IVANOV, PAVEL PETROVICH, (b. Siberia, February 1893; d. Leningrad, 3 February 1942; FIGURE 1). In the early 1900s his family moved to Central Asia, where his father worked at railroad construction. Ivanov finished a teacher’s seminary in Tashkent in 1914 and then taught in a “Russian-Kirghiz” (i.e., mixed Russian-Kazakh) school. After a brief service in the Russian army in 1916-18, he studied in the Iranian Department of the Turkestan Oriental Institute in Tashkent, from which he graduated in 1924. In 1929 he moved to Leningrad, where he first taught Oriental languages, but in 1934 he began to work as a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies (Institut Vostokovedeniya) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He died on 3 February 1942, during the German siege of Leningrad in World War II. Ivanov’s first scholarly works concerned mostly archeology, as well as some problems of the historical geography of Central Asia. He published two articles on the historical topography of Sayram (medieval Esfijāb; see ASFĪJĀB), which he visited three times in 1924-26 (see his “Saĭram” and “K voprosu ob istoricheskoĭ topografii”). In the late 1920s he participated in archeological explorations in the Lake Issyk-Kul basin (his detailed report on this work was only published posthumously; see “Materialy”) and in the upper Talas valley (see his “Kvoprosu o drevnostyakh”). His work “Kistorii razvitiya gornogo promysla v Sredneĭ Azii” (1932), although based on written sources, was also connected with his archeological interests. After his move to Leningrad, however, his research concentrated exclusively on the history of Central Asia in the 16th-19th centuries, and during just eight years (1935-42) he made major contributions to the study of this period. He took part, as a principal editor and translator, in the publication of two major collection of excerpts, in Russian translation, from Persian and Turkic historical works dealing with the history of the Qaraqalpaqs (Materialy po istorii karakalpakov, 1935) and the Turkmens (Materialy po istorii turkmen i Turkmenii II, 1938). Both these collections served for many years as the basis for subsequent historical works dealing with the Qaraqalpaqs and the Turkmens.
His first major historical work was “Ocherk istorii karakalpakov” (Outline of the history of the Qaraqalpaqs), which laid the foundation for all later research on the history of this people; he also devoted two more articles to their history (“Novye dannye” and “Karakalpaki”). In an article published in 1939 Ivanov analyzed the relationships between another Central Asian nomadic people, the Kazakhs, and the Khanate of Ḵoqand (Qoqand, q.v. at iranica.com) in the 19th century (“Kazakhi i Kokandskoe khanstvo”). But Ivanov’s main interest was the social and economic history of Central Asia. Although he approached this subject (as did all the Soviet historians) from the Marxist standpoint, most of his works dealt, not so much with sociological generalizations, but mainly with the study of specific events and topics based on primary sources—Central Asian chronicles and documents. His work “Vosstanie kitaĭ-kipchakov,” containing an analysis of the situation of the Uzbek tribes in the Khanate of Bukhara under the Manḡïts, included a description, with a Russian translation of excerpts, of some previously unstudied Central Asian narrative sources of the 19th century. An article on the “crown lands” in the Khanate of Khiva (“Udel’nye zemli”) was based on the Khivan chronicle, excerpts from which were translated by him for Materialy po istorii karakalpakov and Materialy po istorii turkmen i Turkmenii.
In 1936 Ivanov discovered a large collection of documents in the Leningrad Public Library captured by Russian troops in the palace of the khan of Khiva upon the conquest of the Khanate of Khiva in 1873; the documents had been brought to St. Petersburg and then forgotten. After his discovery, Ivanov was busy for five years with the sorting and description of the documents. The result of this work was the book Arkhiv khivinskikh khanov XIX v. published in 1940; it contains a systematic and detailed description of 137 documents, mostly tax registers (daftars), written in Čaḡatay. The documents proved to be an invaluable source for the study of the social and economic history of the Khanate of Khiva in the 19th century, and Ivanov’s description was extensively used by other scholars. Later many more Khivan documents were discovered in Leningrad and Tashkent, but these discoveries did not diminish the importance of Ivanov’s work.
