Vasily Radlov

Radlov studied at the University of Berlin (1854–58) and attended lectures by August Friedrich Pott at the University of Halle. His teachers included Carl Ritter, Heymann Steinthal, and Wilhelm Schott. In 1858, he defended his doctoral dissertation, “On the Influence of Religion on the Peoples of Asia,” at the University of Jena. That summer, he arrived in St. Petersburg to study Uralic and Altaic languages and started working at the Asiatic Museum. In 1859, he passed examinations at the St. Petersburg University examination committee to qualify as a German language teacher in gymnasiums. That same year, he took an oath of allegiance to the Russian tsar and became a Russian subject. According to Johan Vandewalle, Radlov knew all of the Turkic languages and dialects as well as German, French, Russian, Greek, Latin, Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew. Until 1872, he taught German and Latin at the Barnaul district school. Alongside teaching, he conducted research, collecting Turkic linguistic and folklore materials in Altai, Kyrgyzstan, Khakassia, and Transoxiana. During his time in Altai, Radlov explored over 100 archaeological sites and excavated the first kurgan of the Pazyryk culture. == Achievements ==

Radlov laid the groundwork for Turkic lexicography, dialectology, historical textology, paleography, and comparative-historical linguistics, leaving an indelible mark on the study of Turkic languages and cultures. His pioneering efforts in lexicography included compiling four volumes of a comparative dictionary of Turkic languages (published from 1893 to 1911) and preparing a dictionary for Old Uyghur texts, which, though unpublished, formed the foundation for the Old Turkic Dictionary (Древнетюркский словарь, 1969) through his meticulously curated card index. In dialectology, Radlov systematically collected and published dialect records from various Turkic ethnic groups, achieving the first classification of Old Turkic dialects. In the realm of comparative-historical linguistics, Radlov broke new ground with the first study of Turkic comparative phonetics, drafted the earliest grammatical sketch of the language of the Orhon-Yenisei inscriptions, explored the origins of the Yakut language, and characterized the phonetic and morphological structure of Turkic languages as agglutinative. == Anti-Radlov campaign ==

During the Stalinist repressions of the late 1930s, the NKVD and state science apparatus accused the late (ethnically German) Radlov of Panturkism. A perceived connection with the long-dead Radlov was treated as incriminating evidence against Orientalists and Turkologists, some of whom were executed, including Alexander Samoylovich in 1938. ==Publications==

• Radloff W. (1883). Aus Sibirien, Leipzig: T.O. Weigel Aus Siberien : vol.1 Aus Siberien : vol.2 • Atlas der Alterthümer der Mongolei : vol.1 (1892) • W. Radloff. Versuch eines Wörterbuch der Türk-Dialekte. • Band I, 1. 1893 • Band I, 2. 1893 • Band II, 1. 1899 • Band II, 2. 1899 • Radloff W.; trans. (1930). Suvarṇaprabhāsa: aus dem Uigurischen ins Deutsche übersetzt, Leningrad: Akad. Nauk SSSR. • Radlov, Vasilij V (1913–1917). Suvarṇaprabhāsa: (sutra zolotogo bleska) ; tekst ujgurskoj redakcij, Sanktpeterburg. Imperatorskaja Akad. Nauk. XV. Reprint, Osnabrück. Biblio-Verlag 1970. • Aus Sibirien. Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche (1893) • Tisastvustik; ein in türkischer Sprache bearbeitetes buddhistisches Sutra. I. Transcription und Übersetzung von W. Radloff. II. Bemerkungen zu den Brahmiglossen des Tisastvustik-Manuscripts (Mus. A. Kr. VII) von Baron A. von Stäel-Holstein (1910) ==Further reading==