David Marshall Lang

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David Marshall Lang (6 May 1924 – 20 March 1991), was a

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was one of the most productive British scholars who specialized in Georgian, Armenian and ancient Bulgarian
history.

Biography

Lang was born in Bromley and was educated at Monkton Combe School and St John’s College, Cambridge where he was a Major Scholar and later held a Fellowship. As a 20-year-old graduate, he was serving as an officer in Iran in 1944 when he was appointed as acting Vice-Consul in Tabriz, Iran. He met many of the city's Armenian people and leaders.

In 1949 he was the member of staff for the

Royal Asiatic Society of London
.

Lang visited Soviet Armenia three times during the 1960s and 1970s. He visited the Soviet Union in December 1963 and was allegedly recruited at that time by the KGB, according to archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, who copied KGB files in Moscow.[1] Mitrokhin also refers to Lang's career as an operative of English counter-intelligence. According to the dates in The Mitrokhin Archive, this would have taken place before Lang was 20 years old.

Historian

Alexi Inauri, the head of the Georgian KGB. Inauri may have persuaded Lang to publicly denounce anti-Soviet dissidents in Georgia.[2][3]

For a long time, Lang directed the Caucasian Studies Department at the University of London.[4] He lectured in Caucasian languages and history at Cambridge and various universities around the world.[5]

Selected bibliography

  • The Wisdom of Balahvar (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1957)
  • The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658-1832 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957)
  • First Russian Radical, Alexander Radischev, 1749-1802 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959)
  • A Modern History of Georgia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)
  • The Georgians (New York: Praeger, 1966)
  • Armenia: Cradle of Civilization (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970)
  • The Peoples of the Hills: Ancient Ararat and Caucasus by
    Charles Allen Burney
    and D.M. Lang (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971)
  • Bulgarians: From Pagan Times to the Ottoman Conquest (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976)
  • Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints (New York: Crestwood, 1976)
  • The Armenians: A People in Exile (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981)
  • Armenia and Karabagh: the Struggle for Unity (London: Minority Rights Group, 1991)

Notes

  1. ^ Armenians in Mitrokhin's KGB notes
  2. ISBN 978-1780230306
    .
  3. ^ Edgar, Robert (21 September 2017). "Donald Rayfield on Researching Georgia, Literature & Politics". Georgia Today. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
  4. ^ Georgian Literature in European Scholarship by Prof. Elguja Khintibidze
  5. ^ Library of Congress website

See also

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