Preparation and conduct of the first mongolian expedition G.N. Potanina (based on letters from 1874-1878)

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the first Mongolian expedition of the famous explorer of North and Central Asia Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin. With the help of letters, a historical reconstruction of Potanin's work on the preparation and conduct of the expedition was carried out. During the expedition, Potanin and his companions visited the Mongolian cities of Kobdo, Khami and Ulyasutai. As a result, valuable museum collections were collected, which are still kept in many Russian museums. Big correspondence G.N. Potanin covers the course of the expedition in detail, he wrote letters to I.I. Shishkin, A.S. Gatsiskom, N.M. Yadrintsev, I.I. Wilson, K.V. Lavrsky and others. Some of the letters were published in the publication “Letters of G.N. Potanin”, and the other part is stored in the Department of Manuscripts and Book Monuments of the Scientific Library of TSU. The author of the article notes that in the letters Potanin described in detail the preparatory work, which included reading scientific literature, visiting the herbarium, worked in the geological office under the guidance of Professor A.A. Foreigners. Potanin was one of the first to write that the Russians borrowed little from the Eastern countries, from China and Japan, and believed that trade relations should be developed. During the expedition, G.N. Potanin continued to communicate with his friends and like-minded people and generously shared with them the details of the expedition's everyday life, reported on his studies, the collection of folklore, and the difficulties faced by the expedition members. The most interesting data in the letters is about building relationships with the local population, about how travelers found an approach and persuaded the Chinese and Mongols to give information to researchers. As a result of the expedition, 20 astronomical points were identified, about 500 skins of mammals and birds and 5000 insect specimens, 1000 plant species and 200 rock samples were collected. Letters to G.N. Potanin are the most valuable historical source, due to the uniqueness of the information reported in them, many of the data given in the letters are not repeated in any other documents. The author of the article says that the appeal to Potanin's letters allows not only to describe the process of preparing and conducting the first Mongolian expedition, but also characterizes G.N. Potanin as a researcher of a wide scientific profile, as an organizer and leader of work on the study of Central Asia.