Hyacinth (Bichurin)

Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin (Никита Яковлевич Бичурин) (29 August 1777 – 11 May 1853, St. Petersburg), better known under his archimandrite monastic name Hyacinth (sometimes rendered as Joacinth), or Iakinf (Иакинф), was one of the founding fathers of Russian Sinology. He translated many works from Chinese into Russian, which were then translated into other European languages.[1]

Portrait by
Nikolay Bestuzhev

Biography
Bichurin's map of Lhasa.

Bichurin was born in Akulevo to a Russian half-Chuvash priest named Iakov and Russian mother Akulina Stepanova. He studied at a church choir school in Sviiazhsk and later at the Kazan Theological Seminary.[2][3] He also studied Latin, Greek and French and his abilities were noticed by Archbishop Amvrosij Podobedov of the Russian Orthodox Church. He taught in Kazan Theological Seminary from 1799 and was anointed a monk in 1800 with the name of Iakinf or Hyacinth and tonsured, sent to promote Christianity in Beijing, where he spent the next 14 years. The genuine objects of his interest were Chinese history and language. He was forthwith accused of lacking religious zeal, and when he appeared in Irkutsk with his lover Natalia Petrova, some of his students reported him. Complaints over other behaviours considered inappropriate for a priest kept coming. After several changes in the Russian orthodox mission, the Synod declared Bichurin guilty on 4 September 1823, stripped him of his archimandrite monk rank and incarcerated him for life in the Valaam Monastery. Here he translated a number of ancient and medieval Chinese manuscripts, which had previously been unknown in Europe. In succeeding decades he published many volumes on Chinese and Mongolian history, geography, religion (including pioneering the study of Chinese Islam),[4] statistics, and agriculture. After the death of Tsar Alexander I and the rise of Nikolai I in 1825, some of Bichurin's friends helped obtain a royal pardon. They also suggested a position for him as an interpreter in the Foreign Ministry. Bichurin then moved to take up a position in St Petersburg. He was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1828 and also became an emeritus librarian at the Petersburg Public Library. In the same year he published a "Description of Tibet in the Modern Age". He continued to clash with the church authorities and refused promotions. Tsar Nikolai I intervened in 1832 and forbade him from refusing promotions and ordered him to live in the Alexander Nevskii monastery.[5]

It was Bichurin who came up with the idea for the name East Turkestan to replace the term "Chinese Turkestan" in 1829.[6] In 1835, he was awarded the Demidov Prize.

In 1837 he opened the first Chinese-language school in the Russian Empire in Kyakhta which helped improve trade between Russia and China. One of his students was Mikhail Shevelev, a tea trader and shipping entrepreneur. For his sinological contributions, he was elected to the Russian, German, and French Academies of Sciences.

See also

References
  1. Afinogenov, Gregory The Eye of the Tsar: Intelligence-Gathering and Geopolitics in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia 2016 Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
  2. Чувашская энциклопедия
  3. Культурное наследие Чувашии>
  4. Tuoheti, Alimu (2021). Islam in China: A History of European and American Scholarship. Gorgias Press LLC. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-4632-4329-6.
  5. Kim, Alexander (2013). "The life and works of N. Ia. Bichurin, a pioneer of Russian Sinology". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 66 (2): 163–178. doi:10.1556/AOrient.66.2013.2.3. ISSN 0001-6446. JSTOR 43282506.
  6. Bellér-Hann 2007, p. 34.

Sources
  • Bellér-Hann, Ildikó, ed. (2007). Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia (illustrated ed.). Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-0754670414. ISSN 1759-5290. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  • Popova, I. F.; Miasnikov, V. S. (2002), "N. Y. Bichurin as a Translator", Far Eastern Affairs, 30 (3): 113–127. Translation of an earlier paper by B. I. Pankratov, with introductory notes.
  • P. V. Denisov, Nikita Iakovich Bichurin: Ocherk zhizni i nachnoi deitel’nosti. Cheboksary, 1977.
  • L. N. Gumilev, M. F. Khvan (compilers), Sobranie svedenii po istoricheskoi geografii Vostochnoi i Sredinnoi Azii Cheboksary : Chuvashskoe Gos. Izd-vo, 1960.
  • N. IA. Bichurin (Iakinf), Sobranie svedenii o narodakh, obitavshikh v Srednei Azii v drevnie vremena / Собрание сведений о народах, обитавших в Средней Азии в древние времена, 3 volumes, Moscow : Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1950–1953. Originally published: St. Petersburg, 1851. Include map in 3 sheets: Karta k istorii narodov obitavshikh v Srednei Azii v drevnii︠a︡ vremena / Карта к истории народов обитавших в Средней Азии в древния времена
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