The Indian National Movement in the Works of A. E. Snesarev

Abstract

The subject of the study is the reflection of the activities of the Indian National Congress and the national movement in India in the works of A. E. Snesarev, a Russian and Soviet military commander and orientalist. The article examines the history of the study of the Indian national movement in Russia by A. E. Snesarev's predecessors in this field - I. P. Minaev and E. Lamansky (1870-1890s). The reasons for A. E. Snesarev's appeal to the development of socio-political and economic thought of British India are analyzed. Special attention is paid in the article to the work "India as the main factor in the Central Asian issue" and the analysis of the attitude of Indian society to British rule carried out in it. In the course of the study, the following conclusions were made: the national movement in India and the activities of the Indian National Congress were not the main subject of research by Russian orientalists in the pre-revolutionary period, however, interest in the development of socio-political thought in British India and the problems of the relationship of Indian society with the British colonial authorities intensified as the confrontation between the Russian and British empires in Central Asia intensified. Asia during the "Big Game", an example of which was the work of A. E. Snesarev, who, despite the limited range of available sources, was one of the first in Russian historiography to turn to the study of Indian nationalism.