Ilya Sherebetovich Anisimov (Russian: Илья Шеребетович Анисимов; Judeo-Tat: Элиягу бен Шербет Нисим-оглы; Hebrew: איליה אניסימוב; 29 May 1862 – 3 February 1928) was a Russian ethnographer, ethnologist, and engineer, known for his ethnographic study on Mountain Jews. He was the first person of Mountain Jewish descent to receive higher education in the schools of the Russian Empire. Anisimov is the author of the famous work "Caucasian Mountain Jews" (Russian: Кавказские евреи-горцы). He was also a member of the Baku branch of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia.
Biography
Lineage Ilya Anisimov was born in the village of Tarki in the Temir-Khan-Shurinskiy district of the Dagestan Oblast. He was the second of five sons in his family. According to Anisimov’s eldest daughter, Gul-Bike, he received the name Eliyahu (Ilya) in honor of the first rabbi of Derbent, Eliyahu ben Mushael (1781–1848), who was respected by all Mountain Jews. This rabbi founded the chief rabbinate of Mountain Jews in the city and made Derbent their spiritual capital. His father, Sherebet Nisim-ogly, studied at the Volozhin Yeshiva and was known as one of the most educated rabbis of his time. After studying at the Volozhin Yeshiva, Sherebet Nisim-ogly spent three years in Jerusalem. In 1884, he published the book "Antiquities of the Mountain Jews" (Russian: Древности горских евреев). In 1906, he returned to Dagestan, became the first rabbi in Tarki, where he opened a Jewish school, and later in Temir-Khan-Shurá.
Education Having received a good home education thanks to his father, Anisimov was accepted directly into the sixth grade of the government city school (real school) in Temir-Khan-Shurá in September 1882. In 1883, Anisimov entered the mountain department of the Stavropol gymnasium, where he completed a year of study. The certificate he received upon graduation from the gymnasium on 16 June 1884, confirmed that he had the right "to enter higher specialized schools, undergoing only a verification test." Anisimov had to work hard to study: his parents and relatives considered education unnecessary and, according to custom, wanted to marry him early to a girl to whom he had been engaged when he was only three years old. Thanks to the support of the school authorities (Anisimov studied at the state’s expense and received a scholarship from the Military-People’s Administration of the Caucasus Region), Anisimov managed to convince his parents that the authorities demanded he be sent to a gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium in the summer of 1884, Anisimov left for Saint Petersburg. In 1884, Anisimov entered the Imperial Moscow Technical School. He successfully graduated from it in 1891. Anisimov managed to get a job in Moscow, but soon he left for Temir-Khan-Shurá, where he had to fully experience the consequences of the discriminatory laws adopted by the tsarist government in relation to the Jewish population of the Russian Empire.
Scientific work On the advice of the chief rabbi of Southern Dagestan, Khazkel Mushailov, Anisimov began to study his people ethnographically, describing the wedding and funeral rites of the Mountain Jews. Anisimov enthusiastically took up the work, and in 1881, the essay “Caucasian Mountain Jews” appeared in the Russian-Jewish magazine "Rassvet" (Russian: Рассвет) in Saint Petersburg. Later, in a revised form, it was included in a monograph on Mountain Jews. An acquaintance with the professor of Imperial Moscow University, the outstanding Russian scientist Vsevolod Miller, significantly influenced the future life of Ilya Anisimov. In June 1883, during a trip to the Caucasus, Miller visited the village of Nalchik, where he met Mountain Jews. During a conversation, one of the Nalchik rabbis, at Miller’s request, dictated to him several words and phrases in the Judeo-Tat language, which Miller wrote down in his notebook:
Interested in this unique Iranian dialect, which had not yet been studied from either the grammatical or lexical side, I was looking for an opportunity to get to know it more thoroughly. Such an opportunity presented itself to me in Moscow, thanks to my acquaintance with a Mountain Jew, a student at the Imperial Technical School, I. Sh. Anisimov, who was the first of the Caucasian coreligionists to receive an education in Russian educational institutions. Over the course of two years, with Anisimov’s help, I studied his native language and compiled an essay on grammar and a dictionary. Having read Anisimov’s article in "Rassvet," Miller attracted Anisimov to active work in the ethnographic department of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography (OLEAE), which he headed. On 31 October 1885, Anisimov gave a report at a meeting of the ethnographic department of OLEAE, where he presented statistical information he had collected about the number of Mountain Jews, named the settlements where they lived, and introduced those present to the religious beliefs of the Mountain Jews, especially highlighting elements of paganism. In March 1886, Anisimov was elected a member of the ethnographic department of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography. At the same time, he gave another report in which he described in detail the wedding ceremonies of the Mountain Jews. At Miller’s suggestion, the Moscow Archeological Society commissioned Anisimov to travel to the Caucasus to collect historical and ethnographic materials about the Mountain Jews. For this purpose, the Society allocated him 300 rubles. Anisimov visited 88 cities and villages in the Dagestan and Terek regions, as well as in the Baku and Elizavetpol Governorate. In Temir-Khan-Shurá, Anisimov met with the chief rabbi of Southern Dagestan, Khazkel Mushailov. Mushailov, who was planning to leave Dagestan for Jerusalem soon, gave Anisimov his notes in Hebrew. He had been collecting historical legends about the arrival of Jews in the Caucasus and various periods of the ethnic history of the Mountain Jews for a long time. After familiarizing himself with these valuable materials, Anisimov noted that "they contained much that was not at all in my historical legends" (letter to Miller, 22 June 1886).
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