Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/227

 position between Europe and Asia and by practical aims.

Oriental studies were inaugurated in Russia by Baier and the Orientalist Kehr, but made little advance until the publication of the Dictionary of all known Languages, in 1786 or 1787: this work proved to be of some use for Klaproth's Asia Polyglotta.

Soon after a centre of Oriental study arose in Kazan, where a representative of European scholarship was invited, especially in order to promote the practical knowledge of Oriental languages. Fraehn was very well versed in these; but he studied specially Mahomedan coins and Arabic writers, the accounts of ancient Russia, its inhabitants and their customs, given by Ibn Fozlan and others; he made, moreover, arrangements for the further development of these branches of knowledge in Russia. The Turkish and Tartar languages and texts, to which Fraehn had already paid some attention, were investigated, for instance, by Kazem-Beck. The self-taught enthusiast of Petrograd, Senkovsky, next stimulated the growing interest of Russian scholars in Oriental languages and literature; somewhat later Hvolson and Rosen and their pupil Kokovtsev continued with growing success the study of Hebrew and Arabic texts; the Mongolist Schmidt and the Turkish scholar Radloff made valuable contributions to the knowledge of the Mongol, Turkish and Tartar languages and folklore, and this was increased by the works of Velyaminov-Zernov, Kovalevsky and others.

Russian study of China owed much less to foreign influence. The foundation of the Orthodox Russian