Royal Asiatic Society: The Denis Sinor Medal

The Denis Sinor Medal was inaugurated in 1993 by Professor Denis Sinor, specifically to honour scholars in the field of Inner Asian Studies. He donated a sum of money at the initiation of the award and more was bequeathed after his death. The material contains correspondence and administrative documents concerned with the inauguration of the award and further legacy, and for awarding of the medal to scholars of Inner Asian studies.

Born in Hungary in 1916, Sinor studied Altaic linguistics. Between 1939 and 1948, he he held various teaching and research posts in Hungary and France. After the war, where he served as a member of the French Resistance and later in the Free French Forces, he joined the faculty of Oriental Studies at Cambridge University. During this time he served on the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society as Honorary Secretary from 1955-1962.
In 1962, he moved to the United States, bringing his expertise to Indiana University where he created the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, now Central Eurasian Studies. In and outside of the department, Sinor worked to promote an appreciation of Inner Asia beyond its geographical and political neighbours, China and Russia. At IU, Sinor established two key and renowned resources for Inner Asian Studies. In 1967, he founded, and until 1981 directed, the Asian Studies Research Institute, known today as the Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, whose collection of materials is unparalled. Sinor received many honours within and outside the United States. He was a member of the French and Hungarian Academies, he was an Honorary Professor of the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy, was twice the holder of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was repeatedly honoured by UNESCO.
But perhaps Sinor's most significant contribution to Inner Asian studies and Indiana University is the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC). The only one of its kind in the country, the centre has helped train and support a strong lineage of scholars and has helped support the study of such languages as Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Persian/Tajik, Tibetan, Turkish and Uzbek.
Professor Sinor died in January 2011.

Annemarie von Gabain (7 April 1901—15 January 1993) was a German scholar who dealt with Turkic studies, both as a linguist and as an art historian. She was born in Morhang and received primary and secondary education in Mainz and Brandenburg. She went to Berlin for university education. She took courses on mathematics, sciences, Sinology and Turcology, completing her dissertation in Sinology. Von Gabain then studied Turcology with Johann Wilhelm Bang Kaup who was the founder of the Berlin school of Turkic studies. Later, she began to work on the Old Turkic materials kept at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin.
Von Gabain was particularly interested in the question of the extent to which the religious ideas of the Central Asian peoples had been influenced by Zoroastrianism or other Iranian beliefs, and this perspective is reflected in several of her publications but she was also interested in more general Turkic-Iranian contacts and interactions.

Harold Walter Bailey was born in Wiltshire but spent much of his childhood in Australia where he self-taught himself many languages. He graduated from the University of Western Australia before taking up a studentship at Oxford University. After graduating with first class honours in 1929, Bailey was appointed as Parsee Community Lecturer in the then London School of Oriental Studies. In 1936 Bailey became Professor of Sanskrit and a Fellow at Queens' College, Cambridge. He retired in 1967. It is believed that he could read more than 50 languages.

Karl Jettmar (August 8, 1918 - March 28 , 2002 ) was an Austrian ethnologist, religious scholar and archaeologist. he was the son of the Viennese painter Rudolf Jettmar and studied at the University of Vienna from 1936, first in German and history, then in ethnology, folklore and prehistory. He received his doctorate in 1941 After his military service, he initially couldn't find a job as a scientist, but had to earn his living as a salesman. In 1953/54 he was a visiting scientist at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt am Main, then until 1958 he was an assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna.
In 1961 he accepted an appointment as a full professor of ethnology at the University of Mainz. From 1964 until his retirement in 1986, he was professor of ethnology at the University of Heidelberg, director of the South Asia Institute and from 1969 he was a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.
Jettmar retired in 1983 abut continued to publish works on the indigenous religions, art and prehistory of Central Asia. In 1999 he became honorary member of the German association of anthropologists (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, DGV).

Professor research covered a wide area from ancient ties between Mongolia, India and Tibet to Genghis Khan's Mongolian Empire to Mongolian communism in the 20th century.
From 1987, he served as the General Secretary for the International Association for Mongol Studies and worked as a visiting professor at universities and research institutes in several countries, including the UK, Russia, France, India, and Japan. He wrote books, including the "Mongolian Historiography in the 13th-17th Centuries", and contributed various chapters/volumes to UNESCO's History of Civilizations of Central Asia.
Bira was one of founders and the Honorary President of the International Fund of Tengri Research, President of the Roerich Society of Mongolia, and Director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum and Shambhala Art Institute. He worked with Glenn Mullin to save the Roerich house in Mongolia and restore it as a museum and art gallery. Bira was the oldest living student of George Roerich.
In 2006 he was awarded the Fukuoka Prize. Bira died on 13 February 2022, at the age of 94.