While still working on the Khivan archives, Ivanov began new research related to another documentary source—a collection of copies of documents (preserved in Leningrad) related to the land properties of the Juybāri shaikhs of Bukhara (16th-17th centuries). The Persian text of the documents was prepared for publication by a Leningrad Iranologist, F. Rostopchin, and published in 1938 (Iz arkhiva); the name of Rostopchin was suppressed from this publication because he was a victim of Stalin’s purges of the 1930s. Ivanov wrote an introduction to the Russian translation of the documents (also prepared by Rostopchin), and it became an important monographic study in its own right. In it he traces the history of the Juybāri family and the ways they accumulated and managed their land possessions (see Khoziaĭstvo dzhuĭ-barskikh sheĭkhov). This work, written in 1938-40, remained unpublished because of the war and Ivanov’s death; it was only published posthumously, in 1954, together with Rostopchin’s translations of the documents (without the name of the translator).
During the same years Ivanov wrote a more general work on the history of Central Asia in the 16th-19th centuries, which was also not published immediately because of the war. It appeared posthumously in 1958 under the title Ocherki po istorii Sredneĭ Azii (XVI – seredina XIX v.) in an abridged form; out of ten original chapters, the last three, dealing with the second half of the 19th century (Russian conquest and rule), were omitted. The book was written as a popular work, without references to the sources (a brief survey of the most important Persian and Turkic sources is attached as an appendix), although Ivanov did utilize primary sources. The history of Central Asia is interpreted in this book in accordance with the Marxist approach. In many cases (especially in the sections concerning the nomads), Ivanov’s conclusions mostly reflected some general constructs current in Soviet historical literature of that time. Despite this weakness, Ocherki has one great advantage, for which it stands out in the Soviet literature on Central Asia: it treats Central Asia as one historical and cultural entity, as distinct from all later general works, both Soviet and post-Soviet, in which Central Asian history is parceled out among the various Soviet Republics.
Bibliography:
Published works of P. P. Ivanov.
Archiv khivinskikh khanov XIX v.: Issledovanie i opisanie dokumentov s istoricheskim vvedeniem. Novye istochniki dlya istorii narodov Sredneĭ Azii (Archive of the 19th-century Khivan khans: analysis and description of the documents with a historical introduction. New sources for the history of the peoples of Central Asia), Leningrad, 1940.
“Iz oblasti sredneaziatskoĭ khozyaĭstvennoĭ terminologii” (From the field of Central Asian economic terminology), Izvestiya Akademii nauk SSSR, Otdelenie obshchestvennykh nauk, 1935, No. 8, pp. 745-58.
“Kvoprosu o drevnostyakh v verkhov’yakh Talasa” (On the question of the antiquities in the upper reaches of the Talas), S. F. Ol’denburgu k 50-letiyu nauchno-obshchestvennoĭ deyatel’nosti, Leningrad, 1934, pp. 241-51.
“Kvoprosu ob istoricheskoĭ topografii starogo Saĭrama” (On the question of the historical topography of old Sayram), V. V. Bartol’du turkestanskie druz’ia, ucheniki i pochitateli, Tashkent, 1927, pp. 151-64.
“Kazakhi i Kokandskoe khanstvo: K istorii ikh vzaimootnosheniĭ v nachale XIX v.” (The Kazakhs and the khanate of Ḵoqand: toward the history of their mutual relations at the beginning of the 19th century), Zapiski Instituta vostokovedeniya Akademii nauk SSSR 7, 1939, pp. 92-128.
Khozyaĭstvo dzhuĭbarskikh sheĭkhov: Kistorii feodal’nogo zemlevladeniya v Sredneĭ Azii v XVI-XVII vv. (The economy of the Juybari shaikhs: on the history of feudal landholding in Central Asia in the 16th-17th centuries), Moscow and Leningrad, 1954.
