Survey about the Catalog of Books from the Northern Cathedral (Beitang) Library Stored in the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia

Abstract

The article is devoted to one of the most difficult and still completely unsolved problems, connected with the reconstruction of the historical circumstances, followed to the Peking Jesuits library transition to the place of Russian Ecclesiastical Mission (in the first half of the 19th century), as well as its return by Russian missionaries and diplomat N. P. Ignatiev to the former owners (in 1860). Based on Russian archival data, on materials from Russian, Chinese and Western experts available on this subject, the author tries to establish the circumstances surrounding the events and to determine the time when they could occur. All known from the scientific literature versions of dating for the books transition to the Orthodox missionaries are brought together and critically evaluated. It is suggested what are the most possible time for these events to be happen. Participants of the events are also identified. Special attention is paid to the studying of the catalog of Jesuit books found by the author in the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire. For the first time in the Russian-language literature, the contents of this catalog are presented and substantively analyzed. By the way the author traces the fate of some books which were mentioned in the catalog but were not returned to the Jesuits as they were transferred to other Russian institutions. This article may be of some interest to those who study the history of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox missions in Beijing, as well as the problems of the relationship between them. The paper denotes issues that are still to be solved.