Julian Shchutsky

Julian Konstantinovich Shchutsky (Russian: Юлиан Константинович Шуцкий, 11 August 1897, Ekaterinburg – February 18, 1938, Leningrad) was a famous Russian sinologist. In 1921 he finished the Saint Petersburg University and became a professor in 1935.

Education and scientific career

The father of Julian Shchutsky was of noble origin, he was of the House of Czartoryski, he worked as forestry scientist. The mother of Julian was a music teacher. Julian Shchutsky was the first translator of "The I Ching or Book of Changes”. He made the first translation of this classic Chinese book which later was translated into English and other European languages.^[1] Julian Shchutsky was a prominent polyglot, he translated from more than 16 languages.^[2][3]

Julian Shchutsky worked as a research scientist at the State Hermitage Museum in 1936-1937, he was Professor of the Leningrad Institute of Oriental Studies, Professor of the Leningrad State University in 1936-1937, a research scientist in the Asiatic Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1920-1937. He published more than 30 scientific research papers and books.^[4] Julian Shchutsky was given bibliographical responsibility for the Dauism and Alchemy portions of the Museum's new acquisitions. This led directly to his translation of the Bau Pudz, completed in 1922. He also did extensive translations from late Tang poetry, a field in which Alexeev had worked; some of the translations were published under Alexeev's editorship in 1923. Julian Shchutsky's Asian linguistic accomplishments also included Manchu. Shchutsky and Alexeev were among those who took on the special problem of the Chinese script as it presented itself in Russian context, and were involved with the question of romanizing Chinese. A special qualifying commission in 1924 made it possible for Julian Shchutsky to become an Assistant Professor in 1924, teaching at the University and also, from that same year, in the Institute of Modern Oriental Languages, where he introduced Cantonese alongside Mandarin Chinese, and gave the first courses in Vietnamese.^[5] From 1936 to 1937 he gave lecture course titled "Taology" to various student groups at the Saint Petersburg University.

During the Great Purge, in February 1938 Shchutsky was arrested. He was convicted by a list trial ("по списку") as a "Japanese spy" and executed.* ^[6]

Influence

Julian Shchutsky was influenced by his teachers sinologists Nikolai Iosifovich Konrad and Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Alekseyev. In 1923 he and his teacher Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Alekseyev published "The Antology of the Chinese Classical poetry of VII-IX centuries". One of Julian close friends was Cherubina de Gabriak, she influenced a lot on Julian's life and his ideology. Shortly before her death, he visited in Tashkent, where Cherubina de Gabriak influenced by Julian, wrote 21 poems attributed to Li Xiang Zi, a fictional Chinese poet exiled for his "belief in immortality of human spirit".^[7]

Books

• Shchutski, Julian. The I Ching, Book of Changes. Leningrad, 1937
• Shchutski, Julian. Researches on the I Ching. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Translated from the Russian by William MacDonald and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

References