About Vasily Radlov
Vasily Vasilievich Radlov (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Ра́длов), born Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff (17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1837 – 12 May 1918) was a German and Russian linguist, ethnographer, and archaeologist, often considered to be the founder of Turkology, the scientific study of Turkic peoples. He was the first to publish the Orhon inscriptions (though he did not succeed in deciphering them). == Career == Radlov studied at the University of Berlin (1854–58) and attended lectures by August Friedrich Pott at the University of Halle. His teachers included Carl Ritter, Heymann Steinthal, and Wilhelm Schott. In 1858, he defended his doctoral dissertation, On the Influence of Religion on the Peoples of Asia, at the University of Jena. That summer, he arrived in St. Petersburg to study Uralic and Altaic languages and started working at the Asiatic Museum. In 1859, he passed examinations at the St. Petersburg University examination committee to qualify as a German language teacher in gymnasiums. That same year, he took an oath of allegiance to the Russian tsar and became a Russian subject.
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