Igor M. Diakonoff

Who was Igor M. Diakonoff?

Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East and its languages. His last name is occasionally spelled Diakonov. His brothers were also distinguished historians.

Diakonoff was brought up in Norway. He graduated from Leningrad University in 1938. In the same year he joined the staff of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. In 1949 he published a comprehensive study of Assyria, followed in 1956 by a monograph on Medea. Later on, he teamed up with the linguist Sergei Starostin to produce authoritative studies of the Caucasian, Afro-Asiatic, and Hurro-Urartian language families.

Diakonoff was honored in 2003 with a volume published in his memory, edited by Lionel Bender, Gábor Takács, and David Appleyard. In addition to articles on Afro-Asiatic languages, it contains a five-page list of his publications compiled by Takács.