The Heritage of N.F. Katanov and the Prospects of its Study: Diaries and materials of his Travel to Siberia and Xinjiang (1889–1892) (Tuva–Khakassia–East Turkestan)

Abstract

In 2022, Russia celebrated the 160th anniversary birthday of the famous Khakass scholar, Turkologist, teacher, traveler and educator Nikolaj Fedorovich Katanov (18621922), who played a significant role in the study of the language and culture of the Tuvan people. Katanovs biography and research works allow us to study the origins and the contemporary state of development of the humanities. The biography and legacy of N.F. Katanov are of academic and especially scientific, educational, and humanistic interest. They reflect important trends in Oriental studies both in Russia and abroad, especially in Turkology. N.F. Katanovs doctoral dissertation A Study of the Uriankhai language laid the foundation for the scientific study of the Tuvan language, and his handwritten diaries and materials from the period of travel in Tuva, Khakassia, Xinjiang and Eastern Turkestan, entered the golden fund of Russian and European Turkology. His comprehensive studies of Turkic peoples of Eurasia at the turn of the century remain relevant and valuable at present. The article presents the research work on the heritage of N.F. Katanov scattered in archival centers of Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg and several foreign institutions. For the most part, the written materials (diaries, letters, unfinished manuscripts, etc.) of N.F. Katanov, revealed by the authors, bear the stamp of the era of the late 19th first decades of the 20th cc. and its socio-political life. Introduction into scientific circulation of N.F. Katanovs manuscripts allows us to identify the directions and features of his research work and to form an objective basis for the preparation of an academic biography of the classic of Russian Turkology.