The Conference is dedicated to the 220th birthday anniversary of Boris Andreevich (Johannes Albrecht Bernhard) Dorn (1805–1881), an outstanding Russian scholar, academician of the Russian (Imperial) Academy of Sciences, Director of the Asiatic Museum. Establishing a primary source foundation for academic Oriental Studies in Russia, Boris Dorn regularly expanded numismatic, book and manuscript collections, published Oriental manuscripts. Boris Dorn’s principles of cataloguing Oriental manuscripts and xylographs are still relevant today.

Boris Dorn’s academic interests were very wide and included history, geography, philology, linguistics, manuscriptology, epigraphy and numismatics. His contribution to the study of Muslim and Christian (Ethiopic, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian) Oriental manuscripts cannot be overestimated. Boris Dorn is the founder of Ethiopic Studies and Afghan Studies in Russia, he established studies of Pashto and unwritten Iranian languages. He conducted research on the medieval history of Afghanistan and the historical geography of the Caspian provinces of Iran and Caucasus.

The Conference will focus on issues related to Ethiopic Studies, Iranian and Afghan Studies, the study of Muslim and Oriental Christian manuscripts and xylographs, and the archival legacy of Boris Dorn.

Traditional themes of the Conference focusing on the study of Oriental written heritage remain unchanged: codicology; paleography; formation history of schools of copyists/calligraphers; artistic decoration of manuscripts; structure and decoration of early printed books and xylographs of the Orient; epigraphy; sphragistics; numismatics; history of discovery and subsequent publication of manuscripts; expeditions in Asia and archaeography of the written heritage of the Orient; formation of modern manuscript collections; contributions by manuscript scholars of Russia and other countries to the study of Oriental manuscript traditions; current issues of manuscript conservation and restoration.

The working languages of the Conference are Russian, English, Chinese.

Please submit your application and a brief presentation abstract (200 words maximum in English) by March 23, 2025 to the following email: manuscript.conf.iom@mail.ru

The application should include the following information:
- Information about the participant (full name, affiliation and position, academic degree, academic title, e-mail address) in English;
- Presentation topic and a brief abstract (in English);
- Participation format (in-person / online).

Conference Organizing Committee