Rerikh, Iurii Nikolaevich

Born Aug. 3 (16), 1902, in Okulovka, in what is now Novgorod Oblast; died May 21, 1960, in Moscow. Soviet Orientalist. Doctor of philological sciences (1957); professor.

The son of N. K. Rerikh, lu. N. Rerikh received a broad philological education in the world’s major centers of Oriental studies. From 1923 to 1957 he lived and worked in India, and from 1930 to 1942 he was director of the Institute of Himalayan Research in Nagar. With his father he took part in scientific expeditions to China (Tibet, Sinkiang), the Mongolian People’s Republic, and elsewhere.

After coming to the USSR in 1957, Rerikh directed the section of history of religion and philosophy at the Institute of the Peoples of Asia of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Rerikh’s chief works were devoted to the history of Tibet and Tibeto-Mongolian relations, the ethnography and material culture of the peoples of Central Asia, Tibetan historiography and linguistics, iconography, the epic of Gesar-Khan (the Gesariada), and Buddhist philosophy and religion. Rerikh translated the major Tibetan historical work of the 15th century The Blue Annals (parts 1-2, 1949–53). He was a member of a number of scholarly organizations, including the Royal Asiatic Society in London, the Asiatic Society in Bengal, and American archaeological and ethnographical societies.