Yuri Bregel - Biography

Biography

Yuri Bregel was born in the U.S.S.R. as a son of Enoch Bregel (1903–1993), a noted Soviet economist. He studied in the Oriental Faculty of Moscow State University. Coming out of the same tradition which produced the great Vasily Bartold, Bregel proved a more than worthy successor to this tradition of rigorous scholarship in the Islamic History of Central Asia.

In 1974 he emigrated to Israel, where he was on the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1981 he moved to the United States, where he joined what was then Bloomington's Centre for Uralic and Altaic Studies owing to his excellent knowledge of Central Asian Turki and Chagatai. However, what Bregel brought to an already world renowned Department (under the able stewardship of Denis Sinor) was not so much an addition to the ranks of turcologists, as a far greater understanding of the region's Islamic and Persian heritage.

At a time when the medieval and early-modern history of Central Asia was hardly studied in the West, save through outdated translations of works such as the Ta'rikh-e Rashidi, and one or two of Barthold's monographs, Bregel pioneered serious research into and the textual study of the documents and manuscripts in Persian and Chagatai from the region which were held in Western libraries, in addition to copies of rare works which he had been able to bring with him from Russia. He insisted his students learn Russian, Persian and Turki in order to be able both to pursue their work with original sources, and read the best-researched secondary literature on the subject, most of which is in Russian.

With works such as his Bibliography and Atlas of Central Asian History (see below) he has laid a firm foundation for others to build on, as well as producing numerous scholarly editions and translations of his own, along with his famously searing attack on the "Sovietological" approach to Central Asian History, Notes on the Study of Central Asia. Bregel is now retired, and his tradition is continued by students of his such as Devin Deweese.