Political vs intellectual? Russia’s late Imperial archaeology and the Russian Cause

Abstract

Drawing on the writings of the founding representatives of late Imperial Russia’s Oriental studies, and documents from Russian archives, this article first traces Professor Nikolay Veselovsky’s (1848-1918) formative origins as an influential historian and archaeologist of the East on the national level. He came to be, as pointed out by Vasily Barthold (1869-1930), one of those scholars ferociously ‘counteracting the influence of the West through reliance on the study of the Orient’. The article then studies the impact of his educational background and of the nationalist discourses that were widespread among Russian intellectuals during Veselovsky’s academic formation and mature professional activities. The ongoing international debates on Russian Orientalism and the imperial practices of the time help re-examine the Veselovsky case from new theoretical perspectives and situate it within the broader methodological context of relationships between knowledge and power, academic institutions and state as well as political ideas and scholarship. This further allows us to investigate how Veselovsky’s controversial contribution to Russian scholarship was perceived by his contemporaries as well as the generations of Soviet and post-Soviet scholars, and to conclude by identifying the reasons for such perceptions and the impact of Veselovsky’s scholarship and activities.

Keywords:

• archaeology
• late Imperial Russia
• Orientalism
• Oriental studies
• USSR and Post-Soviet Russia

Acknowledgments

Support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is gratefully acknowledged. The author would also like to thank Vitalij Fastovskij for the organisation of the workshop ‘Russian “Orient”: Archaeology and Imperial Cultural Policy, 1856-1914’ (Giessen, 21 January 2022) where the initial plan for this research was presented. The author also expresses his wholehearted gratitude to Alexander Morrison, Touraj Atabaki, Sergey Abashin, Kayhan Nejad, and the anonymous reviewers for their help and invaluable comments on the initial draft of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 On the applied differences in the usage of the terms ‘Orientalist’, ‘Orientalism’, ‘Orientologist’ and ‘Orientology’ and their etymology see D. Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia: Orientalism in Diplomacy and Intelligence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), p.5. In the main text, the transliteration of Russian names is provided in its most regular form (Veselovsky instead of Veselovskii, Grigoriev instead of Grigor’ev, Vasily Barthold instead of Vasilii Bartol’d) whereas the Library of the Congress transliteration format is used for references for the sake of bibliographical conventions (Veselovskii, Grigor'ev, Vasilii Bartol’d).

2 N. Knight, ‘Grigor’ev in Orenburg, 1851–1862: Russian Orientalism in the Service of Empire?’ Slavic Review, Vol.59, No.1 (2000), pp.74–100; N. Knight, ‘On Russian Orientalism: A Response to Adeeb Khalid’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.1, No.4 (2000), pp.701–15; D. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); V. Tolz, ‘European, National, and (Anti-)Imperial: The Formation of Academic Oriental Studies in Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Russia’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.9, No.1 (2008), pp.53–82; Russia’s Own Orient: The Politics of Identity and Oriental Studies in the Late Imperial and Early Soviet Periods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia; D. Volkov, ‘Persian Studies and the Military in Late Imperial Russia: State Power in the Service of Knowledge?’ Iranian Studies, Vol.47, No.6 (2014), pp.915–32.

3 A. Khalid, ‘Russian History and the Debate over Orientalism’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.1, No.4 (2000), pp.691–99; A. Morrison, ‘“Applied Orientalism” in British India and Tsarist Turkestan’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.51, No.3 (2009), pp.619–47; S. Sabol, “The Touch of Civilization”: Comparing American and Russian Internal Colonization (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2017).

4 V. Bartol’d, ‘Vostok i russkaia nauka’ [The Orient and Russian scholarship], in Collection of Works, Vol. 9 (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), pp.537–40.

5 L. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.1.

6 Said’s Orientalism was only translated into Russian in 2006, and the book, in any form, had not been used in academic curricula in Russian universities until recently. D. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, ‘The Curious Fate of Edward Said in Russia’, Études de lettres, Vol.2, No.3 (2014), pp.81–94. See also V. Bobrovnikov, ‘Pochemu my marginaly: zametki na poliakh russkogo perevoda “Orientalisma” Edvarda Saida’ [Why We Are Marginals: Notes in the Margins of the Russian Translation of Edward Said's Orientalism], Ab Imperio, Vol.2 (2008), pp.325–44. The 2006 translation was flawed and loaded with political biases. The first conventionally academic Russian translation of Said’s Orientalism only appeared in Russia in 2021 (more than forty years after the initial publication of the book!) with the help of HSE University and its academics.

