Vladimir Germanovich Bogoraz , best known under literary pseudonym N.A. Tan (April 27, 1865 — May 10, 1936) was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n revolutionary, writer and anthropologist, especially known for his studies of the Chukchi people

Chukchi people

The Chukchi, or Chukchee , ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula and the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean within the Russian Federation. They speak the Chukchi language...

 in Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

.

Vladimir Bogoraz was born in the city of Ovruch

Ovruch

Ovruch is a city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Ovruch Raion . The current estimated population is around 17,000 . It is home to Ovruch air base....

 in the family of a Jewish school teacher. After finishing Chekhov Gymnasium

Chekhov Gymnasium

The Chekhov Gymnasium in Taganrog on Ulitsa Oktyabrskaya 9 is the oldest gymnasium in the South of Russia. Playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov spent 11 years in the school, which was later named after him and transformed into a literary museum...

 in 1882, he enrolled in Saint Petersburg University

Saint Petersburg State University

Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest and largest universities in Russia....

, Legal Dept., but was dismissed for revolutionary activity with Narodnaya Volya and exiled to his parents' home in Taganrog

Taganrog

Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

. He spent 11 months at Taganrog prison for revolutionary propaganda. In 1886, he moved to Saint Petersburg where he was arrested and later exiled into North-Eastern Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, near Yakutsk

Yakutsk

With a subarctic climate , Yakutsk is the coldest city, though not the coldest inhabited place, on Earth. Average monthly temperatures range from in July to in January. The coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet outside Antarctica occurred in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast...

 (1889–1899), where he studied the Chukchi people

Chukchi people

The Chukchi, or Chukchee , ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula and the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean within the Russian Federation. They speak the Chukchi language...

, their way of life, traditions, language

Chukchi language

The Chukchi language is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...

, and beliefs, giving Bogoraz precious material for poems and belletristic essays.

Bogoraz published his first literary works in the early 1880s, but he became famous by 1896–1897 under literary pseudonym Tan for poems and novels published in various periodicals. In 1899, he published the book 'Chukchi Tales' and in 1900, 'The Verses'. The materials, published by Tan-Bogoraz in periodicals of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Russian Academy of Sciences

The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....

, such as 'Specimens of Materials for Studying Chukchi Language and Folklore' and 'Studies of Chukchi Language and Folklore Collected in Kolyma District' were a very valuable contribution to development of linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and made the author popular around the world. In 1899, by recommendation of the Academy of Sciences, Bogoraz was invited by New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

's American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...

 for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition

Jesup North Pacific Expedition

The Jesup North Pacific Expedition was a major anthropological expedition to Siberia, Alaska, and the north west coast of Canada. The purpose of the expedition was to investigate the relationships between the peoples at each side of the Bering Strait...

 (1900–1901) aimed at studying the ethnography, anthropology and archaeology of the Northern coasts of the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, where Tan-Bogoraz and his friend Vladimir Jochelson

Vladimir Jochelson

Vladimir Ilyich Jochelson was a Russian ethnographer and researcher of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North.- Biography :...

 were in charge of the Anadyr

Anadyr (town)

Anadyr is a port town and the administrative centre of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the extreme north-eastern region of Russia. It is at the mouth of the Anadyr River, on the tip of the southern promontory that sticks out into Anadyrskiy Liman...

 region of Siberia, gathering materials for ethnography of Chukchi

Chukchi people

The Chukchi, or Chukchee , ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula and the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean within the Russian Federation. They speak the Chukchi language...

, Koryaks

Koryaks

Koryaks are an indigenous people of Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, who inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea to the south of the Anadyr basin and the country to the immediate north of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the southernmost limit of their range being Tigilsk. They are akin to the...

, Lamuts and other indigenous Siberian peoples. He fled Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 for political reasons in 1901 and settled in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he became curator of the American Museum, and produced his great works The Chukchee (1904–09) and Chukchee Mythology (1910).

Tan-Bogoraz returned to Russia in 1904. He helped to organize the First Peasant Congress and the Labour Group in the Duma

Duma

A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...

. In 1910, a collection of his works in ten volumes was published. In 1917, he became professor of ethnology

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 at Petrograd University. Bogoraz, with the help of Lev Sternberg organized the first Russian ethnography center at the University. During the 1920s and '30s he did important anthropological work creating and teaching written languages for indigenous Siberian peoples and founded the Institute of the Peoples of the North

Institute of the Peoples of the North

The Institute of the Peoples of the North was a research institute based in Leningrad. Its objective was to examine topics related to the northern minorities in the Soviet Union...

 in Leningrad

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

External links and references

• Katharina Gernet: Vladimir Germanovich Bogoraz (1865–1936): A bibliography. (104 p.) (=Mitteilungen des Osteuropa-Instituts München 33). ISBN 392139645X. (German; cited texts in Russian) This is the most detailed biobibliography of Vladimir G. Bogoraz and his work currently available.
• Merriam-Webster (1995) Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary; 1st edition. Merriam-Webster. 1184p ISBN 0877797439 Bogoraz at "The Hall of Fame of Magadan"