The collection of Arabic manuscripts and documents at the
Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents (Rossiĭskiĭ
gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv dremikh aktov; henceforth,
RGADA) in Moscow, often directly connected with Russian
history, is the oldest collection of its type in the country, yet
it has not attracted serious scholarly attention. This is the
understandable result of social conditions in various periods
and the history of Russian Oriental studies. The materials in
this collection were gathered, mainly, by a small group of
individual enthusiasts; they are primarily of a coincidental
nature and do not in specific instances provide an exhaustive
overview of any particular question. On the other hand,
serious research in Oriental studies on Eastern texts was.
in fact, conducted in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and relied
on the unequally sized collections of the Asiatic Museum
(today St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental
Studies) and the Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library (today
National Library of Russia), which were gathered by many
generations of scholars over many decades. However, materials
at RGADA are as well of value, since they refute
many accepted judgments in Arab studies...
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