7 To be more precise, there are two main titles for scientists and scholars affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences, namely Academician (a full member) and Corresponding Member. Veselovsky was elected Corresponding Member shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, on 29 November 1914 (RAS, http://www.ras.ru/win/db/show_per.asp?P=.id-49864.ln-ru.dl-.pr-inf.uk-12, last accessed 1 August 2022).

8 On Professor Grigoriev’s activities see Knight, ‘Grigor’ev in Orenburg’. Also see a very detailed study, of more than four hundred pages, on Grigoriev’s life by Nikolay Veselovsky, Vasilii Vasil’evich Grigor’ev po ego pis’mam i trudam. 1816–1881 [Vasily Vasilievich Grigoriev according to his letters and works. 1816–1881] (St Petersburg: Tipografiia i Khromolitografiia A. Transheli, 1887).

9 V. Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka i istorik russkoi nauki’ [Veselovsky as a Researcher of the Orient and Historian of Russian Scholarship], In Zapiski vostochnogo otdeleniia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshestva, vol. 25 (1917–1920) [Notes of the Oriental Branch of the Russian Archaeological Society, volume 25, (1917–1920)] (St Petersburg: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1921), p.338.

10 I. Gerasimov, J. Kusber and A. Semyonov (eds), Empire Speaks Out: Languages of Rationalization and Self- Description in the Russian Empire (Boston: Brill, 2009); F. Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); A. Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture 1861–1917 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970); N. Krementsov, Stalinist Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).

11 Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture, pp.xiii–xiv, 5–14, 30–4; Graham, Science in Russia, p.2.

12 Knight, ‘Grigor’ev in Orenburg’.

13 E. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).

14 Khalid, ‘Russian History and the Debate over Orientalism’; Knight, ‘On Russian Orientalism’.

15 Knight, ‘On Russian Orientalism’, p.707.

16 Knight, ‘Grigor’ev in Orenburg’, p.81. See also a more detailed study in the discourses of late Imperial Russia’s Oriental studies: Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia.

17 A. Marshall, The Russian General Staff and Asia, 1800–1917 (London: Routledge, 2006).

18 Schimmelpenninck, Russian Orientalism.

19 Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, p.4.

20 Ibid.

21 B. Cordier, A. Fauve and J. Bosch (eds), European Handbook of Central Asian Studies: History, Politics & Societies (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2022); S. Gorshenina, Izobretenie kontsepta Srednei/Tsentral’noi Azii: mezhdu naukoi i geopolitikoi (Washington: Programma izucheniia Tsentral’nji Azii, Universitet Dzhordzha Vashingtona, 2019); S. Gorshenina, ‘Samarkand and Its Cultural Heritage: Perceptions and Persistence of the Russian Colonial Construction of Monuments’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.33, No.2 (2014), pp.246–69. P. Bornet and S. Gorshenina (eds), Orientalismes des marges: Éclairages à partir de l’Inde et de la Russie (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne, numéro spécial d’Études de Lettres, n° 2-3 (vol. 296), 2014). P.L. Kohl and C.F. Fawcett, ‘Archaeology in the Service of the State: Theoretical Considerations’, in P. Kohl and C. Fawcett (eds), Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp.4–17; and finally O. Bessmertnaya, ‘Magomet-Bek Hadjetlaché and the Muslim Question: Deceit, Trust, and Orientalism in Imperial Russia after 1905’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol.22, No.4 (2021), pp.697–727.

22 Michel Foucault (1926-1984) offers a concept of the manifold multi-vector relations of the power/knowledge nexus where power is exerted by all agents of this interplay towards each other: scholars, experts, institutions, discourses, state and knowledge itself. These relations are characterised by reciprocal productive multi-vector interaction between the knowledge, chasing new resources for self-reproduction and endowing its agents with new capacities, and the state, represented by its own practices, institutions and individuals (M. Foucault, ‘Two Lectures’ in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1980), p.98; J. Simons, Foucault and the Political (London: Routledge, 1995), p.82; S. Mills, Michel Foucault (London: Routledge, 2005), pp.33, 58). See also Foucault, The Courage of Truth: The Government of Self and Others (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); The Birth of Politics: Lecture at the Collège de France, 1978-1979 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977; The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Taylor and Francis, 2005); The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972).

