Historical origins of academic orientalism in russia
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To My Grandfather Küçük brahim... Dedem Küçük brahim’e...
vii ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I wish to thank the supervisor of this thesis, Assistant Prof. Dr. Recep Boztemur, for his continuous support and generous assistance from the beginning to the end of this study. His valuable comments had been my guidelines throughout my forceful study. I also desire to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. senbike Togan, who initially inspired me to study history. I am grateful to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Samet Bağçe and Dr. Erdoğan Yıldırım, who have contributed to this study with their precious comments. I also want to thank to Prof. Dr. Akif Farzaliev and Prof. Dr. Viktor Guzev for their guidance on the resources in St. Petersburg’s and Prof. DR. Mikhail Meyer who gave me an opportunity to study in the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow University with one-month internship. I would also like to thank Dr. Leyla Tağızade who taught me Russian and helped me when I needed her guidance. I want to express my special thanks to my officemates, Deniz Yalçın Akyürek and Emre Gürbüz, who have spared my time and made everything easier for me during my hardest times. I thank to my cousin Aydın, my friends Kara Erdal, Volkan, Serkan, Göngür, Kurtuluş and Çağdaş for their continuous support and encouragement. I also wish to acknowledge my deepest gratitude to my parents. They were always there for me when I needed.
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLAGIARISM…………………………………………………………………….………………………. iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….……………………….. iv ÖZ……………………………………………………………………………..……………………………… v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………...……………………. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………..…………………….. viii CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………...……………………. 1 2 RUSSIA’S INTERACTION WITH THE EAST: COMMERCIAL AND MILITARY ORIENTALISM…………………………………………………………………….. 10
2.1 Early Relations with Eastern Peoples…………………………………………. 10
2.2. The Mongol Invasion and the Russian Military Confrontation….. 17 3 RELIGIOUS AND BEGINNING OF THE ACADEMIC ORIENTALISM ……. 24
3.1 Russian Expansion into Central Asia and Siberia………………………. 24 3.2 The Orthodox Church and Russian Religious Expansion…………… 29
3.3 The Development of Translation Works…………………………………….. 32 3.4 Diplomatic Activities and Russian Orientalism …………………………. 34
3.5 Orientalism at the Time of Peter the Great……………………………….. 37 3.6 Oriental Studies After Peter the Great ……………………………………… 49 6. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………….…………………….. 61 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 67
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION Sincerity is the belief that we are telling the truth. However, who can be sure of that? Meşa Selimoviç 1
Russia is not only in Europe, but also in Asia; because the Russian is not only a European, but also an Asiatic. Not only that: in our coming destiny, perhaps it is precisely Asia that represents our main way out… Dostoevsky 2
The well-known Russian Orientalist Vasili Vladimirovich Bartold writes in his book Istoriya Izuchyeniya Vostoka v Yevrope i Rossii 3 dated 1911 how the European perception of the history of East changed over time and that there was no effort on how to conduct scientific research on the East by means of the same methods used in Western history studies. 4 Over the ‘universality of history’ Bartold argues that this only implies the history of Western societies and not the history of Eastern societies even in the 19 th
1 Meşa Selimoviç. Derviş Ve Ölüm. stanbul: Can Yayınları, 1988, p. 14. 2 F. M. Dostoyevsky. Polnoye Sobraniye Sochinyeniy. Cankt-Peterburg: 1896. vol. 21: 513–523. 3 The title of his work in English can be translated as “History of the Study of East in Europe and Russia”. 4 Vasiliy Vladimirovich Bartold. Sochineniya. Tom IX: Raboty Po Istorii Vostokovedeniya. Izdatelstvo “Nauka” Glavnaya Redaktsiya Vostochnoy Literatury. Moskva: 1977 p. 206. 2 “ Understanding the history of East has become difficult due to lack of information and biased attitudes of the European scholars. The Europeans, under the influence of the rising superiority of the European civilization since the 17
th century, looked down upon the people of the East. ” 5
These claims sound as if they were stated after the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism 6 , which was written more than 70 years later. However, Bartold seems to be aware of both the East itself and the East as perceived as ‘the Other’ by the West. Although Bartold argues that this perception and attitude of the West goes as back as 17 th century, it is especially the 18 th and 19 th centuries when the Europeans view themselves as superior. 7
While Bartold has been accepted as one of the cornerstones in oriental studies, there is need for finding a different term to express Orientalism. Such a need is due to the numerous negative meanings that have been connatated with the term ‘Orientalism’ over time.
About 50 years ago, the academic disciplines that studied the East or the Eastern societies were called in general as ‘Orientalism’ and the people working in these fields were called ‘Orientalists’. However, in order to become an ‘Orientalist’ that individual needed to be able to read various works in their original language, conduct comparative studies, and analyze
5 Ibid., p. 227. 6 Edward Said. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. 7 Ortaylı, lber. "Joseph Hammer Ve Osmanlı Tarihçiliği." Gelenekten Geleceğe. stanbul: Ufuk Kitapları, 2005, p. 31. Yüklə 485,57 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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