Isaac Jacob Schmidt (Russian: Яков Иванович (Исаак Якоб) Шмидт; 25 October [O.S.

His family lost all their wealth in an economic crisis following Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands, but this gave Isaak Jakob Schmidt the impetus to begin a trading apprenticeship and learn several languages.

In 1798 he accepted an offer by his church to work at their Sarepta post on the Volga River, emigrated to Russia and adopted Russian citizenship.

In 1812, Julius Klaproth's Dissertation on language and script of the Uighurs (Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren) became the subject of a long-standing dispute.

Until his death in 1847, Schmidt published a multitude of works on Mongolian and Tibetan studies, and became a member of a number of different European academic societies.