23 N. Veselovsky, Baron Viktor Romanovich Rosen. Nekrolog [Baron Viktor Romanovich Rosen. Obituary] (St Petersburg: Senatskaia tipografiia, 1908), p.6.

24 Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka i istorik russkoi nauki’, p.342.

25 Ibid, p.345.

26 Ibid, p.352.

27 Ibid, p.353.

28 B.V. Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii otechestvennogo vostokovedeniia [Central Asia in Scholarly Heritage of Russian Orientology] (Tashkent: Fan, 1979).

29 Ibid, p.2.

30 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, pp.11–14.

31 N.A. Belova, ‘Nikolai Ivanovich Veselovskii ‒ vidnyi deiatel’ rossiiskoi gumanitarnoi nauki’ [Nikolay Ivanovich Veselovsky – an eminent scholar in Russian humanities] in V.M. Masson (ed.), Drevnie obshestva Kavkaza v epokhu paleometalla [Ancient Societies of the Caucasus in the Paleometallic Era] (St Petersburg: Institut istorii material’noi kul’tury AN RF, 1997), p.49; G.S. Lebedev, Istoriia otechestvennoi arkheologii, 1700–1917 [History of National Archaeology, 1700–1917] (St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo SPbGU, 1992), pp.237–40; G.V. Dluzhnevskaia, Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia v evropeiskoi chasti Rossii i na Kavkaze v 1859–1919 godakh [Archaeological Research in European Russia and the Caucasus in 1859–1919] (St Petersburg: LEMA, 2014), pp.68–72; N. Ikromov, ‘Issledovaniia N.I. Veselovskogo v Ashte’ [N.I. Veselovsky’s research activities in Ashta], Uchenye zapiski Khudzhandskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Learned Notes of the Khudzhand State University], Vol.5, No.33 (2012), pp.121–28.

32 I. Zaytsev, ‘Tiurkskie i persidskie rukopisi i dokumenty kollektsii N.I. Veselovskogo v Rossiiskom gosudarstvennom archive literatury i iskusstva’ [Turkic and Persian Manuscripts and Documents in the Collection of N.I. Veselovsky at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow)], Istoriia, Vol.11, No.5(91) (2020). https://history.jes.su/s207987840010382-9-1/ (last accessed 1 February 2022).

33 The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), f. 118, op. 1, d. 490, 500, 500a.

34 A small part of his collections is preserved at the British Museum. On the archaeologist, historian, numismatist and General-Major-Engineer Alexander Berthie de la Garde see ‘Bert’e Delagard Aleksandr L’vovich’ Okrytaia arkheologiia (2022). https://xn–80aajhqhktebqcvc2c9e6cj.xn–p1ai/individuals/%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%B5-%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4-%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80-%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 (last accessed 1 February 2022).

35 I. Zaytsev, ‘“Teper’ stali ko mne nosit’ vsio bolee i bolee tatarskikh veshei”: krymskotatarskaia kollektsiia A.L. Bert’e-Delagarda v ego pis’makh N.I. Veselovskomu (1907–1913)’ [They Began to Bring Me More and More Tatar Things…’: Alexander Berthier de la Garde Crimean Tatar Collection in His Letters to Nikolay Veselovsky (1907–1913)], Istoriia, Vol.12, No.110 (2021). https://history.jes.su/s207987840018496-4-1/ (last accessed 1 February 2020).

36 The Archive of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St Petersburg), f. 18, op. 1, d. 250; the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), f. 118, op. 1, d. 1074.

37 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, p.10.

38 A.Iu. Iakubovskii, Iz istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Samarkanda. Vol. 2 (Leningrad: Trudy otdela Vostoka Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 1940), p.290.

39 Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.77–78.

40 See the special journal issues containing a series of highly relevant articles on the topic: ‘Dossier: Archéologie(s) en situation colonial 1: Paradigmes et situations comparées’, Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie, No.126 (2011); ‘Dossier: Archéologie(s) en situation colonial 2: Acteurs, institutions, devenirs’, Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie, No.128 (2012). See also Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, p.80.

