KLEMENC (Klementz), Dmitrij Aleksandrovič. Gorjaino, gub. Samara 14.12.1848 — Moscow 8.1.1914. Russian Central Asian Scholar and Traveller. Born in a land owner family belonging to minor nobility. Educated in Samara and Kazan, studies at physico-mathematical faculties at Kazan and from 1870 at St.Petersburg. In his youth he was a noted revolutionary, who spent two years in prison in 1879 and then fife years in exile in Minusinsk. Now developed an interest in antiquities, ethnography and anthropology and remained many years in Siberia. After an expedition to Mongolia he was sent in 1898 by the Imperial Academy to Turfan to study the local ruins. From this expedition he brought photographs, manuscript fragments and fragments of Buddhist wall-paintings (deposited in Hermitage), which led to a rush of expeditions to the area. In Turfan he was accompanied by his botanist wife Elizaveta Nikolaevna Kl. (née Zvereva, 1853/54–1914). From 1897 Director of Anthropological and Ethnographical Museum in St.Petersburg, retired 1910 and moved to Moscow.
Publications: Drevnosti Minusinskogo Muzeja. Pamjatniki metalličeskih èpoh. Tomsk 1886.
– Arheologičeskij dnevnik poezdki v Srednjuju Mongoliju. 76 p. Sb. trudov Orhonskoj èksp. 2. St.P. 1895.
– Turfan und seine Alterthümer. Aus dem Russ. üb. von O. v. Haller. 53 p. ill. St.P. 1899.
– Poems, articles, etc.
Sources: Briefly in Hopkirk, Foreign Devils. 1980; Kononov; *Sibirskaja Sovetskaja Ènciklopedija 1929; *S.F. Oldenburg, Živaja starina 24, 1915:1-2, 169-172; German Wikipedia, with more details, references and photo in Russian Vikipedija, another photo in Italian version.
Last Updated on 3 years by Admin
