Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

II. Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia / Ближний Восток, Кавказ и Центральная Азия 88 Proceedings of the International Congress on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa.Vol. I. 2020 to study under the noted Russian scholars, among whomVictor Rosen (1849–1908), Carl Hermann Zaleman (in Russian, Karl Germanovitsh Zaleman, 1849–1916), Fedor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy (Theodor Stcherbatsky, 1866–1942), and Valen- tin A. Zhukovsky (1858–1918) were his most notable teachers. He developed his knowledge of Islamic and Central Asian history under the guidance of the eminent Russian scholar Vasiliy Vladimirovich Barthold (1869–1930). 1 After graduating from the University of St Petersburg in 1911, he began a two- year job at the State Bank of Russia and served in Persia from 1912 to 1914. 2 As will be discussed, this two-year job in Persia sparked his enthusiasm for studying Ismailism from within. Just four years before Ivanow’s arrival in Persia, Russia and Britain had divided Persia into zones of influence. The northern cities of Tabriz, Tehran, Mashhad, and Isfahan fell under Russian control, whereas the southern regions, around the Persian Gulf, where Britain had discovered oil were under British control. The central region was declared a neutral buffer zone. Out of a limited or perhaps no other meaningful choice, Ivanow accepted the suggestion of his Syrian Christian Arabic teacher, Anton Khashshab, a native of Beirut, to join the Loan and Discount Bank of Persia in November 1911. He was sent to Birjand, south-east Iran, to do a type of job and in a location that would usually not attract bank employees. However, as there was little work to do in the bank itself, he spent his time collecting variants of colloquial Persian rural poetry and tales, meeting dervishes, Ismailis, and Baluchis. Ivanow mentioned his time in Birjand as some of his happiest memories. 3 He published the results of his linguistic and related ethnological and folkloric studies in some 20 articles. 4 Later on, he was transferred to Kermanshah, close to the Turkish border, to a place and a type of work that he never liked and, after two years in Persia, he was recalled to St Petersburg in 1913. Ivanow never lost his passion for research and academic work. He knew that working in the bank would keep him away from his academic pursuits. Therefore, he resigned from his post and spent the next six months on a journey to India, via Iraq, and back to St Petersburg. Upon his return to St Petersburg, his former teacher, Zaleman, offered him a position in the Asiatic Museum and suggested that he should go to Bukhara to collect Persian and Arabic manuscripts. He also told him that the change of climate would help him to recover from malaria, which he had contracted during his trip to India. In April 1915, he went to Bukhara and acquired 1 Daftary F. Ivanow, Vladimir Alekseevich // Encylopaedia Iranica. 2012. URL: http:// www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ivanow-vladimir-alekseevich (accessed 11.11.2019). 2 Ivanow W. Autobiography. 3 Ibid. P. 52–55. 4 Daftary F. Bibliography of the Publications of the late W. Ivanow //  Islamic Culture. 1971. Vol .  45. P. 56–67.