41 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, p.10. For the documents on Veselovsky’s excavations in the south of the Russian Empire, including the peninsula of Crimea, see the archival collections in the Institute of the History of Material Culture at the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation for the period of 1887-1917: Fond 1, delo 1, delo 2, delo 14, delo 15, delo 48, delo 22, delo 52, delo 60, delo 65, delo 70, delo 85, delo 93, delo 52, delo 204, delo 96, delo 103.

42 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasil’evich Grogor’ev, p.237.

43 Ibid, p.113.

44 Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.346. See also Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, pp.237–38.

45 Ibid, p.344.

46 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, p.27.

47 N.S. Lykoshin, Ocherk arkheologicheskikh izyskanii v Turkestanskom krae do uchrezhdeniia Turkestanskogo kruzhka liubitilei arkheologii [An Overview of Archaeological Research in the Turkestan Region Prior to the establishment of the Turkestan Circle of Amateurs of Archaeology] (Tashkent: 1896), p.58. See also V.V. Vereshagin, Turkestan: Etiudy s natury [Turkestan: Life Sketches] (St Petersburg: 1874).

48 V.V. Grigoriev, Ob otnoshenii Rossii k Vostoku [On Russia’s Attitude to the Orient] (Odessa: Rishel’evskii Litsei, 1840).

49 G.V. Dluzhnevskaia, Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia v evropeiskoi chasti Rossii i na Kavkaze, p.124.

50 A.V. Shamanaev, ‘N.P. Kondakov i VI arkheologicheskii s’ezd v Odesse (1884)’ [N.P. Kondakov i the 6^th Archaeological Congress in Odessa (1884)], Nauchnye vedomosti, Vol.1, No.96 (2011), pp.71–76 (76).

51 Lebedev, Istoriia otechestvennoi arkheologii, p.158. Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, pp.69–73.

52 Lebedev, Istoriia otechestvennoi arkheologii, p.157.

53 Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.349. N. Pechenkin, ‘Pamiati N.I. Veselovskogo’ [In memory of Veselovsky], ZVORAO, Vol.XXV (1921), p.357. See also Dluzhnevskaia, Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia, p.124.

54 Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshestva (IRGO), Vol. 18 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia V. Bezobrazova i comp., 1882), p.79.

55 Ibid.

56 A.Iu. Iakubovskii, Iz istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Samarkanda. Vol. 2 (Leningrad: Trudy otdela Vostoka Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 1940), p.289.

57 Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.351.

58 A. Bustanov, ‘Mezhdu natsiei i artefaktom: vostochnaia arkheologiia v Sovetskom Kazakhstane’ [Between Nation and an Artefact: Oriental Archaeology in Soviet Kazakhstan], in V.O. Bobrovnikov, I.V. Gerasimov, S.V. Glebov, A.P. Raplunovskii, M.B. Mogil’ner and A.M. Semenov (eds), Musul’mane v novoi imperskoi istorii [Muslims in Modern Imperial History] (Moscow: Sadra, 2017), p.44.

59 A.N. Kononov, ‘Vostochyi fakul’tet Leningradskogo universiteta’ [Oriental Faculty of the Leningrad University], in Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo universiteta [Learned Notes of the Leningrad University], Vol.296, No.13 (1960), pp.3–31 (21).

60 Bustanov, ‘Mezhdu natsiei i artefaktom: vostochnaia arkheologiia v Sovetskom Kazakhstane’, p.38.

61 V.V. Bartol’d, ‘Pamiati V.A. Zhukovskogo’ [In Memory of V.A. Zhukovsky], ZVORAO, Vol.25 (1921), p.405.

62 Ibid. See also V.A. Zhukovsky, Drevnosti Zakaspiiskogo kraia: Razvaliny starogo Merva [Antiquities of the Transcaspian Region: Ruins of the old Merv] (St Petersburg, 1894).

