Following Nikolay Przhevalsky

Readers and specialists of Russian libraries were told about one of the greatest Russian explorer who was in the spotlight of the Presidential Library’s webinar “Nikolay Przhevalsky and other scholars of Central Asia”. 

The total length of the routes of Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839–1888) through Central Asia exceeds 31 thousand kilometers! The result of the expeditions of the geographer was a rich zoological collection, including about 7.5 thousand exhibits. Przhevalsky has the honor of discovering several new species of animals: a wild camel, a puffer-eater bear, a wild horse, later named after the scientist and others. 

At the webinar, the Presidential Library’s specialists presented colleagues from the regions a lot of books, monographs, dissertations and archival materials from the electronic collections of the institution, concerning not only the expeditions of Nikolay Przhevalsky, but also other researchers from Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia and China: P. P Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (1827–1914), G. N. Potanin (1835–1920), V. A. Obruchev (1863–1956), M. V. Pevtsov (1843–1902), P. K. Kozlov (1863-1935).

The rarest materials are available in the electronic reading room on Senate Square, 3, in St. Petersburg, as well as its centers of remote access to the resources of the Presidential Library in all regions of Russia and in several foreign countries.

Among the documentary evidence, one can distinguish a biographical sketch of the famous historian and Przhevalsky’s friend N. F. Dubrovin "Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky" of 1890. The author mentions that this work was written “in order to preserve those traits and characteristics of the traveler’s character that over time can so easily be lost from the memory of his contemporaries”. The essay was based on more than 600 letters from comrades and friends collected by another close friend of Przhevalsky, Lieutenant General F. A. Feldman.

Nikolay Przhevalsky devoted 11 years of his life to long expeditions. In particular, he led a two-year expedition to the Ussuri Territory (1867–1869), and in the period from 1870 to 1885 he headed four expeditions to Central Asia. Nikolay Mikhailovich focused on his impressions in his works “Traveling in the Ussuri Territory. 1867–1869” and “Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts” (1875–1876), which brought the author world fame. Moreover, Przhevalsky was the first of the Europeans to penetrate into the deep region of Northern Tibet, to the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River.

In addition to travels, the researcher was engaged in a large literary work. For example, in December 1874, he wrote to his friend Ilya Fateev: “I work now for 10 hours a day, so even my eyes hurt, fortunately, such hard labor will end soon...” For the book “Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts”, the Russian Geographical Society awarded the author a Grand Gold Medal and high awards: rank lieutenant colonel and a life-long pension of 600 rubles annually. Przhevalsky also received the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society.

The results of Przhevalsky’s expeditions to the region of the Eastern Tian Shan and Tibet can be traced from the books “The Famous Russian Traveler Nikolay Przhevalsky” (1911) by F. A. Tarapygin on the portal of the Presidential Library and “From Zaisan through Hami to Tibet and to the headwaters of the Yellow River: 3 1st trip to the Center. Of Asia” (1883) of Przhevalsky himself in the electronic reading rooms of the Presidential Library.

In 1888, Przhevalsky’s latest work “From Kyakhta to the Origins of the Yellow River” was published. The same year, Przhevalsky fell ill with typhoid fever and died on November 1. A modest inscription is inscribed on the grave tombstone: “Traveler Nikolay Przhevalsky” as he bequeathed.

The electronic collections of the Presidential Library contain a large number of documents from the collection of the Russian Geographical Society, which Nikolay Przhevalsky belonged to. The Presidential Library and the Russian Geographical Society have been teaming up closely for many years. The digital collection of the national electronic repository provides information on the issues of Izvestia, Zapiski, and Vestniki of the regional departments of the Russian Geographical Society.

Svetlana Mangutova, the head of the Research Library of the Russian Geographical Society, who was present at the webinar, also told the participants that the Russian Geographical Society was established in August 1845, and in October of that year the first book was presented to the library of the society. Today it is one of the largest specialized libraries in Russia.

The webinar in the mode of video conferencing was attended by library specialists from different cities of our country.