Bergé Adolf

Bergé Adolf (1828-1886), Orientalist of French origin, scholar of the Caucasian studies, writer, researcher of early texts, historian. He was born in Petersburg. Prior to entering university, he mastered Russian, Persian and Turkish languages. In 1881, after graduating from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Petersburg University, A. Bergé was assigned to work in the Caucasus. In 1851 he was designated to the service at the Chancellery of M. Vorontsov, Russian Viceroy in the Caucasus. In 1857 he was appointed to the position of the superintendent of Tbilisi Public Library. In 1858 he was transferred to the Office of Special Duties; In 1859–64 he served as an editor of The Caucasian Calendar. Starting from 1864 he acted as the Chairman of the Research Commission of Caucasian Early Texts. A. Bergé was the member of The Asian Society of Paris and The French Oriental Society. He was the editor of a 10-volume edition of The Acts of the Commission for Early Texts, published in 1866–85. He had published the following noteworthy works: Accession of Georgia to Russia 1799–1831 (Русская старина, 1880, V.27), Brief Survey of Caucasian Highland Tribes (1885), Nino Alexsandrovna Griboedova, The Caucasus from the Archeographic Point of View (both works published in 1874). A. Bergé’s work Trip from Tbilisi to Mengrelia in 1862, which was published in Paris, is no less interesting than his other compositions. His service period at Tbilisi Public Library had been rather fruitful – he used to methodically enrich the library holdings with diverse publications.

Bergé had close scholarly contacts with Academician Marie Brosset. He collaborated with Dimitri Bakradze, Platon Ioseliani and other Georgian scholars. He greatly contributed to the development of cultural, scientific and literary links between the Caucasian and French peoples. In the last years of his life he was engaged in the work on the memoirs about the Caucasus and Persia, which were left unfinished.

A. Bergé died in Tbilisi.