During the 2005-2006 academic year, the Faculty of Oriental Studies of St. Petersburg State University celebrated its 150th anniversary. Many prominent figures of Russian Oriental studies have worked here and continue to do so. Over the years of its existence, it has trained a large number of specialists who actively participated in the formation and development of various branches of Russian Oriental studies. One of the most significant events in the history of the faculty was the participation of its students in the creation of the first higher educational institution in the region in the Far East at the end of the XIX century - the Eastern Institute, designed to train practical orientalists. In 2009, the Institute will celebrate its 110th anniversary. And then, in 1899, one of the leading professors of the Faculty of Oriental Languages of the Imperial St. Petersburg University, the Mongol scholar Alexey Matveyevich Pozdneev, arrived in Vladivostok to work there, along with a glorious cohort of recent graduates of the faculty - N. V. Kuner, G. V. Podstavin, A.V. Rudakov... All of them fulfilled the task assigned to them with honor: the outpost of Russian Oriental studies in the East of Russia was established and successfully began its fruitful activity. Among them was P. P. Schmidt.

Pyotr Petrovich Schmidt was born on December 13, 1869 in the manor of Pekshi in the Lissan parish of the Livonia province and was baptized in the church of the Ranneburg Latin Lutheran parish by Pastor Firgur on the 28th of the same month. His father is a peasant named Peter Schmidt (Smitter, Schmitter), and his mother is Lena, nee Zauska [TsGIA SPb, d. 28710, l. 7]. The upbringing of young Peter Schmidt was greatly influenced by his nanny, a simple Latvian woman. She instilled in him an interest and love for his native folklore and folk traditions. In the spring of 1890. Peter Schmidt received a matriculation certificate from the Riga Provincial Gymnasium and in June of the same year was accepted to the History and Philology Department of the Imperial Moscow University and listened to lectures there during the autumn half-year of 1890 and spring 1891. " During his stay at the University, Schmidt behaved very well, was not found guilty of anything reprehensible, and There are no obstacles to its transfer to St. Petersburg University from Moscow University. Schmidt motivates his application for transfer to St. Petersburg University with a desire to study Sino-Manchu-Mongolian literature " [TsGIA SPb, 28710, l. 2].

Obviously, the initial choice of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow State University was made by Peter Schmidt quite deliberately. It can be assumed that at that time he was going to pay the main attention to the study of Indo-European linguistics. However, already in the second (spring) semester of the 1890-1891 academic year, he changed his mind and decided to get an Oriental studies education, which in those years was best delivered at St. Petersburg University. About this

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the following archive document indicates: "To His Excellency the Rector of the Imperial Saint Petersburg University

student of the Faculty of Philology

Imperial Moscow

Peter Schmidt University

A request.

I humbly request Your Excellency to enroll me as a student of the Imperial St. Petersburg University's Faculty of Oriental Languages in the Sino-Manchu-Mongolian department.

My documents were sent by the Imperial Moscow University.

August 16, 1891. P. Schmidt. "[TsGIA SPb., d. 28710, p. 1].

Being enrolled in the Faculty of Oriental Languages, Peter Schmidt started studying with great interest. He studied Chinese with acad. V. P. Vasiliev, professors D. A. Peshurov, S. Georgievsky, A. O. Ivanovsky, teachers Gao Yin-qi (spoken language), Yoshibumi Kurono (Chinese calligraphy), Manchu language - with V. P. Vasiliev and A. O. Ivanovsky, Mongolian language - with professors K. F. Golstunsky and A. M. Pozdneev, lectures on the history of the East attended by corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences N. I. Veselovsky. While maintaining an interest in Indo-European linguistics, he also studied Lithuanian under a major Baltic language specialist, Professor E. A. Voltaire. He was also still interested in the legal sciences, and he took a number of courses in various branches of law. He studied international law under Professor F. F. Martens, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, State law under M. I. Sveshnikov, history of Roman law under A. V. Efimov, history of Russian Law under V. I. Sergeevich, Encyclopedia of Law under S. A. Bershadsky, political economy under P. I. Georgievsky, and studied English at Turner's [TsGIA SPb., d. 28710, l. 8-38].

Peter Schmidt studied very successfully. Teaching was always easy for him from early childhood. It is known that he started school late, but he succeeded in the phase: in two years he completed a four-year course. At the university, he not only showed good academic performance, but also managed to do scientific work. Thus, in 1895, Pyotr Schmidt and A. Belchenko were awarded silver medals for their essay on "The Fate of the Ming Dynasty in Southern China" (Skachkov, 1977, p.272). He was interested in language, literature, history, ethnography, folklore studies, and religious studies. He was particularly good at learning languages. Thus, in 1895, he received a 5 in Mongolian and Kalmyk languages from Professor K. F. Golstunsky, a 5 in Manchu literature and Chinese literature from Privatdozent A. I. Ivanov, and a 5 in Mongolian from Professor A. M. Pozdneev [TsGIA SPb., d.15689, l. 11].

