[KS] Remembering Frank Joseph Shulman in Moscow

[Aidan FC]

 What a lovely tribute to a great man. Thank you.
    On Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 08:37:21 BST, simbirtseva tanya <simtan1 at yandex.ru> wrote:   

 Dear colleagues, with deep sadness I learned that Frank Joseph Shulman, a distinguished bibliographer and orientalist, passed away on May 9. I express my condolences to his family, and to all of us as his contribution to the organization, preservation, and accessibility of Western-language scholarship on Asia cannot be exaggerated. I would like to say that Russian Korean studies scholars are greatly indebted to him. For the first time in history, he compiled an annotated bibliography of dissertations on Korea, written in Russian in 1939-2004, which revived many names from the oblivion and gave a general picture of what had been done. He included it in his epochal work “The First Century of Doctoral Dissertations on Korea, 1903-2004. An Annotated Bibliography of Studies in Western Languages Concerned in Their Entirety or in Part with Korea” and showed the Korean Studies in the USSR/Russia as an integral part of international scholarship. I hope that this epochal bibliography on which he worked for more than 25 years is published rather soon.I got a happy chance to work on this Russian dissertations’ bibliography under Frank’s guidance in 2007-2011 and our correspondence with him in my archive goes up to 546 pages. In his memory I want to repeat here my letter to him dated November 23, 2011, when I had to stop our work together because I got a new job in Korea.“Dear Frank. I feel honored that I have got an opportunity to work with you. I am impressed with your professionalism and knowledge, love for your work, persistence, accuracy, keen attention to every detail, your constant willingness to share your knowledge with others. You cherish every dissertation as a treasure, and it is difficult for you to delete any of them from your list. You search for positive things everywhere, although in some cases I doubted that they were present. I was inspired by your work. It is particularly important for me in this time of decline of my profession, when I can hardly see any prospects for the future. Due to your help, I prepared a lecture course “History of Korean studies in Russia and Abroad”. I think that I was the only lecturer in Russia, who informed her students of the Korean studies situation in the West (*my students and I published a book on it, see here: https://www.academia.edu/). Presently a digital library of dissertation abstracts (avtoreferat) on Korea is being created by my colleagues in Novosibirsk State University (www.rauk.ru*). This work is inspired by you. I can’t rehearse in one letter every case, when I profited from my work with you. Hope, I’ll write a review of your bibliography when it is published” (end of citation). *Note: The RAUK site is not functioning now but for 15 years (in 2009-2024) it had provided direct access to several dozens of dissertation abstracts – including that from Lev R. Kontsevich’s famous library.In 2020 I published a statistical review “65 years of Russian-Language Dissertations on Korea: 1939-2004 (A Statistical Review Based on a Forthcoming “Bibliography” by Frank Joseph Shulman)”. Proceedings of the Center for Korean Language and Culture. 20th Issue. St.-Petersburg University, 2021. URL: https://www.academia.edu/64599847/Frank offered his full support in the preparation of this review. The resume started with the words, which he wrote himself: “The first two dissertations on Korea in Russia were defended in 1939. From then on, the number of dissertations that dealt in their entirety or just in part with Korea steadily grew and by 2004 exceeded six hundred. This impressive figure has enabled Russia to rank as number four among the five top countries in Europe with scholars engaged in Korean Studies”. This inspiring information was not known before. I hope that it gives a new start to our scholarship. On behalf of all my colleagues in Russia I express our big gratitude to Frank Joseph Shulman for his invaluable contribution to the Russian Korean studies and for many years of his dedicated and persistent work in compiling a unique database that is invaluable the entire world of Korean studies. I also thank Frank for his friendship and the invaluable experience which I got from him and express my deep condolences to his family, colleagues and friends. Tatiana Simbirtseva, Ph.D in Korean Studies, Moscow.  
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