Background
ALEKSEYEV, Vasiliy was born on January 14, 1881 in Saint St. Petersburg.
Russian philologist and sinologist
ALEKSEYEV, Vasiliy was born on January 14, 1881 in Saint St. Petersburg.
In 1902 he graduated from the Saint St. Petersburg University and became a professor
He also worked in the British Museum, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Museum für Völkerkunde, Musée Guimet et cetera In 1907, he travelled along with Édouard Chavannes through several Chinese provinces, describing ancient sculptural monuments previously unknown to international scholarship, in particular the Song monuments of Henan and Tang monuments of Shaanxi. ln addition to his Professorship, Alexeev became the Curator and Senior Researcher at the Museum. Alexeev"s situation at this time, though perilous like everybody else"s, had great potential, which he quickly proceeded to realize.
His position at the Museum gave him a realia basis: he had custody of artifacts for the study of Chinese popular tradition, including a large trove of Dunhwang documents brought back from a Russian expedition of 1914-1915.
In 1919, Alexeev became associate editor, and chief of the Eastern division, of the newly founded Publishing House for World Literature. This provided a publishing outlet.
Under his direction, the Museum"s Sinological library was expanded, catalogued, and systematically employed in research, by a team of young persons Alexeev gradually gathered around him, among them the brilliant Shchutsky. Alekseyev has translated the Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
In 1958 he also published a collection Kitayskaya klassicheskaya proza (The Chinese Classical Prose).
Russian Academy of Sciences. Academy of Sciences of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.