43
China, so that they can study Chinese and Mongolian. This is chronologically
the first step of the Russian state start the education of Eastern languages.
When the seat of the Siberian Metropolitan (in Tobolsk) had become empty,
state planned to send “two or three monks, who were not very old, well
educated and able to learn Chinese and Mongolian languages” together with
the new metropolitan bishop. Later on, these monks would use that
information to study Chinese and Mongolian religious doctrines and spread
the Orthodox belief in those peoples, and definitely they would do that for
the benefit of the Russian commercial and political interest.
93
The monks
couldn’t arrive at Beijing until 1716, but that was the beginning of the
permanent Russian religious mission in the Chinese capital.
94
In Peter the Great’s period, on 16 of April 1702, a decree (ukas) was
proclaimed about inviting foreigners from the West.
95
On the same day, the
tsar took Japanese Denbey, whom Atlasov had met in his expedition to
Kamchatka, from Siberian post to artillery service for studying Russian
language and script. When Denbey learned Russian language and script, he
was going to start teaching Japanese language and alphabet to four or five
people. However, this project of Peter was not implemented. Although it is
argued in some sources, that there was an attempt to build the first private
93
Bartold, op. cit., in note 4, p. 277.
94
Frye, op. cit., in note 31, pp. 34–35. Until the Treaty of Kyakhta between the two
powers, no constant embassy was opened.
95
Among the Orientalists invited at the time of Peter the Great, G. J. Ker and V. M.
Bakunin can be mentioned. They worked on translating the documents collected in
the East.
44
school to teach Eastern languages in Russia,
96
Bartold asserts that there is
no reference to that school in any source in the 18
th
century
97
. There hasn’t
been a systematic teaching of Japanese, until 1736, when it was decided to
start this program under the Academy of Sciences.
At the time of Peter the Great, Islam and its holy book, Quran were
also studied. Although the first encounter of Europe with the Quran was in
the 12
th
century through the translation of some of its sections to Latin by
British Robert Retensi, first translation of the Quran in Russia was made
under the order of Peter the Great, in 1716. However, also in this case, as it
has already been mentioned, the translation was not made directly from an
Eastern language but from de Rier’s French text, which was written in 1647.
Additionally, Dimitri Cantemir, who was appointed as the Ottoman ruler to
from Moldavia and settled in Russia in 1711, wrote upon the Peter’s request,
his book “The System or Situation of Mohammad’s Religion”, published in St.
Petersburg, in 1722.
98
In spite of its primitiveness and intolerant style, this
work was not inferior in genuineness in its information and in its faithful
interpretations of the facts when compared with the works written about
Islam in Western Europe in the same period.
99
96
Smirnov, op. cit., in note 28, p. 25.
97
Bartold, op. cit., in note 4, p. 389.
98
Vasiliy Nikitich Ermuratskiy. Dmirtiy Kantemir. Kishinev: Kartya Moldovenyaske,
1983, pp. 62-96. A. I. Babiy. Dmitriy Kantemir. Moskva: Mysl, 1984, pp. 87-90.
99
Smirnov, op. cit., in note 28, p. 27.
45
During his journey to Europe, Peter didn’t comprehend European
culture with its different aspects, but he bought collections, books,
instruments, tools, arms and natural precious stones and sent them to
Russia. So, in 1714, a well-known exhibition hall was founded, known first
as the “Tsar’s Cabinet”, then “Peter’s Kunstkammer” and finally only the
“Kunstkammer”.
100
With the help of academic expeditions in the 18
th
century, rare objects from all parts of the world, except Australia, were
collected and Kunstkammer was so improved that it became unmatched in
Europe.
The year Cantemir published his book, Peter the Great went on a
military expedition to Iran in 1722. During this expedition, he visited the city
of Bulgar, took measures to protect the ruins and ordered his translators to
copy and translate the Tatar and Armenian inscriptions.
101
During the
expedition to Iran, the collection of Eastern manuscripts was created, and
those manuscripts were brought to Sankt Petersburg afterwards. Because
there were no trained Russian cadres in translation of these documents the
Tatar and foreign orientalists were employed.
100
D. E. Bertels. Vvedenie. In Aziatskiy Muzei – Leningradskoe Otdelenie Instituta
Vostokovedenija AN SSSR. Izdatelstvo “Hauka”. Glavnaja Redaktsija Vostochnoi
Literatury. Moskva 1972. p. 6.
101
Ibid., p. 7.
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