Western Regions (Xi Yu) in the Works by N. Bichurin (1777–1853)

Abstract

The works by the well-known Russian scholar N. Bichurin (1777–1853) (Iakinf) were the first to open the real significance in the world history of the vast geographic area of Central Asia, called Western Regions (Xi Yu) in the Chinese sources, and provided a basis for its’ further fundamental research and practical study. This region was of a key geopolitical interest for the Chinese empires and was at the main vector line of the external policy of China for many centuries. The major work by N. Bichurin on the historical geography of the Western Regions became “Description of Dzungaria and Western Turkestan”, which included translations from the main Chinese sources on the subject, as “History of the Early Han Dynasty”, “Record of What One Sees and Hears in the Western Regions”, and the official geographic corpus “A Сomplete Description of the Great Qing Empire”. Bichurin introduced for the academic world a lot of data on history, administration and ethnography of the peoples living in the Western Regions and also became the first scholar, who made a comparative linguistic analysis of many toponyms making use of the data not only in Chinese, but also in Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan and Uighur languages. The necessity to republish with the updated scholarly apparatus the translations and research works by N. Bichurin on historical geography of the Central Asia, remains a topical issue up to our days, as due to this the scientists may focus their attention on the issues, raised by N. Bichurin, which has not received sufficient attention, and will contribute to the restoration of the priority of Russian oriental studies in a number of fields.