Nikolai Aristov

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Nikolai Aleksandrovich Aristov (Russian Николай Александрович Аристов,1847 - ca 1903) was a Türkologist by calling, who utilized his experience, education, and access to official information he had as a fairly high-level official in the Turkestan czarist administration, to accumulate and analyze ethnographic and ethnic history of the Middle Asia peoples.

[edit] Service history

N.A.Aristov came from a staff-officer family. After graduation from the Kazan University with a degree in law sciences, the seventeen-year-old N.Aristov was sent to Tobolsk as an office assistant, then a provincial secretary and an auditor-bookkeeper of the provincial treasury office, earning 3rd degree St.. Stanislav's award in 1868, and the appointed a clerk of Jeti-su (Russian Semirechie, "Seven Rivers") provincial board and a special assignments official at the office of military governor. From tha time all his further service was connected with the [[Turkestan] general - governorship.

N.Aristov joined the vigorous activity of colonial authorities in the newly created Semirechie province within the Turkestani general - governorship, heading a Semirechie prison committee. In 1871 the forces of the Turkestani general - governorship started a military campaign against Kuldja Khanate, seized by the ruler of Uigur state Yetishar Yakub-bek. N.Aristov directly participated in the military actions, storming the city - fortress Kuldja, and received a 2nd degree St. Stanislav award. After the campagn, N.Aristov headed the Office of Kuldja affairs.

In 1872 N.Aristov was sent to Tashkent to work as the clerk in the commission drafting a "Practice of governorship in the Turkestani Governing Generalship". In 1873-1874 N.Aristov chaired a traditional congresses of Biys (Türkic for Princes of indigenous people) for resolution of land disputes in Semipalatinsk, Sergiopol districts and Semirechie province. <--!In Türkic nomenclature, at that time N.Aristov was a representative of the Yabgu/lesser Kagan (the Governor General appointed by the Great Kagan's/Czar Imperial Court), i.e. a lesser Yabgu or a Biy of Biys/Prince of Princes, and had a good chance to learn the intricacies of traditional conflict resolution in Türkic societies-->

From 1879 N.Aristov served as a permanent member and deputy chairman of a regional statistical committee. In 1881 N.Aristov again was involved in the revision of the "Practice of governorship in the Turkestani Governing Generalship". In 1881 N.Aristov was appointed Semirechie military governor. In 1882 N.Aristov was transferred to the Steppe Governing Generalship, and resigned from service the same year after 24 years 1 month and 6 days of active service, campaigns and battles. For his service N.Aristov was awarded with 5 medals.

[edit] Scientific work

In retirement N.Aristov lived in Saint Petersburg. N.Aristov started his real research work only after his retirement . But before that, in Turkestani and central periodicals from time to time were published his articles on local subjects, in connection with N.Aristov work as Turkestani official. In line of work in 1871 he authored an applied science "Note about land division in Semirechie province" preserved in the archive of the Turkestani Governing Generalship.

The first publications of the young scientist appeared in 1873 in a statistics year-book of the Turkestani territory illuminating "Kirgiz" (Russian colonial lingo at the time for Kazakh and Kirgiz people) agriculture and animal husbandry, their participation in the Uigur rebellion against China and in the East Turkestani events, and historical-geographical essay about Kipchaks [1].

N.Aristov was interested in geopolitics, origin, and ethnical structure of Türkic peoples. His scientific work concentrates on the history of Kazakh and Kirgiz people ("Kyrgyzes" in N.Aristov published terminology) from the most ancient Usuns to the end of the 19th century. N.Aristov set out on a life-long venture to complement the works of the German classic of historical-geographical determenism K.Ritter and his followers P.P.Semenov-Tianshansky and V.V.Grigoriev in Russia. N.Aristov collected materials for "addition" to Ritter with example of Usuns - Kyrgyzes and Tien Shan history. In 1889 N.Aristov published an article about Süan-Tszan ()travel across Western Turkestan 4 [2], a preparatory research for his fundamental work. The author modestly saw his work only as addition to the K.Ritter "Physical geography of Asia", and saw his task only in "collecting all data and news available on history of the western Tien Shan and its population in the European scientific literature and in translations into European languages of the eastern sources".

N.Aristov completed his capital research work in 1893, but received a negative conclusion of a censor N.I.Veselovsky that barred the path to publication. But N.Aristov continued to work on the history of the Türkic peoples, including Kazakhs/Kyrgyzes, and in 1894-1896 published two large articles about ethnic history of Türks in a central Russian magazine "Olden time alive" [3]; [4].

In 1898-1900 published articles and a book about bordering Afghani tribes, their struggle against British colonizers, and the Türkic situation in the Middle Asia [5], [6]. Probably, the last published work of N.Aristov was published in 1903 treatise on the historical-ethnographic theme of Türkic tribes and their ancestors in the article about Pamir [7].

N.Aristov's publications sparked enlivened interest and close attention of colleague scientists, and also jealous reactions, especially of Orientalist experts, like that of the Orientalist N.I.Veselovsky. Among N.Aristov's supporters were ethnographer A.N.Kharuzin with his endorsement of N.Aristov's opinion about Usuns as ancestors of Kazakhs/Kyrgyzes and Usun city Chigu on the Issyk Kul lake, the venerable Orientalist W.W.Bartold who called it the "work of a selfless researcher (who in addition does not belong to the officialdom of the science), written with full knowledge of the literature on the subject and obviously demanded several years of laborious work" [8]

N.Aristov's ethnographic research was appreciated by the scientific community of Saint Petersburg. N.Aristov was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical society, and in 1895 received a small Gold medal award in ethnography science. The ethnographic research of N.Aristov became at once rare books, today the present an unsurpassed primary source.


[edit] Bibliography

  1. ^ Aristov N.A. "Kipchak land (Historical-geographical essay)" // News of Historical-Philological Institute, No 1. - Nejin-Kiev, 1874
  2. ^ Aristov N.A. "Western Turkestan in the 7th century in the description of the Chinese traveler" // Turkestani Sheets, 1889
  3. ^ Aristov N.A. "Uncovering ethnic structure of Kirghiz-Kazaks of the Great Horde and Karakirgizes from genealogical legends and information on existing clan divisions and tamgas, and also historical data and incipient anthropological studies" // Olden time alive, Issue 3-4, 1894
  4. ^ Aristov N.A. "Ethnic structure of Türkic tribes and nations and information on their numbers" // Olden time alive, Issue 3-4, 1896
  5. ^ Aristov N.A. "Afghanistan and its population" // Olden time alive, No 3-4, 1898
  6. ^ "Anglo-Indian "Caucasus". England fight with Afghani border tribes", SPb., 1900
  7. ^ Aristov N.A. "Ethnic relation in the bordering countries of Pamir in ancient, mainly Chinese, historical sources. Ptolemy's information about Komeds and Sakas, their country and a road across it to the Sers" // Russian Anthropological Journal, No 1, 1903
  8. ^ Bartold W.W. "Works on history and philology of Türkic and Mongolian peoples", Vol. 5, Moscow, 1968, pp. 266-279

Biographical and bibliographical information is based on the introductory section of the publication "N.Aristov, "Usuns and Kyryzes, or Kara-Kyryzes", Bishkek, 2001"