Georgian, Russian and Soviet orientalist, caucasianist, philologist, historian, ethnographer and archaeologist; Academician of The Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1912), and later Academician and Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Widely famous in the early days of the USSR as the architect of the New Theory of Language or the Japhetic Theory.  The founder and the first director of the Institute that was initially named the Japhetic Institute (1921) to be later renamed into the N. Ya. Marr Institute of Language and Thought (currently, the RAS Institute for Linguistic Studies in St. Petersburg and the RAS Institute of Linguistics in Moscow).

Career milestones

1892–93 and 1904–16 – archaeological excavations in Ani (Armenia); 1904 – initial efforts to establish the Ani Museum; 1889–1917 – member of the Russian Archaeological Society; 1895 – member of the Moscow Archaeological Society; 1904 – 1913 – member of the Russian Geographical Society.   Since 1909 employed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences: Adjunct at the History and Philology Department (Literature and History of Asian Populations) as of March 7, 1909; Extraordinary Academician as of January 14, 1912; Ordinary Academician as of July 1, 1912; Director of the Petrograd – Leningrad Institute of Oriental Languages (1920-1929); Chairman of the Russian (as of 1919) and later State (as of 1926) Academy of the History of Material Culture. Also, Director of the Public Library in 1924–1930 in Leningrad.