Autobiography

[I] was born in 1900 in the village of Kobi [located] on the Georgian Military Road into a family of a mountaineer Ossetian. [I] obtained [my] primary education at a village school and my secondary education at the 6th Tiflis Classical Gymnasium School (1910-1918). In 1918 – 1921, [I] taught at the Kobi Primary School. In 1922, [I] entered the Leningrad State University, the Iranian Division of the Ethnology and Linguistics Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences. [I] graduated from the university in 1925. [I] published my first scientific papers in 1924. On graduation from the university, I was retained as a postgraduate student of the Scientific Research Institute for Comparative Study of Languages and Literatures of the West and Orient, a subdivision of the Leningrad State University. On finishing the postgraduate studies in 1928, I was detailed to the Tiflis Caucasian History and Archaeology Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1930, I became a fellow at the Japhetic Institute of the Academy of Sciences, later renamed into the Institute of Language and Thought.

In 1935, I was awarded the Cand. of Science [Ph. D] degree (without thesis defense at a viva voce). In January 1941, I was specially assigned to Ossetia by the President of the Academy of Sciences to scientifically consult the publication of a national epic.  In 1941-45, cut from Leningrad by military activities, I worked at the North Ossetic and South Ossetic Research Institutes.

In 1944, I headed the Chair of Linguistics at the North Ossetic State Pedagogical Institute. In November 1945, I returned to Leningrad.

By a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (26.VII-50), I was transferred to the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a senior researcher as of August 1.

I am awarded an “Order of the Red Banner of Labor” and a medal “For the Defense of the Caucasus”.

4/I-51 /V. Abayev/

The picture and the Autobiography come from the personal file kept at the ILS RAS archives.