Igor de Rachewiltz (April 11, 1929 – July 30, 2016) was an Italian historian and philologist specializing in Mongol studies. He was born in Rome. In 1947, he read Michael Prawdin's Tschingis-Chan und seine Erben ("Genghis Khan and his Heritage") and became interested in learning the Mongolian language. He graduated with a law degree from a university in Rome and pursued Oriental studies in Naples.
In the early 1950s, de Rachewiltz went to Australia on scholarship. He earned his PhD in Chinese history from Australian National University, Canberra, in 1961. His dissertation was on Genghis Khan's secretary, 13th-century Khitan scholar Yelü Chucai. He married Ines Adelaide Brasch in 1956 with whom he had one daughter.
In 1965 he became a fellow at the Department of Far Eastern History, Australian National University (1965–67), becoming a senior Fellow of the Division of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University (1967–94), a research-only fellowship. He published a translation of the Secret History of the Mongols in eleven volumes of Papers on Far Eastern History (1971–1985). He also completed projects by the prominent Mongolists, Antoine Mostaert and Henri Serruys, after their deaths. He became a visiting professor at the Sapienza University of Rome three times (1996, 1999, 2001).
In 2004, he published his translation of the Secret History with Brill Publishers; it was selected by Choice as Outstanding Academic Title (2005) and is now in its second edition. In 2007 he donated his personal library of around 6000 volumes to the Scheut Memorial Library.
Late in his life, de Rachewiltz was an emeritus Fellow in the Pacific and Asian History Division of the Australian National University. His research interests included the political and cultural history of China and Mongolia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, East-West political and cultural contacts, and Sino-Mongolian philology generally.
Igor de Rachewiltz died on July 30, 2016. He was 87.

Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (born 11 April 1949, Chatham, Kent) is a British professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Centre for Iranian Studies. Sims-Williams is a scholar who specializes in Central Asian history, particularly the study of Sogdian and Bactrian languages. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Iranian Studies journal.
Sims-Williams recently worked on a dedicatory Sogdian inscription, dated to the 1st–3rd centuries CE, that was discovered at Kultobe in Kazakhstan. It alludes to military operations of the principal towns of Sogdiana against the nomads in the north. The inscription tends to confirm the confederational organization of the Kangju state and its various allies that was known previously from the Chinese texts.

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke on the 15th March 1823. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on the 11th August 1824 'for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia'. It continues as a forum for those who are interested in the languages, cultures and history of Asia to meet and exchange ideas.

The series were arranged chronologically:
* RAS DSM/1 - Inauguration of the Denis Sinor Medal
* RAS DSM/2 - Annemarie von Gabain
* RAS DSM/3 - Harold Bailey
* RAS DSM/4 - Karl Jettmar
* RAS DSM/5 - Shagdaryn Bira
* RAS DSM/6 - Igor de Rachewiltz
* RAS DSM/7 - Further Legacy
* RAS DSM/8 - Nicholas Sims- Williams

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These records are part of the Royal Asiatic Society's Institutional Records and therefore part of the historical records of the Society.

Born in Hungary in 1916, Sinor studied Altaic linguistics. Between 1939 and 1948, he he held various teaching and research posts in Hungary and France. After the war, where he served as a member of the French Resistance and later in the Free French Forces, he joined the faculty of Oriental Studies at Cambridge University. During this time he served on the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society as Honorary Secretary from 1955-1962.
In 1962, he moved to the United States, bringing his expertise to Indiana University where he created the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, now Central Eurasian Studies. In and outside of the department, Sinor worked to promote an appreciation of Inner Asia beyond its geographical and political neighbours, China and Russia. At IU, Sinor established two key and renowned resources for Inner Asian Studies. In 1967, he founded, and until 1981 directed, the Asian Studies Research Institute, known today as the Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, whose collection of materials is unparalled. Sinor received many honours within and outside the United States. He was a member of the French and Hungarian Academies, he was an Honorary Professor of the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy, was twice the holder of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was repeatedly honoured by UNESCO.
But perhaps Sinor's most significant contribution to Inner Asian studies and Indiana University is the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC). The only one of its kind in the country, the centre has helped train and support a strong lineage of scholars and has helped support the study of such languages as Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Persian/Tajik, Tibetan, Turkish and Uzbek.
Professor Sinor died in January 2011.

Annemarie von Gabain (7 April 1901—15 January 1993) was a German scholar who dealt with Turkic studies, both as a linguist and as an art historian. She was born in Morhang and received primary and secondary education in Mainz and Brandenburg. She went to Berlin for university education. She took courses on mathematics, sciences, Sinology and Turcology, completing her dissertation in Sinology. Von Gabain then studied Turcology with Johann Wilhelm Bang Kaup who was the founder of the Berlin school of Turkic studies. Later, she began to work on the Old Turkic materials kept at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin.
Von Gabain was particularly interested in the question of the extent to which the religious ideas of the Central Asian peoples had been influenced by Zoroastrianism or other Iranian beliefs, and this perspective is reflected in several of her publications but she was also interested in more general Turkic-Iranian contacts and interactions.

