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Nikita Elisséeff

نيكيتا إليسييف

Notable figure 1915–1997 · Source: Najib al-Aqiqi, al-Mustashriqun, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1964), vol. 3, p. 971; Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin, p. 183 · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Elisséeff, Nikita (1915-1997)

From Russia; worked in France and Syria

Field: Literature and poetry

Affiliation

Author of a classification of Arabian Nights themes (1949)

Biography

Son of the Russian scholar Serge Elisséeff, he grew up in France, took the diploma in literary Arabic at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris (1939), and worked at the French Institute in Damascus, becoming its deputy director, before holding the chair of Islamic history and archaeology at the University of Lyon. He wrote Thèmes et motifs des Mille et une nuits: essai de classification (Beirut, 1949); most of his later work is on the history of Damascus and Nur al-Din.