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an unusual and uniquely cosmopolitan contribution to this process. Moreover, the geographical focus of Krym sky’s activities now shifted. Whereas in Moscow he had concentrated on Arabic studies, in Kiev he turned more and more to the Turko-lranian world. The Turks and the Persians were geographically closer to Ukraine and at certain points in their history had played a direct role in the culture and politics of the Ukrainian steppe. Thus Krymsky’s professional interests in the Slavic and Islamic worlds came together as they never had before. During this period Krymsky produced three major titles to Persia: A History of Persia and its Writing con tinued to join history to literature as had been done in the scholar’s early work, while Hafiz and his Poetry dealt with the greatest of Persian lyric poets. A third title examined the origins of Persian religious theatre. Sim ilarly, during the 1920s Krymsky published two major studies of Turkey. His book, The Turks, Their Languages and Literatures again linked history to literature and dealt with all of the Turkic peoples, including the many Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union, while his History of Turkey treated only the Ottoman Empire but gave a great deal of attention to topics that would be of interest to Ukrainian readers. For example, in his History of Tur key Krymsky discussed at length the Tatar raids on Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries in which thou sands of Ukrainian country folk, primarily women, were carried off to be sold in the slave markets in Istanbul. Krymsky noted the resultant Ukrainian influences upon Turkish physiognomy and discussed at length the career of the most famous of these Ukrainian slave-girls, the beautiful Roxolana, whose name derived from Rus’ and who eventually became the influential wife of the grea test of Ottoman Sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent. At the same time, moreover, Krymsky investigated the cultures of the Islamic peoples who bordered directly onto Ukraine and played an intimate role in its history. Thus he authored studies of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus and most importantly, a volume on the Cri mean Tatars, whence his ancestors had come. His examination of Crimean Tatar literature treated both the Ottoman and the modern Russian period and though brief remains to the present the fundamental work on the subject. Stalin’s purges of the 1930s put an end to this period of vigorous publishing activity. Ukrainian writers were arrested, scholars disappeared, and the Academy was almost completely closed down. Krymsky lost his administrative positions, his orientalist students were dispersed, and he was forced into semi-retirement. In the quiet of his study, however, he continued to work. In spite of the atmosphere of repression and fear which permeated these years, he was able to complete a mas terly history of modern Arabic literature, a major study of the life and times of the Persian romantic poet, Nizami, and a two volume History of the Khazars, a mys terious Turkic steppe people who had had a beneficent influence upon the formation of the medieval state of Kievan Rus’. In 1939, political changes induced Stalin to make some concessions to Ukrainian culture and Krymsky with his cosmopolitan approach to the national revival became the hero of the hour. He was awarded a state prize, popular magazines carried items by him urging Soviet citizens to learn foreign languages, and the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences set about to publish his major works on Nizami. But the rehabilitation was short-lived. In 1941 Hitler suddenly attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin deported as many people as he could to Siberia and Central Asia where they could be closely controlled. A secret police car picked up Krymsky and he was never heard from again. It was only in the 1960s, well after Stalin’s death, that it was revealed that Krymsky had died in a Kazakh stan prison camp in 1942. In spite of his tragic end, Krymsky’s life shines with his achievements as an Islamicist and a popularizer of the cultures of the Middle East. In his person, Krymsky joined enthusiasm for the Ukrainian national awakening with interests in the outside world, and through his expert knowledge of the Middle East he expanded the intellectual scope and raised the prestige of Ukrainian scholarship. Moreover, he seems to have sympathized with the difficult geopolitical situation of the Muslim peoples of his day and looked forward to a parallel revi val of their languages and cultures. Certainly, he set great faith in the regenerative powers of education and he not only welcomed the modernist movement among the Muslims of the Russian Empire but also warmly greeted the revival of Arabic learning that took place at Al-Azhar University in Egypt during his time. Similarly, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, he welcomed the further progress of Arabic letters in Syria and else where. Krymsky always retained a humane and respect ful attitude toward both the land of his birth and also toward the lands of Islam. Even the autocratic power of the great Stalin could not completely destroy Krymsky’s legacy. In 1971, the Soviet Academy of Sciences published the history of modern Arabic literature that the Ukrainian orientalist had quietly written during the terrible 1930s, and in the years that followed the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences reprinted his Ukrainian language work on Persia and Turkey. In 1981, the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences finally was able to publish his wide-ranging work on Nizami, and during the era of Glasnost the Ukrainian Academy initiated plans to publish his History of the Khazars and to reestablish an Institute of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in his name. Though Ahatanhel Krymsky was personally touched by the political tragedy of his times, his scholarly legacy, which exudes enthu siasm for both Ukrainian and eastern cultures, remains and is vivid testimony to his great goal of "acquainting two worlds.” 24 ’’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ-СЕРПЕНЬ 1992 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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