Fren, Christian Danilovich

Born in Rostock, where he graduated from a Latin gymnasium . He began teaching Arabic and Hebrew at the theological faculty of the University of Rostock under the supervision of the Hebraist Olaf Tikhsen (1734-1815), and continued his education at the universities of Göttingen and Tübingen . In 1802 he graduated and went to Switzerland, where until 1804 he taught Latin at the Burgdorf Pedagogical Institute Pestalozzi . Returning to Rostock, in 1804 he defended his doctoral dissertation, receiving a doctorate in philosophy , a master of liberal sciences, and also a doctor of theology . In 1806 he was accepted as a privat-docent of Rostock University . At the beginning of 1807, the first trustee of the Kazan educational district, S. Ya. Rumovsky, asked Olaf Tikhsen to recommend someone to fill the post of professor of oriental languages ​​at the newly founded Kazan University . He immediately called the name of Fran, as his best student. In 1807, Fren accepted the invitation to head the Department of Oriental Languages ​​at Kazan University and immediately received the post of full professor. He arrived in Kazan in October 1807. Here he published the first monograph on the description of 17 Samanid and Buid coins not known until now in Europe, and it had to be printed in Arabic, due to the lack of a Latin script in Kazan. Teaching was also difficult: Fren did not speak Russian, and his students did not speak Latin, which was at the beginning of the 19th century. universal language of science. At Kazan University, he taught primarily Arabic, and also taught special courses in Arabic literature (Tikhsen anthology) and Arabic numismatics.

In the following years, Fren presented a description of several private collections of oriental coins stored in Kazan and other cities, dwelling in detail on the coins of the eastern caliphate, Samanid dynasty, Volga Bulgars, Tatar rulers, and others unknown until then. The foundation of his own collection was laid here. The study of these coins led Fren to search for the places of their minting, the chronological sequence of dynasties, titles of sovereigns, etc., so that little by little he captured almost the entire field of Muslim archeology in his circle of studies. It was in Kazan that Fren turned into a world-class scientist from an ordinary theologian - Hebraist . In 1815, he was elected dean of the philosophical (historical and philological) faculty of Kazan University.

In 1815, he transferred to Petersburg (although Tikhsen offered to take his chair in Rostock to him), starting work at the Academy of Sciences. In 1818 he founded and until 1842 he headed the Asian Museum of the Academy of Sciences , and until 1826 he was his only employee. In 1817 he was elected to ordinary academicians. In St. Petersburg, he did not engage in teaching, but many Russian Arabists and Iranians considered him their teacher: he had "private" students. Retired - since 1842. He was buried at the Smolensky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

In 1843 he turned to the trustee of the Kazan educational district M.N. Musin-Pushkin with a request to look for among the students of the eastern department of Kazan University a young scientist who could become an adjunct of the Academy of Sciences in the future. The choice fell on Nikolai Ivanovich Sommer .

One of Fran's most important services to Russian science consists in his discovery of rich materials for the history of Russia and its ancient inhabitants. In 1835, he read a report at the Academy of Sciences about a mysterious pre-Cyrillic Russian inscription in the work of the Arab bibliographer Ibn al-Nadim Kitab al-Fichrist . He found a very rich supply of information in the large geographic dictionary of the Arab geographer of the first half of the 13th century, Yakut . The news of this dictionary about Russia, the Volga Bulgars and Khazars, borrowed by Yakut from the note of the Caliph envoy to the Bulgars Ibn Fadlan (922), in connection with the information of other Eastern writers, delivered Fren materials for three very important monographs. Fren left many manuscripts, besides those published by Academician Dorn in two volumes, under the title: “Opuscula postuma” (1855-1877). The most important of the unprinted works is the voluminous critical vocabulary of the Arabic language, over which Fren worked all his life. In general, Fren occupied a very prominent place between the Orientalists of the first half of the 19th century , mainly as the founder of the scientific numismatics of the Muslim East. In Russia, the name Fren is also associated with the emergence of scientific oriental studies in general, the discovery and publication of new materials for the history of Russia, Slavs and peoples who inhabited the Russian Empire ( Bulgars , Tatars , Khazars , etc.) ^[3] .

• Numophylacium Orientale Pototianum . Riga: Hartmann, 1813.
• Beiträge zur Muhammedanischen Münzkunde aus St. Petersburg: oder Auswahl seltener und merkwürdiger, bis dahin unbekannter Muhammedanischer Münzen aus dem Kabinet des P. Pflug . Berlin, 1820.
• Antiquitatis Muhammedanae monumenta varia . Petersburg 1820-22, 2 Bde.
• Ibn-Foszlan's und anderer Araber Berichte über die Russen älterer Zeit . Frähn, Christian Martin. - Frankfurt am Main: Inst. for the History of Arab.-Islamic Science, 1994, Reprint of the ed. St. Petersburg 1823 / Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
  • Hamburg: Buske, 1976. Nachdr. d. Ausg. von 1823.
• Numi kufici: ex variis museis selecti . Petersburg 1823.
• Ch. M. Fraehnii Recensio numorum Muhammedanorum Academiae imp. scient. Petropolitanae . Petersburg 1826, Nachtrag 1855.
• Ueber Alte Sued-Sibirische Graeberfunde Mit Inschriften Von Gewissem Datum . Petersburg 1837.
• Sammlung kleiner Abhandlungen die muhammedanische Numismatik betreffend . Leipzig 1839; neue Sammlung, Petersburg 1844);
• Miscellen aus dem Gebiete der Orientalischen Litteratur St. Petersburg: 1840.
• Cosmographie de Dimeschky . St. Petersbourg: Impr. de l'Acad. Impér. des Sciences, 1866.
• Aus seinem Nachlass gab Dorn “Opusculorum postumorum pars; Adnotationes in varia opera numismatica ' heraus (Petersburg 1877).

• Proceedings of the Eastern Branch of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society. 1856, p. 1 - 67.
• Pachkalov A.V. Fren Christian Martin // Islam in the Volga region. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Vol. 5. M. Nizhny Novgorod, 2012.
• Krachkovsky I.Yu. , Essays on the History of Russian Arabistics Elect. op., vol. 5, M. - L., 1958 (see Index).
• Livotova O. E., Portugal V. B. , Oriental studies in the editions of the Academy of Sciences, 1726-1917. Bibliography, M., 1966, No. 1513-1597.
• Kononov A.N. A word about H. D. Fren [23.V.1782-16.VIII.1851]. On the 300th anniversary of his birth // Written monuments and problems of the history of culture of the peoples of the East. XVII annual scientific session of the Law School of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences (reports and reports). January 1982, Part 1. M .: GRVL, 1983. P. 3-11
• Fren, Christian Danilovich at the German National Library .
• Article by Klenz, Heinrich. Frähn, Christian Martin Joachim F. (neopr.) (Inaccessible link - history ) .
• Dorokhova I. A. Scientific activity of H. D. Fren in a special course on the history of Russian oriental studies (neopr.) . Archived on May 24, 2012.
• Valeev R.M., Zyapparov T.I. ARABISM AT THE KAZAN UNIVERSITY DURING THE EXISTENCE OF THE EASTERN DISCHARGE (1807–1855) (neopr.) . Archived on May 24, 2012.
• T.I. Zyapparov. Kazan University Arabists (neopr.) . Archived on May 24, 2012.
• Fren, Christian Danilovich // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Fren, Christian Danilovich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.