Who is W. Ivanow?

W Ivanow (Vladimir Alexeyevich Ivanov) was a Russian Orientalist. His area of research and interest was Ismail-ism. He was a pioneer and has been credited with producing seminal books and articles.

According to Farhad Daftary [1]

In January 1931, the Aga Khan employed Ivanow on a permanent basis to research into the literature, history, and the teachings of the Ismailis. Henceforth, Ivanow rapidly found access to the private collections of Ismaili manuscripts held by the Nizari Ismailis of India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Persia and elsewhere. At the same time, he established scholarly contacts with Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee (1899-1981), the leading authority on Ismaili law, and a few other scholars of the Ismaili Bohra community of Bombay, who placed at his disposal their valuable family collections of Arabic Ismaili manuscripts dating to the Fatimid and Must‘ali Yamani phases of Ismaili history.

It was in Bombay of the early 1930s that these scholars, led by Ivanow, brought about a breakthrough in Ismaili studies. Through the network of his Ismaili connections, Ivanow managed to identify a large number of Ismaili texts, which he described in an annotated catalogue (A Guide to Ismaili Literature, London, 1933). This catalogue was the first pointer to the hitherto unknown richness and diversity of the literary heritage of the Ismailis and remained an indispensable research tool for several decades, providing the material for the advancement of Ismaili scholarship.

Some of his books and articles are

Ismaili tradition concerning the rise of the Fatimids (1942)
The Alleged Founder of Ismailism (1946)
Nāṣir-i Khusraw and Ismailism (1948)
Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī (translation)
The Importance of studying Ismailis

For a more detail biography, please see the article in the reference.

Reference
[1] Daftary, F., Vladmir Alekseevich Ivanow, Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, The Institute of Ismaili Studies