In April 1896, Peter Schmidt graduated from the university and received a certificate of graduation from this educational institution, which confirmed that he, being enrolled in the Sino-Manchu-Mongolian category of the Faculty of Oriental Languages in 1891, attended courses on Chinese literature, Chinese history, the Manchu language, the history of Manchu literature, the Mongolian language, and the history of Chinese literature. Mongolian literature, the Kalmyk dialect, the general course of Oriental history, the history of the Eastern part of Central Asia, the Lithuanian language, the history of Roman law, the encyclopedia of law, state law, international law, political economy and English, was tested from the German language [TsGIA SPb., d. 28710, l. 45].

In the year of his graduation, on September 8, 1896, Peter Schmidt married Maria Jaeger, the daughter of a local innkeeper. The timing appears to be for

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The reason for their marriage was largely due to the fact that Pyotr Petrovich Schmidt, who had completed a university course, was recommended for a trip to China. And naturally, as a married man, it was more convenient and prestigious for him to come to this eastern country. There is a claim in the literature that after successfully graduating from the University, P. P. Schmidt was placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire [Sem, 1978, p.101; Kocheshkov, 1999, p. 55]. It is quite possible that he and his colleague A.V. Rudakov were in Beijing under the supervision of the Russian diplomatic mission, but the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire of the Russian Foreign Ministry, in response to my request, reported that "no documents on P. P. Schmidt were found in the archive"1.

P. P. Schmidt and A. V. Rudakov were sent to China to improve their knowledge of China and the Chinese language. Initially, by the decision of the Faculty of Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University, they were left at the University to prepare for the professorship, but then the Ministry of National Education of Russia instructed them to prepare for work at the Department of Chinese and Manchu Languages in Vladivostok. In China, Pyotr Petrovich very diligently systematically studied the Manchu language and studied dialects of the Chinese language. He also taught Russian at Peking University, which opened in May 1898. In Beijing, P. P. Schmidt published his first scientific work, which indicated his special interest in phonetic problems [Schmidt, 1898]. Like his colleague and friend A.V. Rudakov, he paid great attention to collecting literature in various Eastern languages, primarily Chinese and Manchu. In Beijing, the Schmidts had a son, Pavel. Here, all Russian citizens, including the Schmidts, experienced difficult and life-threatening events related to the" Boxer uprising", although only with the beginning of its second one.

Autumn of 1899 found P. P. Schmidt and his family in Vladivostok. On October 21, the opening ceremony of the Eastern Institute, the first higher education institution in the Far East, took place in a solemn atmosphere. Pyotr Petrovich, of course, took part in this act and immediately began teaching [Izvestiya Vostochnogo Instituta, 1900, p. 4]. 12, 14; Khokhlov, 2001, pp. 98-118]. From the first days of his life in Vladivostok, he began to devote a lot of time to scientific research. In Vladivostok, his works are published one after another: "Lectures on the Chinese Language for the academic year 1899-1900", "Chinese Classical Books", "Initial Readings on the Chinese Language", "Chinese Textbook for Initial Teaching", "Linguistic Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Language" and, finally, " Experience of Mandarin Grammar with texts for exercises. Parts 1-3. " The last work was defended in October 1902 at the Faculty of Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University as a master's thesis, which gave him the right to take a professorship. The opponents were Professors D. A. Peshchurov and P. S. Popov. Although the former did not agree with the dissertation's arguments about the presence of grammar in Chinese, and the latter believed that it brought Chinese too close to other languages of the world, the defense was quite successful, which was noted in the press [Novoe Vremya, 1902]. Already in the first years of his stay in Vladivostok, P. P. Schmidt was known as a great connoisseur of the Chinese language and the realities of the Chinese way of life, and therefore he was often asked for help and advice on a variety of issues.

1 Letter of the head of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire of the Russian Foreign Ministry V. Kushpel dated May 29, 2000 is kept in the author's archive. There is no information about the work of P. P. Schmidt and A. V. Rudakov at the Russian Embassy in China in the reference book: [Lenson, 1968].

2 L. I. Sem and N. V. Kocheshkov mistakenly believe that P. P. Schmidt left Beijing in 1900 or even immediately after the Boxer Rebellion [Sem, 1978, p. 101; Kocheshkov, 1999, p. 55-56]. It is known that the uprising took place in 1899-1901, and P. P. Schmidt was already in Vladivostok in October 1899, where, according to the tsar's decree of August 13, 1899, P. P. Schmidt was assigned to serve as a professor at the Eastern Institute.

