АЗИАТСКИЙ ДЕПАРТАМЕНТ ПРИ ГРИБОЕДОВЕ

Abstract

Institutional center of all Eastern policy of the Russian Empire, the Asiatic department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was formed in Saint Petersburg in 1819. The paper discusses the organization and staff of the department during the first decade of its existence. For the first time in this respect special attention is given to contemporaries of Griboedov who were working at the Asiatic department and contributed Russian culture. Griboedov was one of those men who were engaged in sophisticated diplomatic practice while working in the main region of interests of the Russian Empire's foreign policy in Asia in the considered period. It is shown that the placement of diplomatic missions as well as particularities in the work of the Educational department of Eastern languages, attached to the Asiatic department, reflected its main goals - to establish and maintain political and commercial contacts with the Middle East which was the region of the Eastern Question, the centre of confrontation between European countries. Soon after the tragic death of Griboedov in Tehran, the Asiatic department moved from the mansion on the English Embankment to a new house of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the east wing of the General Staff building on the Palace square. This architectural monument was transferred to the State Hermitage in 1988, and from now on the museum carries a memory of the institution's early years.