Arist Kunik

Kunik, Arist Aristovich


(Ernst Eduard Kunik). Born Oct. 2 (14), 1814, in Liegnitz, Silesia; died Jan. 18 (30), 1899, in St. Petersburg. Russian historian, philologist, ethnologist, and numismatist.

Kunik graduated from the University of Berlin and took up residence in Russia in 1839. In 1844 he was elected an adjunct member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences; in 1850 he was elected academician extraordinary. His main works were about Russian-Scandinavian and Russian-Byzantine relations and about the history of the relations between ancient Rus’ and the Turkic peoples (Petchenegs, Cuman, Torks, and others). Kunik also wrote works on comparative linguistics. In his chief work, Die Berufung…, Kunik developed the Norman theory of the origin of the ancient Russian state.


Die Berufung der schwedischen Rodsen durch die Finnen und Slawen: Eine Vorarbeit zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Russischen Staates, vols.1–2. St. Petersburg, 1844–45.
“O sravnitel’nom issledovanii slavianskikh i litovskikh narechii.” Zap. AN, vol. 4, book 1. St. Petersburg, 1863. (Coauthor.)


Vasil’evskii, V. G. [Nekrolog]. Vizantiiskii vremennik, 1899, vol. 6. (List of Kunik’s works.)
Lappo-Danilevskii, A. S. “Zapiska o trudakh A. A. Kunika i o sostoiavshikh pod ego nabliudeniem izdaniiakh, nachatykh pechataniem v akademicheskoi tipografii.” In Protokoly zasedanii Istoriko-filologi-cheskogo otdeleniia AN. [St. Petersburg] 1900.