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Obituary: Sigrid Kleinmichel (1938–2024)

In Memoriam
Sigrid Kleinmichel
April 29, 1938 – September 06, 2024

Sigrid Kleinmichel, born April 29, 1938, died in Berlin, Germany, after short illness, on September 06, 2024.

In 1956, the German Democratic Republic sent Sigrid Kleinmichel to study Turkology in Leningrad, Soviet Union, a quite unusual field for a young woman from Germany to engage in. Yet it must have been a very good match, and until the end of her life, Sigrid Kleinmichel was a philologist with heart and soul who pursued the field of Turkology passionately. After graduating in 1961, she returned to Germany and became a member of the Humboldt University in Berlin where she taught and researched in the field of Turkic Studies for twelve years. In 1971, under the supervision of Prof. György Hazai (1932–2016), she completed her doctorate at Humboldt University with a linguistic study on the Marzubān-nāme, a mid-15th century text of the “mirrors of princes” genre, written in Old-Ottoman Turkish.

In 1974, Sigrid Kleinmichel moved to the Academy of Sciences of the GDR where she became a scholar at the Central Institute for the History of Literature (1969–1991). After learning Uzbek and Kazakh on site in Central Asia, she worked on the literatures of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Soviet Union and of Turkey. Her expertise spanned a broad field in terms of time and genres, encompassing various Turkic languages, with a focus on Uzbek literature. By the time of the political changes in the 1990s, she built up an unusually large international network of Orientalists and scholars from other disciplines in various countries.

From 1994 to 2011, Sigrid Kleinmichel was affiliated with the Institute of Turkology, Free University of Berlin, where she continued her research and taught Uzbek and Kazakh language and gave seminars on Uzbek, Chagatay and Uyghur literature. Engaged in supporting students with her advices on theses and dissertations, always ready to share her extensive knowledge with colleagues; combined with her friendly and modest manner, Sigrid Kleinmichel was an appreciated conversation partner.

After the political changes in Germany in the 1990s, Sigrid Kleinmichel began to publish her research results and to implement innovative research approaches. In 1993, her first monography, a groundbreaking study on Uzbek literature appeared: Awakening from Oriental poetry traditions: studies on Uzbek drama and prose between 1910 and 1934.¹ This work deals with the Jadid Muslim national reform movement and the fate of Uzbek writers murdered during the Stalinist terror.

In 2000, Khalpa in Khorezm and ātin āyi in the Fergana valley: on the history of reading in Uzbekistan in the 20th century, an interdisciplinary study that focuses on women who recite religious texts, was published.² Located in the disciplines of ethnology, religious and cultural studies, literature and linguistics, popular Islam in Central Asia and the transmission of knowledge among women are analysed. The study represents a milestone in Central Asian literary research reaching far beyond the proper discipline of Turkic Studies.

In 2009, The Birth of the Prophet Muḥammad: three poems from Central Asia, a comprehensive work on Mevlid poetry in popular piety and scholarly literature since the Islamic Middle Ages followed.³ And finally, in 2016, the book Ijob between Self-Incrimination and Protest: poems from Central Asia, 19th to 20th century, a philological work, editing, translating, and commenting on a corpus of 86 Chagatay poems on Ijob, was published.⁴

Sigrid Kleinmichel attended four Meetings of the PIAC, in 1969, 1972, 1988 and 1991.

Sigrid Kleinmichel was a committed person with many social contacts. After her retirement, she volunteered to teach German as a Foreign Language, supported female Usbek students, and initiated and hosted a private literary salon in her home. Behaving humanely, taking social and historical circumstances into account, imparting culture and literature, and developing language skills were always important for her. With gratitude, we look back at her work and the time we could spend with her. We miss her as a conversation partner, as a very friendly person with an enormous knowledge who brought different worlds together.

Karin Schweissgut*
October 14, 2025

Anetshofer, Helga et al. (eds.): Über Gereimtes und Ungereimtes diesseits und jenseits der Turcia : Festschrift für Sigrid Kleinmichel zum 70. Geburtstag. Schöneiche bei Berlin : Scrîpvaz-Verl., 2008. Contains a bibliography of Sigrid Kleinmichel’s publications (pp. 19–28 op. cit.)

[1] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Aufbruch aus orientalischen Dichtungstraditionen : Studien zur usbekischen Dramatik und Prosa zwischen 1910 und 1934. Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1993. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/Aufbruch_aus_orientalischen_Dichtungstraditionen/titel_432.ahtml

[2] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Ḫalpa in Choresm (Ḫwārazm) und ātin āyi im Ferghanatal : zur Geschichte des Lesens in Usbekistan im 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin : Das Arabische Buch, 2000 und Berlin : Klaus Schwarz, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112400227

[3] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Die Geburt des Propheten Muḥammad : drei Dichtungen aus Mittelasien. Wiesbaden : Reichert, 2009. https://reichert-verlag.de/buchreihen/geographie_reihen/geographie_iran_turan/9783895006760_die_geburt_des_propheten_muhammad-detail

[4] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Hiob zwischen Selbstbezichtigung und Protest : Gedichte aus Mittelasien (19. bis 20. Jahrhundert). Wiesbaden : Reichert Verlag, 2016. https://reichert-verlag.de/buchreihen/geographie_reihen/geographie_iran_turan/9783954901494_hiob_zwischen_selbstbezichtigung_und_protest-detail

* ORCID-ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0222-8522

Previous Meetings: 23rd Meeting Strebersdorf, 1980: Programme and Report

Dear Reader,

the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) was held in Strebersdorf, near Vienna (Austria), in 1980. One Japanese scholar, Ikegami Jirō, who at that time already could look back on a history of more than 20 years since his first participation in a PIAC meeting, wrote a detailed report about this Meeting. His report is especially valuable in light of the many changes that took place during the Meeting, and which are not visible from the original programme. By the way, another 20 years later, Ikegami Jirō was awarded the Indiana University Prize for Altaic Studies, colloquially known as the PIAC Medal, in 2002.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
July 5, 2025.

