Vorobyov Nikolai Iosifovich
15 November 1894, Khvalynsk, Saratov Governorate — 29 September 1967, Kazan
Biography, education, career:
On leaving Khvalynsk gymnasium (grammar school), Nikolai Vorobyov entered the Department of Geography and Ethnography, Kazan University, where he studied in 1913–1918. He started his academic career when he was still a student, under the supervision of B.F. Adler, founder of the Kazan school of ethnographers. In 1914 he went on an expedition to Saratov Governorate, in 1915-1916 – to Siberia and the Far East. In 1916 he brought from Ussuriland a valuable collection on the Nanai people for the Ethnographic Museum of the University. On graduating from the University, he remained at the Department to undergo teacher training. He successively occupied the positions of Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Full Professor (1935) of Kazan State University. Concurrently, he founded and was Dean of the Faculty of Geography, Kazan Pedagogical Institute (1934–1945). In 1922 he created and headed the Department of Ethnography, and, at the same time, he was Head of the Department of Natural History. In 1923‑1934 he occupied the position of Director of the State Museum of Tatar ASSR. In 1946 he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Sciences in History upon defending his dissertation at the Institute of Ethnography, USSR AS, in Moscow. The dissertation was titled The Material Culture of Kazan Tatars. In 1945‑1967 Vorobyov was Head of the Department of Archaeology and Ethnography and Deputy Director of the Institute of Language, Literature and History, Kazan Branch of the USSR AS.
Areas of expertise: History and ethnography of Turkic peoples; History and ethnography of the peoples of the Urals-Volga region; History of material culture; Agroethnography; ethnography of Tatars and the Chuvash