VINNIKOV, ISAAC N.

VINNIKOV, ISAAC N. (1897– ), Soviet Orientalist. Born in Khotimsk, Belorussia, in 1922 Vinnikov was sent by the "People's Commissariat for Education" to study in the faculty of linguistics and ethnology at the University of Leningrad. Two of his teachers were L.Y. Sternberg\>\> and P.K. Kokovtsov\>\> . His first works were connected with pre-Islamic Arabic history and culture. Later he devoted himself to the study of the customs and languages of the Arab tribes living in Central Asia. In 1941 he wrote his doctoral thesis on "The Arabs in the U.S.S.R."; he also engaged in the study of Tyrean and Aramaic inscriptions and devoted many years to compiling a concordance to the Aramaic of Ereẓ Israel (in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Palestinian Midrashim). For many years he gave courses at the University of Leningrad in Semitic languages, among them Hebrew, supervising many students in the field of research. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Narody Azii i Afriki, no. 6 (1967), 155–7. (Yehuda Slutsky)