Sources of the Literary and Intellectual Landscape of Central Asian Khanates: Jura Bik’s First Library

Abstract

Bik, the ruler of the Kitab Domain under the Bukharan Emirate and later a general of the Russian army. The collection in question was confiscated as a war trophy following the capture of the city of Kitab by Russian troops in 1870 and donated by the first Governor-General of Turkestan, K.P. von Kaufman to the Imperial Public Library (now NLR) in St. Petersburg. An inventory of said collection (76 books), as well as the one assembled by the orientalist A.L. Kuhn during the same Shahrisabz expedition (24 books), was discovered in 2016 in the archives of the National Library of Russia. The current article briefly covers Jura Bik’s biography, provides a general outline of his collection, and sets out to identify the manuscripts listed in the mentioned inventory, based upon their published descriptions and the author’s own materials.