According to the Highest command by the emperor of Nicholas I since July 24, 1844, the department of the Armenian language and literature headed by the associate professor Nikita L. Beroyev (Beroyean, 1795–1872) started its functioning in the Imperial St. Petersburg University. At the same time, the history of the teaching of the disciplines on Armenian studies at the oldest university of Russia started in 1818. Along with the first oriental languages – Arabian and Persian, the famous French orientalist Jean-Francois Demange (1789–1839) who headed the chair of the Arabic studies optionally conducted classes on Armenian until his resignation in 1822. Another no less famous French orientalist Marie-Felicite Brosset (1802–1880) in 1841 gave the optional lectures on Georgian and Armenian studies. The teaching of these and the other languages and literatures of the so-called «Bible and Muslim East» gave an impulse for formation of the university oriental studies in the capital of Russia. It became the basis for another Highest command (dated October 22, 1854) about transformation of the department of the oriental languages of the Faculty of History and Philology of the Imperial St. Petersburg University into exclusive Faculty of Oriental languages all over the Empire. The patriarch of the Russian school of Oriental studies Alexander K. (Mirza Muhammed Ali) Kazembek (1802–1870) headed it.