Polivanov Evgeny Dmitrievich (1881-1938) - a linguist (polyglot), theorist of linguistics, orientalist (in particular, a Kyrgyz scholar, one of the first translators of the epic "Manas" into Russian).
He was born in Smolensk. He graduated from the historical and philological faculty of St. Petersburg University (1912). In 1914, he defended his master's thesis. Privat-docent. He improved his knowledge of Eastern languages in Japan and other countries.
From 1917 to 1921, he engaged in scientific and educational activities in Petrograd and Moscow. He served as the chairman of the Scientific Council of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Turkestan ASSR (1921-1923), and was a professor at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (1926-1929). He was one of the active supporters of the transition of Turkic scripts from Arabic graphics to Latin. He participated in several comprehensive scientific expeditions in Uzbekistan. From 1934 to 1937, he lived in Frunze, serving as a professor at the Kyrgyz Institute of Cultural Construction and the Pedagogical Institute. He studied and translated the epic "Manas," partially publishing them in the newspaper "Soviet Kyrgyzstan" (1935, September 30, December 24) and in the journal "Literary Uzbekistan" (1935, No. 2; 1936, No. 4).
On August 1, 1937, he was arrested in Frunze and sent to Moscow, where he was executed on January 25, 1938. He was fully rehabilitated in 1963.
His manuscripts on Kyrgyz studies and Dungan studies are preserved in the archive of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic. His report "On the Principles of the Russian Translation of the Epic 'Manas'" was published only in 1968 ("Manas": The Heroic Epic of the Kyrgyz People. Frunze, 1968).
For information on his published, manuscript, and lost works, see: Lartsev V.G. E.D. Polivanov: Pages of Life and Activity. - Moscow: "Nauka," 1988; Polivanov E.D. Works on Eastern and General Linguistics. - Moscow: "Nauka," 1991.
Photo of a page from the journal "Literary Uzbekistan," 1935, No. 2, Tashkent. A fragment of the translation of a passage from the epic "Manas," beautifully executed by E.D. Polivanov
