The Conference is dedicated to the 240th birthday anniversary of Pavel L’vovich Schilling von Canstadt (1786–1837), an outstanding diplomat, scholar (physicist and Orientalist), one of the founders of the Asiatic Museum’s manuscript collection and a Corresponding Member of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in the category of Oriental Literature and Antiquities. P.L. Schilling von Canstadt was the pioneer of book printing in Asian languages in Russia.

A keen collector of Oriental manuscripts and woodblock prints, P.L. Schilling von Canstadt collected about 5,000 volumes of texts in Sanskrit, Chinese, Manchu, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean. The collection of Tibetan Buddhist canonical texts (bka’ ’gyur), presumably a gift from the lamas of the Tsugol Datsan in Buryatia, was one of the gems in the manuscript collection of P.L. Schilling von Canstadt. Later, the main part of P.L. Schilling von Canstadt’s collection of Oriental manuscripts and early printed books became part of the manuscript collection of the Asiatic Museum, now the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Conference will focus on issues related to Tibetology and Mongolian Studies, the study of Central Asian manuscript heritage, as well as the archival legacy of P.L. Schilling von Canstadt.

Traditional subjects 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.

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 (offline/online).

Please submit your application and a brief presentation abstract (200 words maximum in English) by April 6, 2026 to the following email: manuscript.conf.iom@mail.ru

Conference Organizing Committee