63 On the establishment and importance of this Committee see Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.77–78.

64 V.V. Bartol’d, ‘K voprosu ob arkheologicheskikh issledovaniiakh v Turkestane’ [On the Issue of Archaeological Research in Turkestan], Turkestanskie vedomosti [Turkestan Gazette], Vol.7 (1894); B.V. Lunin, ‘K stoletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia V.L. Viatkina’ [To the Centenary of V.L. Viatkin’s Birth], Sovetskaia arkheologiia [Soviet Archaeology], No.3 (1969), pp.3–10 (5).

65 S.F. Oldenburg, Russkaia Turkestanskaia ekspeditsiia 1909-1910 goda, snariazhennaia po Vysochaishemu poveleniiu sostoiashim pod Vysochaishim Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva pokrovitel’stvom Russkim Komitetom dlia izucheniia Srednei i Vostochnoi Azii [Russian Turkestan Expedition Sent by the Russian Committee under His Majesty's Supreme Patronage for the Study of Central and Eastern Asia] (St Petersburg: Izdanie Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1914). See also M.D. Bukharin, ‘Russkie Turkestanskie ekspeditsii 1909-1910 i 1914-1915 gg.: itogi i perspektivy izucheniia arkhivnykh materialov’ [Russian Turkestan Expeditions: Results and Prospects of the Study of Archival Materials], Vestnik RFFI: Gumanitarnyie i obshestvennyie nauki, No.1 (2021), pp.9–22; M.D. Bukharin, ‘The “Maîtres” of Archaeology in Eastern Turkestan: Divide et Impera’, in Svetlana Gorshenina, Philippe Bornet, Michel E. Fuchs and Claude Rapin (eds), “Masters” and “Natives”: Digging the Others’ Past (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), pp.85–102; I.F. Popova, ‘Pervaia Russkaia Turkestanskaia ekspeditsiia S.F. Ol’denburga (1909-1910)’ [The First Russian Expedition of S.F. Oldenburg to Turkestan], in I.F. Popova (ed.), Rossiiskie ekspeditsii v Tsentral’nuiu Aziiu v kontse XIX-nachale XX veka [Russian Expeditions to Central Asia at the Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Century] (St Petersburg, Slaviia, 2008), pp.148–57. See also a recent outstanding publication in five volumes containing valuable archival documents related to Russian archaeological excavations in Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia: M.D. Bukharin (ed.), Vostochnyi Turkestan i Mongoliia: Istoriia izucheniia v kontse XIX – pervoi treti XX veka [Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia: The History of the Study in the Late Nineteenth – the First Third of the Twentieth Century] (Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 2018-2020), in 5 volumes.

66 N.I. Platonova, Istoriia arkheologicheskoi mysli v Rossii: Vtoraia polovina XIX – pervaia tret’ XX veka [The History of Archaeological Thought in Russia: The Second Half of the Nineteenth – the First Third of the Twentieth Century] (St Petersburg: Nestor-istoriia, 2010), pp.226–32.

67 N.I. Veselovskii, ‘Kurgany Kubanskoi oblasti v period rimskogo vladychestva na severnom Kavkaze’ [Mounds in the Kuban Region during the Roman Rule in the Northern Caucasus], in Trudy 12 Arkheologicheskogo s’ezda v Khar’kove v 1902 godu [The Works of the 12^th Archaeological Congress in Kharkov in 1902], Vol. 1 (Moscow: Tovarishestvo tipografii A.I. Mamontova, 1905), p.373. See also Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.352; ‘Nikolai Ivanovich Veselovsky: Nekrolog’, p.646.

68 See, for example: Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.64–69, 223–24; Volkov, ‘Persian Studies and the Military in Late Imperial Russia’, pp.915–32; Volkov, ‘Rupture or Continuity? The Organizational Set-Up of Russian and Soviet Oriental Studies before and after 1917’, Iranian Studies, Vol.48, No.5 (2015), pp.695–712.

69 Schimmelpenninck, Russian Orientalism; Knight, ‘On Russian Orientalism’; Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, and others.

70 Veselovsky, Vasilii Vasil’evich Grogor’ev po ego pis’mam i trudam, p.33.

71 Letter to the Minister by M. Vladislavlev, dated 9 April 1888, in Materialy dlia istorii fakul’teta vostochnykh iazykov, 1865–1901 [Materials on the History of the Faculty of Oriental Languages, 1865–1901], Vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1906), p.185.

