Descriptions of the Baekdusan and the Surrounding Area in Russian and German Travel Accounts

Abstract

The paper studies the question of how Baekdusan and the surrounding area in the far north of the Korean peninsula are depicted in travel accounts written by Russian and German travelers at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The main focus of the research is on the travel account of the Russian writer and engineer Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovski (1852-1906) who travelled to Baekdusan in 1898. Garin-Mikhailovski described Baekdusan as well as the surrounding area in a multitude of ways?the geophysical conditions, geopolitical and security questions, the fauna and flora, the habitat of the Korean people, their living conditions, material and spiritual culture. Garin-Mikhailovski was well aware of the fact that the Koreans venerated Baekdusan as a holy mountain. In his eyes, the holiness of the mountain was related to the belief in the dragon of Lake Cheonji and to the general belief of Koreans in spirits of nature. In contrast, in the discussed travel accounts of Germans there is scarcely any information about Baekdusan, or even about the Korean border region at all. Unlike the Russians and the British, the German travellers were simply concerned with the geophysical conditions and the geopolitical position of Baekdusan, and the Amnok and Duman rivers.