NİKİTA YAKOVLEVİÇ BİÇURİN (1777-1853)
Introducing the Chinese annals to the Western world and translating them into Western languages is very important for Turkish history. One of those who noticed these translations as early as the beginning of the 19th century and translated them is the Russian translator Priest Bichurin., who is of C...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Karadenīz araştırmaları no. 80; pp. 851 - 870 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | Turkish |
| Published: |
Ankara
Centre for Black Sea Studies
01-12-2023
Karadeniz Araştırmaları Merkezi Karadeniz Arastirmalari Merkezi (KaraM) |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Introducing the Chinese annals to the Western world and translating them into Western languages is very important for Turkish history. One of those who noticed these translations as early as the beginning of the 19th century and translated them is the Russian translator Priest Bichurin., who is of Chuvash origin, learned Chinese and Manchu during his missionary activity in China, at first he translated religious texts into Chinese and later wrote Chinese-Russian dictionaries. He ultimately translated the famous Kangxi Dictionary into Russian. After the dictionaries, a series of studies that Emperor Kangxi initiated on the different ethnic groups in his expanding lands after he conquered the Dzungarian Khanate attracted his attention and he began to translate these studies in order to introduce these ethnic groups to his own government and people. Moreover, these translations would be useful for the East Asian policy of Tsarist Russia. Despite being a cleric, Bichurin, who was a lover of literature, became one of the first sinologists in Russia, established the science of sinology in Russia, and trained students. The fact that there are translations from Tibetan among his works shows that the author has at least a general knowledge of Tibetan. During his years in Siberia and China, he traveled to many regions, and when he returned to his country, he took a few trips and took notes about these places. In his works, he did not use the name “Xinjiang” (New Borders), which was newly introduced by the Manchu government, but came up with the term "East Turkistan" and made this name go down in history. There are very few publications in Turkish about the author, who provided such important data to Turkish history. Within these articles, there is no clear information about which Chinese works the author's translations are. Chinese sources of the Manchu period are very important for us, the Sinologist historians, as they convey the politics of the period, the language, culture, and geography of non-Chinese nations. However, in Russian works, this information was not considered as a Sinologist. Therefore, in our study, we tried to give information about both the author's life and the Chinese works he translated. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1304-6918 |