72 Letter to the Minister by Academician Dorn, 21 March 1855, in Materialy dlia istorii fakul’teta vostochnykh iazykov, 1851–1864 [Materials on the History of the Faculty of Oriental Languages, 1865–1901], Vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1905), pp.188–89 [The Pаrliamеnt of England will be struck by a thunderbolt upon learning that the Afghan language is publicly taught in Russia]; [they tremble at the thought of Russia getting a foothold there]. See also N.I. Veselovsky, Svedeniia ob ofitsial’nom prepodavanii vostochnykh iazykov v Rossii [Information about the Official Teaching of Eastern Languages in Russia] (St Petersburg: Tipografiia brat. Panteleevykh, 1879), p.156.

73 V.V. Bartol’d, Materialy dlia istorii fakul’teta vostochnykh iazykov: Obzor deiatel’nosti fakul’teta, 1855–1905 [Materials for the History of the Faculty of Oriental Languages: A Survey of the Activities of the Faculty, 1855–1905], Vol. 4 (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1909), p.117.

74 Veselovsky, Vasilii Vasil’evich Grogor’ev, p.113. See also S. Gorshenina, Izobretenie kontsepta Srednei/Tsentral’noi Azii: mezhdu naukoi i geopolitikoi [The Invention of the Concept of Central/Middle Asia: between Scholarship and Geopolitics] (Washington, DC: Central Asia Program, 2019), p.70; ‘Samarkand and Its Cultural Heritage: Perceptions and Persistence of the Russian Colonial Construction of Monuments’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.33, No.2 (2014), pp.246–69.

75 See, for example, P.L. Kohl, M. Kozelsky and N. Ben-Yehuda (eds), Selective Remembrances: Archaeology in the Construction, Commemoration, and Consecration of National Pasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); G.G. Fagan (ed.), Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public (London: Routledge, 2006); P.L. Kohl and C. Fawcett (eds), Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). A very pertinent in this sense project is ongoing now, supervised by Svetlana Gorshenina: The Russian-Soviet Archaeology in Colonial and Postcolonial Situation: The Case of Uzbekistan (1860–2010). https://www.svetlana-gorshenina.net/archeologie (last accessed 10 Janury 2023).

76 Bustanov, ‘Mezhdu natsiei i artefaktom’, pp.46–47; V.V. Bartol’d, ‘Neskol’ko slov ob ariiskoi kul’ture’ [Several Words about Arian Culture], in Protokoly turkestanskogo kruzhka liubitelei arkheologii [Protocols of the Turkestan Circle of Amateurs of Archaeology], Vol.1 (1896), p.16.

77 V.V. Bartol’d, ‘Zadachi russkogo vostokovedeniia v Turkestane’ [The Tasks of Russian Orientology in Turkestan], in Collection of Works, Vol. 9 (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), p.529.

78 L. Poliakov, The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe (London: Chatto and Windus: Heinemann for Sussex University Press, 1984), p.257, as quoted by Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, p.61.

79 Turkestanskii kruzhok liubitelei arkheologii [Turkestan Circle of Amateurs of Archaeology]. For details of its activities, see B.V. Lunin, Iz istorii russkogo vostokovedeniia i arkheologii v Turkestane [Of Russian Orientology and archaeology in Turkestan] (Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk Uzbekskoi SSR, 1958).

80 Gorshenina, Izobretenie kontsepta Srednei/Tsentral’noi Azii, pp.69–70.

81 Bartol’d, ‘Zadachi russkogo vostokovedeniia v Turkestane’, p.29. See also Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, pp.60–61.

82 ‘O meste budushego arkheologicheskogo s’ezda’ [On the Place of the Forthcoming Archaeological Congress] Protokoly tashkentskogo kruzhka liubitelei arkheologii, Vol.6 (1899), pp.99–103.

83 Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.65–66. See also Rossiiskii arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI) [Russian Archive of Literature and Arts], f. 118, op. 1, d. 523 (Veselovsky’s report ‘Russkoe delo v Srednei Azii’).

84 On the use of this notion by Russians, see Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, p.182.

85 On Ostroumov’s activities and his enmity against Islam, see Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.100–01.

86 V. Tolz, ‘Orientalism, Nationalism, and Ethnic Diversity in Late Imperial Russia’, The Historical Review, Vol.48, No.1 (2005), p.144; Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, pp.56, 101.

