Contents

Prelude

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Chapter 1 In the Manuscript Department

Prologue (1901)

1 An Ancient Book

2 A Translator of Krïlov

3 A Contemporary of Hulagu

4 The Hostage of a Double Prison (1912)

5 From Sicily via Persia to St. Petersburg

Epilogue (1941)

Chapter 2 From Wanderings in the East

1 Books and Men (In lieu of introduction) (1908–1910)

2 Grammatical Treatise or Anti-Religious Tract? (1910–1932)

3 The Unwritten Thesis

4 The Manuscripts of Two Patriarchs or a Prophecy Fulfilled (1900–1927)

Chapter 3 Arab Writers and the Russian Arabist

1 The Philosopher of the Freyka Valley (1910–1940)

2 The Aristocrat-Fellāḥ of Cairo

3 The Poltava Seminarist

Chapter 4 In the Asiatic Museum

1 Introduction to a Legend (to the memory of F. A. Rosenberg) (1903–1934)

2 A Unique Manuscript and Scholars of a Dozen Nations, Eastern and Western

3 A Contemporary of the First Crusade (1919–1921)

4 Vasco da Gama’s Pilot

Chapter 5 In the University Library

1 The Librarians and the Library

2 A First Experience as Examiner (1914)

3 From Cairo to the Volkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg (1916–1930)

4 “Al-Andalus” and Leningrad (1906–1942)

Chapter 6 “The Game Comes Running to the Hunter”

1 Bronze Tablets from the Land of the Queen of Sheba (1930)

2 A Letter from Sogdiana (1934)

3 The Kufic Qoran and the Arab Grandmother

4 A Russian Officer Attached to Shamīl in Kaluga (1918–1941)

Chapter 7 Shades of Our Predecessors

1 A Martyr for Arabic Literature (1910)

2 The “Quiet” Girgas (1901–1941)

3 Half a Century of Work on One Manuscript (1903–1938)

Finale Requiem aeternam . . . (1943)

Supplement “The Bindingness of the Non-Binding”

Notes

Postscript