapiski of the Oriental Department of the Russian Archeological Society. Iss. XXV, St. Petersburg, 1921, pp. 387–397. (in Rus.)

About him

Veselovsky Nickolay Ivanovich // Encyclopedic Lexicon of Brokhaus and Ephrone. Vol. VI, St. Petersburg, 1892, С. 100-101. (in Rus.)
Bartold V. V. Nickolay Ivanovich Veselovsky: Obituary // Works. Vol. IХ: Works on the History of Oriental Studies. Moscow, 1977, pp. 642-647. (in Rus.)
Bartold V. V. N. I. Veselovsky as Researcher of the East and Historian of the Russian Scholarly Studies // Works. Vol. IХ: Works on the History of Oriental Studies. Moscow, 1977, pp. 648-664. (in Rus.)
Belova N. А. Nickolay Ivanovich Veselovsky – an Outstanding Person of Russian Humanitarian Research (Short Reference) // The Ancient Societies of the Caucasus in the Epoch of Paleometal: Early Complex Societies and the Issues of Cultural Trasformation. St. Petersburg, 1997, p. 49. (in Rus.)

A. M.