Ilya Shifman

Ilya Sholeimovich Shifman (Russian: Илья́ Шо́леймович Ши́фман (pseudonym Кораблёв; 1 June 1930, in Leningrad – 4 March 1990, in Leningrad) was a Soviet historian, Orientalist and Classics scholar. He was awarded the degree Doctor of Historical Sciences in 1973; he worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leningrad department.

Ilya Shifman studied Oriental studies at the Leningrad State University but in connection with the closure of the faculty moved to the faculty of history. From 1959 to 1960 he did post-graduate studies at the department of Ancient Greece and Rome of the Faculty of History of the Leningrad State University, concentrating on the Phoenician colonization of the Western Mediterranean area. Thereafter he worked at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as at the Leningrad State University. He mainly published works on Carthago and Phoenicia. Nevertheless, as Aleksandr Grushevoy notes, for Shifman personally, Oriental studies remained closer to the heart than Classics.[1]

From 1989 to 1990 he served as the first chairman of the Jewish cultural society in Leningrad.