The History of One Personal Copy: Esper E. Ukhtomsky (1861–1921) — His life, His Buddhist Collection, and the Study of Buddhism in Russia

Abstract

The article focuses on the contribution of Esper E. Ukhtomsky, an outstanding collector of Buddhist sculpture and painting in pre-revolutionary Russia, to the study of Buddhist art. In addition to the main episodes of the biography, little covered earlier in research, the author examines how Ukhtomsky, who had the largest private Buddhist collection in the Russian Empire, contributed to the study of Buddhist art and collaborated with Albert Grunwedel, to whom he provided part of his collection, resulting in the famous Grunwedel’s work “The Mythology of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia”. Ukhtomsky himself published pamphlets in which he contributed to the clarification and understanding of Buddhism and the East by the reading public. In 1890–1891 Ukhtomsky was one of the retinues that accompanied the future Emperor Nicholas II, his brother and the Greek Prince on a journey to the East. It was Ukhtomsky who had the honor to write a trip report — “Journey to the East of His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Heir Tsesarevich” in three volumes. The article shows how Ukhtomsky worked with Asian material on the example of the book by Archbishop Nilus “Buddhism, Considered in Relation to Its Followers Living in Siberia” (1858), where Ukhtomsky left numerous marginalia. In his marginal notes, the author translated Mongolian terms into Russian, quoted major authors of Buddhist studies, and left his own reflections on what Archbishop Nilus, who was engaged in missionary activity in Siberia, managed to learn and understand.