Orbeli I.A., (1887-1961), orientalist

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
ORBELI Iosif Abgarovich (1887-1961, Leningrad), orientalist, member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1935), member and the first president of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1943). Brother of L.A. Orbeli. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology and the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University in 1911. In 1914, he started teaching at the Oriental Faculty, promoted to the post of faculty dean in 1955. He also taught at the Institute of Archaeology from 1918. Orbeli was one of the founding members of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture (1919) and the head of the Institute for the History of Material Culture (1937-39). In 1920, he assumed the office of custodian of the State Hermitage, which he headed from 1934 to 1951. During his tenure he set up the Department of Oriental History and Culture at the museum. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, he managed the evacuation, preserving and enabling the restitution of the Hermitage collections. He was head of the Leningrad section of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1956 to 1961. His major works reside in the field of languages, history and culture of the nations of Caucasia and Transcaucasia. Orbeli was a founder of domestic Kurdish studies. A member of many scientific societies, including foreign ones. From 1948 to 1961, he lived at 32 Palace Embankment (memorial plaque). Buried at Bogoslovskoe cemetery.

References: Мегрелидзе И. В. Иосиф Орбели. 2-е доп. изд. Тбилиси, 1987; Юзбашян К. Н. Академик Иосиф Абгарович Орбели, 1887-1961. 2-е изд., доп. М., 1987.

T. V. Ermakova. Orbeli Iosif Abgarovich
Orbeli Leon (Levon) Abgarovich
Dvortsovaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 32
Мегрелидзе И. В. Иосиф Орбели. 2-е доп. изд.Тбилиси, 1987
Юзбашян К. Н. Академик Иосиф Абгарович Орбели, 1887—1961. 2-е изд., доп. М., 1987 Russian Academy of Sciences
State University, St. Petersburg
Archaeological Institute
Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Hermitage
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch
Bogoslovskoe Cemetery