Igor de Rachewiltz

Igor de Rachewiltz is a prominent Mongolist working in Australia. He was born in Rome in 1929. De Rachewiltz family was of Polish noble roots. His grandmother was a Tatar from Kazan in eastern Russia who claimed lineage from the Golden Horde. In 1947, he read Michael Prawdin's book "Tschingis-Chan und seine Erben" ("Genghis Khan and his Heritage") and became interested in learning the Mongolian language. He graduated with a law degree from a university in Rome and pursued Oriental studies in Naples. In the early 1950s, de Rachewiltz went to Australia on scholarship. He earned his Ph. D. in Chinese history from Australian National University, Canberra in 1961. His dissertation was on on Genghis Khan's secretary, 13th century Chinese scholar Yelü Chucai. Starting in 1965 he became a fellow at the Department of Far Eastern History, Australian National University (1965-67). He made a research trip to Europe (1966-67). He published a translation of "The Secret History of the Mongols" in eleven volumes of Papers on Far Eastern History (1971-1985). He became a senior Fellow of the Division of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University (1967-94), a research-only fellowship. He completed projects by prominent Mongolists Antoine Mostaert and Henri Serruys after their deaths. He was a visiting Professor at the University of Rome three times (1996, 1999, 2001). In 2004 he published his translation of the "Secret History" with Brill; it was selected by "Choice" as Outstanding Academic Title (2005) and is now in its second edition. In 2007 he donated his personal library of around 6000 volumes to the [http://www.kuleuven.be/verbiest/Scheut%20Memorial%20Library.html Scheut Memorial Library] at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Currently de Rachewiltz is an emeritus Fellow in the Pacific an Asian History Division of the Australian National University. His research interests include the political and cultural history of China and Mongolia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, East-West political and cultural contacts, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and Sino-Mongolian philology generally.

Bibliography

*(ed. and trans.) The Secret History of the Mongols, Inner Asian Library, 7:1-2, 2nd ed., 2006.
*(ed. and trans.) The Secret History of the Mongols, Inner Asian Library, 7:1-2, 2004.
*“The Identification of Geographical Names in The Secret History of the Mongols,” Sino Asiatica: Papers dedicated to Professor Liu Ts’un-yan on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday, Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2002.
*“The Name of the Mongols in Asia and Europe : A Reappraisal,” Conférence internationale permanente des études altaiques : Chantilly, 20-24 juin 1994, 1997.
*The Mongolian Tanjur Version of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996.
*(with M. Wang, C.C. Hsiao and S. Rivers) Repertory of Proper Names in Yüan Literary Sources. SMC Publishing Inc., Taipei, 1988-1996.
*(commentaries; ed. with Anthony Schönbaum) Le material mongol Houa I I iu de Houng-ou (1389) by Antoine Moestart, 1977-1995.
*(with H.L. Chan, C.C. Hsiao and P.W. Geier, with the assistance of M. Wang) In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (1200-1300), Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1993.
*(with Ssanang Ssetsen, Chungtaidschi, and John Krueger) Erdeni-yin tobci [Precious Summary: a Mongolian Chronicle of 1662] , Australian National University: Faculty of Asian Studies, 1990-1991.
*The Third Chapter of Chos-kyi od-zer'sTtranslation of the Bodhicaryavatara : A Tentative Reconstruction, Instituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1988.
*“The Preclassical Mongolian Version of the Hsiao-ching,” Zentralasiatische Studien, 16, 7-109, 1982.
*Index to The Secret History of the Mongols,” Indiana University Publications Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 121, 1972.
*Prester John and Europe’s Discovery of East Asia, Australian National University Press, 1972.
*Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, Stanford University Press, 1971.
*“Personnel and Personalities in North China in the Early Mongol Period,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 9: 1-2, E. J. Brill, 1966.
*“The Hsi-yu lu by Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai,” Monumenta Serica, 21, 1-128, 1962.
*“Buddhist Idealist and Confucian Statesman,” Confucian Personalities, Stanford University Press, 1962.

References

*The Australian National University: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/dexri_pah.php
*Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Ferdinand Verbiest Institute http://www.kuleuven.be/verbiest/deRachewiltz/