“Materialy po arkheologii kotloviny Issyk-Kulya” (Materials on the archeology of the Issyk-Kul basin), Trudy Instituta istorii Akademii nauk Kirgizskoĭ SSR 3, Frunze, 1957, pp. 65-107.
“Novye dannye o karakalpakakh” (New data on the Qaraqalpaqs), Sovetskoe vostokovedenie, vol. III, Moscow and Leningrad, 1945, pp. 59-79.
“Ocherk istorii karakalpakov” (Outline of the history of the Qaraqalpaqs), Materialy po istorii karakalpakov [see below], pp. 9-89.
Ocherki po istorii Sredneĭ Azii (XVI-seredina XIX v.) (Outline of the history of Central Asia, 16th to mid-19th centuries), Moscow, 1958.
“Saĭram: Istoriko-arkheologicheskiĭ ocherk” (Sayram: historical-archeological essay), Sbornik Turkestanskogo Vostochnogo instituta v chest’ prof. A. È. Shmidta, Tashkent, 1923, pp. 46-56.
“‘Udel’nye zemli’ Seĭid-Mukhammed-khana khivinskogo (1856-1865)” (The crown lands of Sayyed Mohammad Khan of Khiva [1856-1865]), Zapiski Instituta vostokovedeniya Akademii nauk SSSR 6, 1937, pp. 27-59.
Vosstanie kitaĭ-kipchakov v Bukharskom khanstve 1821-25 gg.: Istochniki i opyt ikh issledovaniya (The revolt of the Kitai Kipchaqs in the khanate of Bukhara 1821-25: sources and an approach to their study), Moscow and Leningrad, 1937 (Trudy Instituta vostokovedeniya AN SSSR 28).
Iz arkhiva sheĭkhov Dzhuĭbari: Materialy po zemel’nym i torgovym otnosheniyam Sredneĭ Azii XVI veka (From the archives of the Juybari shaikhs: materials on the landholding and commercial relations of Central Asia in the 16th century), Moscow and Leningrad, 1938.
Materialy po istorii karakalpakov: Sbornik (Materials for the history of the Qaraqalpaqs: a collection), Moscow and Leningrad, 1935.
Materialy po istorii turkmen i Turkmenii II. XVI-XIX vv. Iranskie, bukharskie i khivinskie istochniki (Materials for the history of the Turkmen and Turkmenia 2: 16th-19th centuries. Iranian, Bukharan, and Khivan sources), Moscow and Leningrad, 1938 (Trudy Instituta vostokovedeniya AN SSSR 29).
Literature on P. P. Ivanov.
A. Borovkov, “Vmesto vvedeniya (Neskol’ko predvaritel’nykh zamechaniĭ ob ‘Ocherkakh po istorii Sredneĭ Azii’ P. P. Ivanova)” (In place of an introduction [some preliminary observations about P. P. Ivanov’s ’An outline of the history of Central Asia’]) in P. P. Ivanov, Ocherki po istorii Sredneĭ Azii, pp. 3-12.
V. A. Romodin, “Vklad leningradskikh vostokovedov v izuchenie istorii Sredneĭ Azii” (The contribution of the Leningrad orientalists to the study of the history of Central Asia), Uchenye zapiski Instituta vostokovedeniya AN SSSR, vol. XXV, Moscow, 1960, pp. 38-41.
A. Yu. Yakubovskiĭ, “Pavel Petrovich Ivanov kak istorik Sredneĭ Azii” (P. P. Ivanov as a historian of Central Asia), Sovetskoe vostokovedenie, vol. V, Moscow and Leningrad, 1948, pp. 313-20 (with a portrait).
(Yuri Bregel)
Originally Published: December 15, 2007
Last Updated: April 5, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. XIV, Fasc. 3, pp. 297-298
