Nikolai Przhevalsky

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Nikolai Przhevalsky
Nikolai Przhevalsky

Nikolai Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (IPA: [prʐɛ'valʲskʲi]), also spelled Przewalski and Prjevalsky (Russian: Никола́й Миха́йлович Пржева́льский; April 12 [O.S. 31 March] 1839—November 1 [O.S. 20 October] 1888 ), was a Russian geographer and explorer of Central and Eastern Asia. Although he never reached his final goal, Lhasa in Tibet, he significantly contributed to European knowledge on Central Asia and was the first known European to discover the only extant species of wild horse.[1]

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[edit] Biography

Przhevalsky was born in Smolensk into a noble Ruthenian family, and studied there and at the military academy in St. Petersburg. In 1864, he became a geography teacher at the military school in Warsaw. In 1867, he was sent to Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia.

The same year Przhevalsky undertook his first serious expedition to explore the basin of the Ussuri River, a tributary of the Amur. Przhevalksy published the diary of the expedition as "Travels in the Ussuri Region, 1867-69."

In the following years he made four journeys to Central Asia:

  • 1870–1873 from Kyakhta he crossed the Gobi desert to Peking, then exploring the upper Yangtze (Chang Jiang), and in 1872 crossing into Tibet;
  • 1876–1877 travelling through Eastern Turkestan he visited what he believed to be lake Lop Nor, which had reportedly not been visited by any European since Marco Polo. It is, however, likely that Johan Gustaf Renat had been there more than a hundred years earlier;[2]
  • 1879–1880 via Hami and through the Qaidam basin to lake Koko Nor. Then over the Tian Shan mountains into Tibet to within 260 km of Lhasa before being turned back by Tibetan officials;
  • 1883–1885 from Kyakhta across the Gobi to Alashan and the eastern Tian Shan mountains, turning back at the Yangtze. Then back to Koko Nor, and westwards to Khotan and Lake Issyk Kul.

The results of these expanded journeys opened a new era for the study of geography in Europe as well as the studies of the fauna and flora of this area that was relatively unknown to his Western contemporaries. Among other things he reported on the wild population of Bactrian Camels as well as the Przewalski's Horse and Przewalski's Gazelle named after him in many European languages.

Przhevalsky died of typhus during his fifth journey at Karakol on the shore of lake Issyk-Kul in present day Kyrgyzstan. The Tsar immediately changed the name of the town to Przhevalsk. There are monuments to him there and in St. Petersburg.

Przhevalsky's writings include Mongolia, the Tangut Country (1875) and From Kulja, Across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879). Less than a year after his death, Nikolay Yadrintsev (who succeeded Przhevalsky at the head of his expedition) discovered the remains of Genghis Khan's capital Karakorum.

Przhevalsky's work was continued by his young disciple Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov.

Monument to Nikolai Przhevalski in Saint Petersburg
Monument to Nikolai Przhevalski in Saint Petersburg

[edit] Przhevalsky and the Russian imperialism

Przhevalsky's books on Central Asia feature his disdain for the Oriental - particularly, the Chinese - civilization. Przhevalsky portrayed the Chinese as cowardly and lazy, and in all respects inferior to the "European civilization".[3] He argued that Imperial China's hold of its northern territories, in particular Xinjiang and Mongolia, was very weak and uncertain, and openly called for Russia's annexation of bits and pieces of China's territory.[4]

For this reason, Przhevalsky is not well regarded in the Chinese historiography.[citation needed] These views of the Russian explorer were excised when his books were re-printed in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s.[citation needed]

[edit] Przhevalsky and Stalin

There is an urban legend that Joseph Stalin was an illegitimate son of Nikolai Przhevalski [5] [6]. However there are no records of Przhevalsky visiting Georgia.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hellemans, Alexander; Bryan Bunch (1988). The Timetables of Science. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 304. ISBN 0671621300. 
  2. ^ August Strindberg, "En svensk karta över Lop-nor och Tarimbäckenet" (in Swedish)
  3. ^ See, e.g. Nikolai Przhevalskii, "Mongolia, The Tangut Country and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet", two volumes, translated by E. Delmar Morgan with introduction and notes by Colonel Henry Yule (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1876, vol. 2, p. 24.
  4. ^ David Schimmelpenninck Van Der Oye, "Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan" (DeKalb, Il: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), p. 34
  5. ^ Alexander Portnov Great pseudonym of Joseph Przhevalsky (Russian)
  6. ^ Thoughts after the exhibition or who are you, Joseph Stalin

[edit] External links

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