China books Christmas calendar (4)

We continue with minority languages today, but since it is the Second Sunday of Advent (将临期第二主日 or 降临第二主日) we bring out a major work, Ivan Ilyich Zakharov’s (Иван Ильич Захаров 1816-1885) Complete Manchu-Russian Dictionary (Полный Маньчжурско-Русскій Словарь), originally published 1875 in Saint Petersburg, but our copy is the 1939 Peking edition. Zakharov was a Russian diplomat, working in the Peking Orthodox Mission 1839-1850. He assisted with the 1851 Treaty of Kulja (Ghulja غۇلجا, Yining 伊宁, in Ili Prefecture 伊犁) 中俄伊犁塔爾巴哈臺通商章程 which opened for border trade. Zakharov later became a professor of Manchu studies at Saint Petersburg Imperial University (now Saint Petersburg State University).

Zakharov’s dictionary was one of the first Manchu dictionaries available to a Western audience. Manchu studies declined as its own field after the fall of the Qing dynasty, but has seen a revival in recent years as knowledge of Manchu language is relevant for Qing historical studies. Manchu studies never really developed in Sweden, but thanks to maybe Bernhard Karlgren (although he left Gothenburg in 1939 when this book was published), or more likely one of his students we own a copy. The National Library of Sweden does not have the Complete Manchu-Russian Dictionary, but copies are kept at British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin among a handful other libraries in Europe. If you want to learn more about Manchu I suggest to contact the Manchu Studies Group. Manchu is only spoken as first language by a handful of people today, but thousands have been learning it as a second or third language in China in recent years.

China books Christmas calendar (3)

The theme for this ”calendar” was supposed to be ”China books”, so why choose a Mongolian book today? Well, Mongolian is one of the larger minority languages in China, and this book is written and published by Angcinku̇u̇ 安柯钦夫 (1929-2013), a Mongolian author from Ulanhad (Chifeng 赤峰, earlier known as Ju Ud League 昭乌达盟) in Inner Mongolia. Angcinku̇u̇ was a CPC member and held high positions in the Chinese Writers Association 中国作家协会. He seems to have mostly written short stories, and the book of the day is a short story collection, 北国新姿 in Chinese or ”Northern New Look” in my approximate translation. It was published in 1963 and how it ended up in our collection in Gothenburg is not quite clear, but I suspect my predecessors at the University of Gothenburg, Olov Bertil Anderson (1920-1993) or Tor Ulving (1916-2014), both polyglots. Ulving knew dozens of languages, and he compiled his own ”Lhasa-Swedish” (Tibetan-Swedish) dictionary, never published but with its original index card word collection still kept at the department.

I cannot say much about the content of the book as I don’t know Mongolian, but the short details in Chinese do tell us a few interesting things. The translator Ding Erjia 丁尔甲 is difficult to trace, but I have found out that he or she must have been one of the more important translators from Mongolian to Chinese in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, in 1976 Ding Erjia translated the 18th century Chinese classic 红楼梦 Dream of the Red Chamber into Mongolian together with a handful other translators.

The street name of the publisher is also interesting, Xiluofengjie 西落凤街 in Hohhot 呼和浩特. This is the street where the Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1839-1908) spent some of her teenage years. Cixi was born in Beijing, but followed her father Huizheng 惠征 when he was transferred to serve as military magistrate 兵备道 in what was then Guisui 归绥. So much from a random Mongolian book in Gothenburg – and I found that it sells for 200 yuan RMB on Chinese antiquarian book site 孔夫子旧书网…

China books Christmas calendar (2)

Author A. R. Colquhoun and Qing general and diplomat Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 ”discussing affairs”…

The image above is intriguing, and one really wonders what ”affairs” the two gentlemen were discussing. Archibald Ross Colquhoun 柯樂洪 (1848-1914) was a British explorer who was also the first Administrator of Southern Rhodesia (current Zimbabwe) 1890-1894. After this he returned to the UK, but in the second half of the 1890s travelled to Asia, and became The Times correspondent in China, travelling extensively around the country. He wrote several books about China and travelling in Asia, one of them the book of the day, China in Transformation, first edition 1898. Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) was a towering figure in late Qing China, being central for stopping the Taiping Rebellion, holding high level posts in the Qing government, and just before his death signing the Boxer Protocol. Li toured Russia, Europe and North America in 1896.

Besides the value and interest of the book as such, it has also had an interesting owner. The book is autographed by Helmer Key (1864-1939), who was a Swedish literary scholar and also the editor-in-chief of Svenska Dagbladet (1897-1934), the leading conservative newspaper in Sweden. Key was also the chair of the Swedish Publicists’ Association 1917-1920. Helmer Key had an interest in international affairs, likely with a colonial perspective, and published a longer article in 1900 called ”China and its commercial future” (”Kina och dess kommersiella framtid”). Most likely Colquhoun’s book was one of his major sources. Helmer Key was related to the feminist author and educationalist Ellen Key, and he was also the model for the character ”Dr Doncker” in Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel The Serious Game (Den allvarsamma leken).

China books Christmas calendar (1)

China map from R M Martin’s China, Political, Commercial, and Social (1847)

Xi Jinping in his third term as party leader, massive covid protests, the recent death of Jiang Zemin… so much happening in China – and I make a ”Christmas calendar” about old books? Well, why not? Every day at work I walk past our department collection of China related books, and there are so many intriguing objects there. Physical books are today too often seen as only taking up space, gathering dust and so on, but only in our small collection at the Department of Languages and Literatures in Gothenburg you can find many both valuable and fascinating volumes. I have randomly chosen 24 books to present here until Christmas, just for fun.

Today, 1 December 2022, I have chosen Robert Montgomery Martin’s (1801-1868) China, Political, Commercial, and Social in two volumes, first edition from 1847. Martin was born in Dublin and in his twenties travelled to Ceylon, South Africa, and Madagascar, and also stayed over a year in Australia. Back in England he became a writer, taking an interest in colonial affairs, and was a founding member of The Royal Statistical Society in 1834. The same year Martin published the major work The History of the British Colonies in five volumes, in 1837 expanded to ten volumes. In 1844 he was appointed as the first Colonial Treasurer 庫務司 of Hong Kong. He resigned already in 1845 after a conflict with the governor Sir John Francis Davis about opium revenues, and returned to England. In today’s book China, Political, Commercial, and Social there is a section on opium that was also published separately. Apparently Martin in his reports as Colonial Treasurer argued that Hong Kong as a colony was ”doomed to failure”.

Martin is not very well-known today, but the maps from these two volumes sometimes appear on the market, and the complete book in good condition is quite sought after. The full text of the two volumes is available online.