In Memoriam: Prof. Dr. Nikolai N. Seleznyov

Photo by Eugene Barsky

По извивам Москвы, по завертьям ее безнадежным Чья-то тень пролетала в отчаяньи нежном

Е.Ш.

It is with great sorrow that we learned that our dear friend and colleague Nikolai Nikolaevich Seleznyov passed away in Moscow on Thursday, 13 May 2021, five days before his fiftieth birthday, as a result of the complications caused by Covid-19.

Nikolai Seleznyov was born in Moscow in the year 1971. His formative years fell in the period of Perestroika when the Soviet society began to open to the West as well as to recover its own repressed intellectual and spiritual past. He was a part of the generation that welcomed this change and, like many others, turned to the Russian Orthodox Church in search of spiritual guidance and a place to apply his intellectual abilities. Nikolai’s first steps on the way to higher education were made in St. Philaret’s Orthodox Christian Institute, where he studied during the early nineties and where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology in 1996. Afterwards, he continued his studies in the secular framework, in the Russian State University for the Humanities, where in 2006 he obtained the degree of candidate of historical sciences, with a dissertation on the Christological paradox in the history of theological controversies among Syriac Christians. After that, he worked without interruption as a research fellow faculty member at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies (first affiliated with the Russian State University for the Humanities, and later on with HSE University, Moscow), where оn June 4, 2020 he defended with distinction his Doctor of Sciences dissertation, entitled The Majālis of Elias of Nisibis (975–1046) in the Context of Interconfessional Relations as Reflected in the Literary Culture of the Medieval Middle East.

Important as these institutional frameworks are, they can hardly do justice for explaining intellectual evolution of Nikolai, who was always very much the cat who walked by himself, wherever his intellectual curiosity led him. It was during the formative years of the early nineties that Nikolai became seriously interested in the rich history and culture of Syriac Christianity, especially in the theological tradition of the Church of the East. True to his life-long principle of going to the original sources of whichever cultural tradition that he would turn his attention to, he mastered the Classical Syriac language, helped by a member of the clergy of the Assyrian diaspora in Moscow. Nikolai’s deep immersion into the living tradition of the Church of the East has born rich academic fruits, as he had published three monographs (in Russian) on its history and theology even before completion of his candidate dissertation.

While during the Soviet period Syriac studies continued to exist, like water under the ice, for the reasons of strict censorship they were limited mostly to historical and cultural aspects. Nikolai was one of the first scholars in the post-Soviet Russia, to resume the study of the beating heart of Syriac Christianity, its theological and spiritual heritage. Even more important is that he succeeded in walking through this often contested terrain in a non-partisan manner, carefully avoiding confessional constrains and pitfalls. Intellectual honesty enabled him to re-examine such a controversial figure as Nestorius and to present a holistic picture of the development of the Christology of the Church of the East, successfully avoiding the blinkers of the Byzantine or any other orthodoxy.

Nikolai became a pioneer in the field of Syriac studies in Russian in more than one way. Thus, his engagement with Syriac sources, often unpublished, made him pay a most serious attention to textological work, which culminated in the publication in 2014 of a critical edition of the Explanation of the Mysteries, a versified liturgical commentary by the East Syrian theologian Yōḥannān Вar Zō‘bī. Accidentally, it became the first book-length critical edition of an unpublished Syriac text made in Russian by a Russian scholar.

Having delved deeply into the literary world of Syriac Christians during the Middle Ages, Nikolai soon discovered that to be able to appreciate this tradition in all its complexity one cannot do without proper knowledge of the Arabic language. He has applied himself ardently to the task and mastered Arabic to the extent of being able to work with manuscripts, including those written in Garshuni. As a result, he published a number of articles and books on various Christian Arabic authors, Syriac as well as Coptic, including Russian translations of such texts as the Disputation with the Caliph al-Mahdī by Timothy I, and parts of the Blessed Collection by al-Makīn ibn al-‘Amīd, and a critical edition and Russian and English translations of the Book on the Concordance of Faith by al-Arfādī.

Although his fascination with the world of the Christian Orient never waned, scholarly curiosity led Nikolai beyond its confines, driving him to expand his academic horizons to include the world of Islam. His guiding insight in that regard was that the amazing flourishing of Syriac Christian culture during the so-called Syriac Renaissance, was conditioned by the intellectual openness and ecumenical spirit of the Islamic “republic of letters”. His major contribution to the study of Arabic Christianity in its relation to Islam, was the critical edition of the Book of Sessions by Elias of Nisibis and Vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maġribī. In his doctoral dissertation, based on this edition, Nikolai presented this work masterfully combining his text-critical skills with a broad-scope analysis of interconfessional relations in the Islamicate world.

Already in his dissertation Nikolai has laid ground for embarking on the next stage of his Morgenlandfahrt, leaving the Christian shores and venturing further East, to explore the field that he himself called “Islamobuddhica,” an intellectual meeting place of the two world religions. One of the first fruits of his deep interest in these contacts became the article on the use of Devatāsūtra in the portrayal of Buddha and Buddhism by the famous Ilkhanid historiographer Rašīd al-Dīn, in which an edition of the Arabic text and its Russian translation are offered.

It was at this promising point that Nikolai’s journey has been suddenly and cruelly cut short. His untimely departure has left a gaping hole in the ranks of the Russian scholars of the Christian Orient. His expertise in Syriac and Arabic Christianity was crucial for the development of a unique undergraduate program on Christian Orient that starts at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies this year. An active member of Hugoye and NASCAS mailing lists, Nikolai has helped many colleagues and friends across the globe with bibliography and expert advice. A child of the Soviet book scarcity, he believed that fruits of scholarship should be freely available to all people and was always ready to help fellow scholars and anyone interested in the subject with access to books and articles. Together with Grigory Kessel, he published annual bibliographic surveys of Russian publications in the field of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies, helping to familiarize western colleagues with Russian scholarship on these subjects. See Scrinium 2 (2006), 481-487; 4 (2008), 394-402; Hugoye 13:1 (2010), 108-117; 16:1 (2013) 134-155; 17:1 (2014), 132-140; 18:1 (2015), 125-145; 19:1 (2016), 247-257; 20:1 (2017), 317-331; 21:1 (2018), 127-141; 22:1 (2019), 295-305; 23:1 (2020), 181-191; 24:1 (2021), 299-316..

See Scrinium 2 (2006), 481-487; 4 (2008), 394-402; Hugoye 13:1 (2010), 108-117; 16:1 (2013) 134-155; 17:1 (2014), 132-140; 18:1 (2015), 125-145; 19:1 (2016), 247-257; 20:1 (2017), 317-331; 21:1 (2018), 127-141; 22:1 (2019), 295-305; 23:1 (2020), 181-191; 24:1 (2021), 299-316..

Nikolai was a loving son, who cared for his mother till the last moment. In a tragic turn of events, he survived her by only a few days, having been thus spared from the agony of learning that she had passed away, after the long struggle with a serious illness, complicated by Covid-19.

He will be greatly missed by his colleagues and students in Moscow and throughout the world. We, your friends, wish that your journey will continue even when you have passed beyond the pale of this world, to the land of the Fabulous Gryphon. Memory eternal! Вечная память!

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