87 Bustanov, ‘Mezhdu natsiei i artefaktom’, pp.45–46.

88 B. Farmakovskii, ‘N.I. Veselovskii - arkheolog’ [N.I. Veselovsky – As an Archaeologist], ZVORAO, Vol.XXV (1921), p.383. A.Iu. Iakubovskii, Iz istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Samarkanda, p.299. Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, pp.11, 61–68. See also Bustanov, ‘Mezhdu natsiei i artefaktom’, p.45.

89 N.I. Veselovskii, ‘Retsenziia N.I. Grodekova: Kirgizy i karakirgizy Syr-dar’inskoi oblasti’ [A Review of N.I. Grodekov: The Kyrgyz and the Karakyrgyz of the Syr-Daria Region], ZVORAO, Vol.5 (1890–1891), p.118.

90 Ibid. Veselovsky inherited such an attitude from Grigoriev (see Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, p.268).

91 N.I. Veselovskii, ‘Retsenziia E. Smirnova Syr-dar’inskaia oblast’ [A Review of E. Smirnov: The Syr-Daria Region], ZVORAO, Vol.2 (1887–1888), p.279. See also Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, pp.237–38.

92 Bartol’d, ‘Vostok i russkaia nauka’, p.537; Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.354. For a detailed study of the term inorodtsy, see also J. Slocum, ‘Who, and When, Were the Inorodtsy? The Evolution of the Category of “Aliens” in Imperial Russia’, Russian Review, Vol.57, No.2 (1998), pp.173–90.

93 Bartol’d, ‘N.I. Veselovskii kak issledovatel’ Vostoka’, p.354. See also A.Iu. Iakubovskii, Ocherki iz istorii russkogo vostokovedeniia [Essays on the History of Russian Orientology] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk SSSR, 1953), pp.66–67.

94 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, p.246.

95 Grigoriev, Ob otnoshenii Rossii k Vostoku. Particularly see pp.7–10.

96 Osobyi put’ razvitiia.

97 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, pp.101–02, 228, 246.

98 Ibid, pp.104–06, 249–51, 261–63. For more details on Grigoriev’s activities in various capacities, including acting as agent-provocateur, see Iakubovskii, Ocherki iz istorii russkogo vostokovedeniia, pp.48–52; and A. Etkind, Internal Colonization (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011), pp.164–69.

99 Grigoriev, Ob otnoshenii Rossii k Vostoku, p.9.

100 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, p.27.

101 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, pp.96, 101–02.

102 Bartol’d, ‘Veselovskii kak issledovatel’, pp.342, 344.

103 Bartol’d, ‘Otchet o kamandirovke v Turkestan’ [A Report about Secondment to Turkestan], Collection of Works, Vol. 8 (Moscow: Nauka, 1973), p.388.

104 Artemy V. Artsikhovsky, ‘Puti preodoleniia N.Ia. Marra v arkheologii’ [The Ways of Overcoming N.Ia. Marr in Archaeology], in Protiv vul’garizatsii marksizma v arkheologii [Against the Vulgarisation of Marxism in Archaeology] (Moscow: Nauka, 1953), pp.54–55.

105 See Iakubovskii, Iz istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Samarkanda; Iakubovskii, Ocherki iz istorii russkogo vostokovedeniia; V.A. Shishkin, ‘K istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Samarkanda’ [To the History of the Archaeological Study of Samarkand], in Afrasiab: Afrasiabskaia kompleksnaia arkheologicheskaia ekspeditsiia [Afrasiab: The Afrasiab Complex Archaeological Expedition], Vol. 1 (Tashkent: Fan, 1969), pp.3–121.

106 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, pp.15–17.

107 M. Rodionov, ‘Profiles under Pressure: Orientalists in Petrograd/Leningrad, 1918–1956’, in M. Kemper and S. Conermann (eds), The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp.47–57.

108 Tolz, Russia’s Own Orient, p.15. See also V. Tolz, Russian Academicians and the Revolution: Combining Professionalism and Politics (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp.89–107.

109 Volkov, Russia’s Turn to Persia, pp.145–48.

110 Lunin, Sredniaia Aziia v nauchnom nasledii, p.15.

111 Veselovskii, Vasilii Vasilievich Grigoriev, p.114.

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The Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.