Alexander von Staël-Holstein

Alexander Wilhelm Freiherr[1] Staël von Holstein (Chinese: 鋼和泰, 1 January 1877 in Testama manor, Livonia, Russian Empire – 16 March 1937 in Beiping, China) was a Baltic German aristocrat, Russian and Estonian orientalist, sinologist, and Sanskritologist specializing in Buddhist texts.

Related to Germaine de Staël's husband, the future baron was born in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire (present-day Estonia), in an aristocratic family (with widespread relations in other German Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, Sweden and Northern Germany) on New Year's Day.

The supervisor of both dissertations was Professor Richard Pischel, at that time the world's leading expert on Prakrit, the ancient form of Sanskrit, and long-time head of the "Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft", the German Orientalist Society.

During the following years, Baron de Stael traveled widely and studied with the best oriental scholars in Germany, England and India.

He started his academic career in 1909 when he was appointed assistant professor of Sanskrit in the University of St. Petersburg and the member of the Russian Committee for the Exploration of Central and Eastern Asia.