Previous Meetings: Information on 37th Meeting, Chantilly 1994, now available

Dear Reader,

The editor continues to negotiate his path through a huge treasure trove of PIAC documents: books of abstracts, lists of participants, and programmes of previous PIAC Meetings. If these materials contain many hand-written notes or are typeset by typewriter which was typically the case until the 1990s, they have to be copied manually. Thus, it is understandable that this is a time-consuming process. On the other hand, the editor does not process the materials in a linear, time-sequential fashion but his choices are rather prompted by a multitude of factors, curiosity not being the least among them.

That is why the List of Participants and Titles of Communications of the 37th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, held in Chantilly, France, in 1994, is available only now.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
July 2024

 

66th Meeting Göttingen, 2024: Report

Dear Reader,

the 66th Annual Meeting of the PIAC was held in Göttingen from June 30 to July 5, 2024. Held for the eleventh time in Germany, It was a very successful meeting as it saw the number of participants (from 15 countries) return to pre-Covid levels (57 participants joined the Meeting), among them many young participants.

The report of the Meeting is now online.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
July 08, 2024

65th Meeting Astana, 2023: Report

Dear Reader,

the 65th Annual Meeting of the PIAC was held in Astana from July 30 to August 4, 2023. Held for the second time in Kazakhstan (the first time being the 36th Annual Meeting held in Almaty in 1993), It was a very successful meeting with many young participants.

The report of the Meeting is now online.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
August 15, 2023

Previous Meetings: 43rd Meeting Lanaken, 2000 — Programme and List of Participants

Dear Reader,

Materials of the 43rd Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC), held in Lanaken in 2000, are available now: list of participants and programme.

The programme reflects, to a certain degree, the actual sequence of communications which occasionally deviates from the printed material.

Oliver Corff, August 6, 2023.

Previous Meetings: 45th Meeting Budapest, 2002

Dear Reader,

the 45th Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) was held in Budapest, Hungary, in June 2002 and was hosted by the Research Group for Altaic Studies,
Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

The programme of this meeting is now available. In the preface of the proceedings volume, Alice Sárközi mentions a total 88 of participants, so this was definitely one of the larger PIAC meetings, yet not everybody who registered for the meeting and submitted an abstract seems to have participated. The programme reproduced here attempts to reflect this situation.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
April 22nd, 2023.

Previous Meetings: 05th Meeting Bloomington, 1962: Report

Dear Reader,

more than 60 years ago, the 05th Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) was held at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1962. In the young history of the PIAC, this meeting was a breakthrough in many aspects. The first meeting to be held in the U.S.A., the first meeting of several to follow to be hosted by Indiana University, the meeting with the most international background of participants so far, the meeting to inaugurate the Indiana University Prize for Altaic Studies (colloquially known as PIAC Medal) and, according to historical records, the first meeting where speaking time had to be managed tightly in order to not run out of time.

The meeting received a high degree of international attention; reviews of the Proceedings published by Denis Sinor were written by no less than seven scholars.

It was also the first meeting that brought Western and Japanese Altaic studies together. So far, only  one Japanese scholar, Jirō Ikegami, had participated in the 4th Meeting 1961 in Cambridge, UK, despite the Secretary General’s repeated attempts to invite more Japanese scholars.

Denis Sinor had expressed the need for more insight into the state-of-affairs of Altaic Studies in Japan in an invitation letter to Shirō Hattori who, together with Shichirō Murayama, finally accepted Denis Sinor’s generous invitation (air fare included!) to participate in the 05th Meeting in Bloomington in June 1962.

In the foreword of the said Proceedings volume Denis Sinor writes: “Particularly regrettable is the absence of Professor Hattori’s very detailed report on the Japanese contribution to Altaic Studies”, the inclusion of which in the proceedings had been the original plan in 1962.

Fortunately, Shirō Hattori contributed an exensive report on his participation at the 5th Meeting of the PIAC to the Japanese journal Minzokugaku kenkyū in the same year. That report is not only a chronological account of presentations given at the meeting; much more it is a deep reflection on the very nature of PIAC meetings, and, at least in a summarized form, an overview of important Japanese contributions to Altaic studies, which, according to Hattori, should and could not ignore Korean studies.

Besides the detailed and preciousy vivid renderings of linguistic debates which took place during that meeting, Hattori’s report also reflects many of the key points of Denis Sinor’s report on the 05th meeting with regard to the international sharing of research results, the need of abstract and translation services, etc.

As a scholar, Shirō Hattori found himself haunted by the consequences of World War II and the post-war situation, and his reflections to this effect unfortunately hold as much truth now as they did then.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
April 19, 2023