Harold Walter Bailey was born in Wiltshire but spent much of his childhood in Australia where he self-taught himself many languages. He graduated from the University of Western Australia before taking up a studentship at Oxford University. After graduating with first class honours in 1929, Bailey was appointed as Parsee Community Lecturer in the then London School of Oriental Studies. In 1936 Bailey became Professor of Sanskrit and a Fellow at Queens' College, Cambridge. He retired in 1967. It is believed that he could read more than 50 languages.

Karl Jettmar (August 8, 1918 - March 28 , 2002 ) was an Austrian ethnologist, religious scholar and archaeologist. he was the son of the Viennese painter Rudolf Jettmar and studied at the University of Vienna from 1936, first in German and history, then in ethnology, folklore and prehistory. He received his doctorate in 1941 After his military service, he initially couldn't find a job as a scientist, but had to earn his living as a salesman. In 1953/54 he was a visiting scientist at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt am Main, then until 1958 he was an assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna.
In 1961 he accepted an appointment as a full professor of ethnology at the University of Mainz. From 1964 until his retirement in 1986, he was professor of ethnology at the University of Heidelberg, director of the South Asia Institute and from 1969 he was a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.
Jettmar retired in 1983 abut continued to publish works on the indigenous religions, art and prehistory of Central Asia. In 1999 he became honorary member of the German association of anthropologists (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, DGV).

Professor research covered a wide area from ancient ties between Mongolia, India and Tibet to Genghis Khan's Mongolian Empire to Mongolian communism in the 20th century.
From 1987, he served as the General Secretary for the International Association for Mongol Studies and worked as a visiting professor at universities and research institutes in several countries, including the UK, Russia, France, India, and Japan. He wrote books, including the "Mongolian Historiography in the 13th-17th Centuries", and contributed various chapters/volumes to UNESCO's History of Civilizations of Central Asia.
Bira was one of founders and the Honorary President of the International Fund of Tengri Research, President of the Roerich Society of Mongolia, and Director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum and Shambhala Art Institute. He worked with Glenn Mullin to save the Roerich house in Mongolia and restore it as a museum and art gallery. Bira was the oldest living student of George Roerich.
In 2006 he was awarded the Fukuoka Prize. Bira died on 13 February 2022, at the age of 94.

Igor de Rachewiltz (April 11, 1929 – July 30, 2016) was an Italian historian and philologist specializing in Mongol studies. He was born in Rome. In 1947, he read Michael Prawdin's Tschingis-Chan und seine Erben ("Genghis Khan and his Heritage") and became interested in learning the Mongolian language. He graduated with a law degree from a university in Rome and pursued Oriental studies in Naples.
In the early 1950s, de Rachewiltz went to Australia on scholarship. He earned his PhD in Chinese history from Australian National University, Canberra, in 1961. His dissertation was on Genghis Khan's secretary, 13th-century Khitan scholar Yelü Chucai. He married Ines Adelaide Brasch in 1956 with whom he had one daughter.
In 1965 he became a fellow at the Department of Far Eastern History, Australian National University (1965–67), becoming a senior Fellow of the Division of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University (1967–94), a research-only fellowship. He published a translation of the Secret History of the Mongols in eleven volumes of Papers on Far Eastern History (1971–1985). He also completed projects by the prominent Mongolists, Antoine Mostaert and Henri Serruys, after their deaths. He became a visiting professor at the Sapienza University of Rome three times (1996, 1999, 2001).
In 2004, he published his translation of the Secret History with Brill Publishers; it was selected by Choice as Outstanding Academic Title (2005) and is now in its second edition. In 2007 he donated his personal library of around 6000 volumes to the Scheut Memorial Library.
Late in his life, de Rachewiltz was an emeritus Fellow in the Pacific and Asian History Division of the Australian National University. His research interests included the political and cultural history of China and Mongolia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, East-West political and cultural contacts, and Sino-Mongolian philology generally.
Igor de Rachewiltz died on July 30, 2016. He was 87.

Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (born 11 April 1949, Chatham, Kent) is a British professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Centre for Iranian Studies. Sims-Williams is a scholar who specializes in Central Asian history, particularly the study of Sogdian and Bactrian languages. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Iranian Studies journal.
Sims-Williams recently worked on a dedicatory Sogdian inscription, dated to the 1st–3rd centuries CE, that was discovered at Kultobe in Kazakhstan. It alludes to military operations of the principal towns of Sogdiana against the nomads in the north. The inscription tends to confirm the confederational organization of the Kangju state and its various allies that was known previously from the Chinese texts.

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke on the 15th March 1823. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on the 11th August 1824 'for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia'. It continues as a forum for those who are interested in the languages, cultures and history of Asia to meet and exchange ideas.

This material was catalogued by Nancy Charley, RAS Archivist , in 2024.

Digital photography (without flash) for research purposes may be permitted upon completion of a copyright declaration form, and with respect to current UK copyright law.

These are part of the institutional records of the Royal Asiatic Society which have been accumulated throughout its history.

The Minute Books of the Council Meetings (RAS GOV1) may provide further information about the inauguration and awarding of the Medal.

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