Joseph Orbeli

Joseph Orbeli (, Hovsep Abgari Orbeli; ; 20 March (O.S. 8 March) 1887 – 2 February 1961) was a Soviet-Armenian orientalist, public figure and academician who specialized in medieval history of Transcaucasia and administered the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad from 1934 to 1951. He was the founder and first president of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences (1943–47). Biography Early life and education Born into the Orbelian Dynasty in Kutaisi, Russian Georgia in 1887, Joseph Orbeli completed his secondary education at a classical gymnasium in Tbilisi. In 1904, he was accepted to Saint Petersburg University. He studied history and philology (with a particular emphasis in Latin and Greek) and graduated from the university in 1911. During his student years, Orbeli accompanied his professor, Nikolai Marr, to Russian Armenia, where he took part in excavations of the ruins of the medieval Armenian capital of Ani. Marr pushed his pupil to fully immerse himself in the fields of archaeology, literature, lithography and linguistics; otherwise, Marr reasoned, he would find himself unprepared in his research and his studies.