Alexander Vostokov

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Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov (Russian: Александр Христофорович Востоков, 1781 - 1864) was one of the first Russian philologists and the greatest 19th-century authority on the Church Slavonic language.

He was born in Arensburg, Governorate of Livonia, and studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts. As a natural son of Baron von Osten-Sacken, he received the name Osteneck, which he later chose to render into Russian as Vostokov ("Ost," the German word for "east," translates to "vostok" in Russian). During his lifetime, he was known as a poet and translator, but it is his innovative studies of versification and comparative Slavonic grammars which proved most influential. In 1815, he joined the staff of the Imperial Public Library, where he discovered the most ancient dated book written in Slavonic vernacular, the so-called Ostromir Gospel. In 1841, Vostokov was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He also invented the name Svetlana.