Russian Orientalism : Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration

by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye

• ISBN13: 9780300110630
• ISBN10: 0300110634
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2010-04-20
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

The West has been accused of seeing the East in a hostile and deprecatory light, as the legacy of nineteenth-century European imperialism. In this highly original and controversial book, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye examines Russian thinking about the Orient before the Revolution of 1917. Exploring the writings, poetry, and art of representative individuals including Catherine the Great, Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Borodin, and leading orientologists, Schimmelpenninck argues that the Russian Empire's bi-continental geography, its ambivalent relationship with the rest of Europe, and the complicated nature of its encounter with Asia have all resulted in a variegated and often surprisingly sympathetic understanding of the East among its people.

Author Biography

David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye is professor of Russian history at Brock University in Ontario. He is the author of Toward the Rising Sun: Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Note on Dates and Transliterations	p. xii
Introduction: What Is Russian Orientalism?	p. 1
The Forest and the Steppe	p. 12
The Petrine Dawn	p. 31
Catherinian Chinoiserie	p. 44
The Oriental Muse	p. 60
The Kazan School	p. 93
Missionary Orientology	p. 122
The Rise of the St. Petersburg School	p. 153
The Oriental Faculty	p. 171
The Exotic Self	p. 199
Conclusion: Asia in the Russian Mind	p. 224
Notes	p. 241
Index	p. 293
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