PANKRATOV, Boris Ivanovič. Kostroma 29.2.(12.3.)1892 — Leningrad 29.8.1979. Russian Sinologist, Tibetan and Mongolian Scholar. Son of a farmer, graduated in 1916 from the Sino-Mongolian Department of Vladivostok Oriental Institute and started teaching Manchu and Mongolian there. In 1918 he was sent to China and remained there until 1935, living in Hankou and Peking working for R.O.S.T.A. and from 1924 as scholarly expert in Soviet Embassy. In 1935-42 staršij naučnyj sotrudnik at Institut Vostokovedov of Soviet Academy in Leningrad, working mainly on Mongolian. Also taught Mongolian, Manchu and Chinese at Leningrad University. In 1942-48 again in Soviet Embassy in China. Back in Leningrad, he took his old position in Oriental Institute for 1948-79 (first ten years were spent on describing and cataloguing Oriental manuscripts).

Pankratov had many interests. In the 1920s he studied medieval Chinese documents of Mongolian language, but also the Peking dialect of Chinese, the Chahar and Dagur Mongolian languages and Tibeto-Burman Jarung. In 1929-35 he worked at Harvard-Yenching Institute and published a number of studies on Tibetan Buddhist literature.

Publications: English study of the Tibetan Diamond Sūtra.

– Očerk istorii Tibeta s VII po XIV v. 19??; Očerk tibetskoj literatury. 19??.

– Bol’šoj mongol’sko-russkij slovar’. 19??; Očerk geografii Vostočnoj Mongolii. 19??.

– Posobie dlja izučenija kitajskogo razgovornogo jazyka. 242 p. Lg. 1938; with others: Kitajsko-russkij slovar’. 19??; Spisok kitajskih rukopisej v fondah IV AN. 1951.

– Istorii mongol’skoj Narodnoj Respubliki. M. 1954.

– V. P. Vasil’ev as Buddhist scholar, in Očerki istorii russkogo vostokovedenija 2, 1956.

– Edited The Secret History of the Mongols: Juan’čao bi-ši. Sekretnaja istorija mongolov. 1. Tekst. 19+602 p. M. 1962 (and unpublished translation).

Sources: Ju.L. Krol’, Strany i narody Vostoka 26, 1989, 84-100 with photo; Miliband 1995; *V.S. Starikov, Strany i narody Vostoka 12, 1971, 7-16 with photo; P.V. Vjatkin, L.P. Deljusin & Ju.L. Krol’, NAA 1980:3, 249f. (with a note by O. Lattimore); Wikipedia (more details and photo in Russian version).