Flittner, Natalia Davidovna

Born Sept. 14 (26), 1879, in St. Petersburg; died July 16, 1957, in Leningrad. Soviet historian, orientalist, and art historian. Doctor of historical sciences; professor (1940).

Flittner studied at the University of St. Petersburg from 1905 to 1909 under A. V. Prakhov, M. I. Rostovtsev, and B. A. Turaev. She studied in Berlin in 1909 and from 1912 to 1914 under E. Meyer, H. Schäfer, and A. Erman. She taught at the I. E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1919 to 1956, and in 1921 she began teaching at the University of Leningrad, where her students included M. E. Mat’e, I. M. D’iakonov, and B. B. Piotrovskii. From 1919 to 1950 she worked at the Hermitage.

Flittner’s works made a great contribution to Russian scholarship by paving the way for the study of the art of Southwest Asia. Her main works deal with the culture and art of the ancient East.