The Western Mongol World in the Early Eighteenth Century: Kalmyks and Oirats in Vasilis Vatatzēs’s Periēgētikon and His 1732 Map of Central Asia

Abstract

The article revolves around the information on the Kalmyks and Oirats contained in Vasilis Vatatzēs’s Periēgētikon (Voyages). Vatatzēs, a Greek-Ottoman merchant who travelled in Central Asia in the first half of the eighteenth century, supplemented his text with a map (engraved and published in 1732 in London) and produced a biography of Shah Nader of Persia, the founder of the short-lived Afsharid dynasty. Vatatzēs travelled along the caravan routes connecting the cities of southern Siberia with the Khanates of Central Asia, as demonstrated by a reconstruction of his itineraries, reaching as far as Bukhara. Focusing on the nations of Central Asia, Vatatzēs’s accounts and map provide much information regarding western Mongolic nations, starting with the Kalmyks in the Volga region and reaching as far as the Oirats, to the NW of China.