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In January-February 1905, due to the events of the Russo-Japanese War, the Oriental Institute was evacuated from Vladivostok to Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude). There, in May 1905, P. P. Schmidt met the famous Tibetologist and indologist F. I. Shcherbatsky, who was on his way to Mongolia to meet with the Dalai Lama.3 During the conversation, they recalled their native faculty many times, discussed scientific problems. F. I. Shcherbatskoy saw in his interlocutor a great scientist who can do a lot in science. In a letter to Academician V. V. Radlov4, he wrote: "You probably received a letter from P. P. Schmidt from V [erkhne] - Udinsk. It would be absolutely necessary for Russian science to extract it from this cesspool" [PFA RAS, f. 148, op. 1, d. 28, l. 59]. Pyotr Petrovich personally wrote to the academician in St. Petersburg, informed him about the life of the Eastern Institute, and consulted him on scientific problems.5 To satisfy the interest of his St. Petersburg colleagues (perhaps V. V. Radlov personally) in the Jurchen script, he sent copies of the Jurchen inscriptions to the capital [PFA RAS, f. 177, op. 2, d. 279, l. 1-4; Pevnov, 2004, p. 76]. From P. P. Schmidt's letter to V. V. Radlov, we learn about his fruitful cooperation with K. D. Loginovsky 6 in the study of Tungus-Manchu languages, about sending materials on the Sungari dialect of the Gold language to L. Ya. Sternberg for publication in St. Petersburg, about preparing a Manchu student to send him to Aigun in order to collect information about the Sungari dialect of the Gold language. on the site of samples of live Manchu speech. P. P. Schmidt and V. V. Radlov agreed on financial assistance from the International Ethnographic and Linguistic Society for the study of the ethnography and languages of the Tungus-Manchu peoples in China [PFA RAS, f. 177, op. 2, d. 279, l. 4].

In mid-February 1905, relations between the students and the administration at the Eastern Institute became strained. The Student Corporation of the Institute adopted a resolution containing sharp reproaches to the administration, but at the same time students expressed their sympathetic attitude to Professors P. P. Schmidt and N. V. Kuehner, whom they described as persons "with the makings of good professors and scientists" [Istoriya otechestvennogo vostokovaniya, 1997, p. 58]. Although in a letter to V. V. Radlov from Verkhneudinsk dated February 20, 1905. Pyotr Petrovich characterizes the resolution as superficial, however, his position at the Institute made him think about the possibility of moving to St. Petersburg [PFA RAS, f. 177, op. 2, d.279, l. 1-3]. This situation seemed so difficult and disturbing to Pyotr Petrovich that he wrote about it in a letter to V. L. Kotvich 7 dated October 9, 1905 as follows:: "Dear Vladislav Ludvigovich, After the unfortunate incidents, the Eastern Institute was reeling,

3 Fyodor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy (1866-1942) - Russian Soviet orientalist, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1918), later-acad. ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE USSR. Worked in St. Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad) at the Asian Museum-Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences; privat-docent, then Professor, Head of the Department of Indo-Tibetan Philology of the University.

4 Vasily Vasilyevich Radlov (1837-1918) - Russian orientalist, ethnographer, linguist, archaeologist, museologist, Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (1894-1918), Chairman of the Russian Committee for the Study of Central and Eastern Asia (1903-1918).

5 The archive contains two letters of P. P. Schmidt to Academician V. V. Radlov: from Verkhneudinsk dated February 20, 1905 and from Vladivostok dated January 10, 1908 (l. 4), both in German [PFA RAS, f. 177, op. 2, d. 279, l. 1-4].

6 Loginovsky Karp Dmitrievich (1867-1922) - Russian local historian, collector of ethnographic and folklore material among the Tungus-Manchu peoples of the Far East.

7 Wladyslaw Ludwigovich Kotwicz (1872-1944)-Russian and Polish orientalist, Manchurian and Mongol scholar, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1923), later the USSR Academy of Sciences, full member of the Polish Academy of Knowledge (1922) and Chairman of the Polish Oriental Society (1922-1936). Privat-associate Professor of the Imperial Saint Petersburg University, Professor of the Petrograd University. First rector of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages in Petrograd (1920-1922). Professor of the Department of Oriental Languages at Lviv University (1923-1940).

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maybe it's my position, too. The institute may be closed down, and I will have to go to the Eastern Faculty, willy-nilly. But will there be a vacancy? Which one is it? Can I count on the faculty's assistance? Here are the questions that are bothering me. In addition, I am afraid that in St. Petersburg it will be difficult for me to complete the works I have begun, namely: "Chinese-Russian Dictionary for Colloquial speech", "Phonetics of the Chinese language", "New materials for the grammar of the Mandjur language". Translating, for example, Mandjur shamanic songs without the help of Mandjur is almost unthinkable. In St. Petersburg, you probably know better both the position of the Faculty of Oriental Studies and the fate of the current Institute, and therefore I would be very grateful if you would find it possible to inform me of your opinion. In addition, many of our students will go to St. Petersburg to enroll in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Please assist them. I especially feel sorry for our fourth year student Mr.] Fyodorova Street. As for improving the transcription of Chinese words, I fully agree with you that the old transcription does not meet the requirements of science and that fundamental reforms are needed. But before leaving for Vladivostok, I have very little time. I will try to send you a more detailed analysis of your proposed questions from Vladivostok. In my opinion, for each sound there should be one and only one sign... "[PFA RAS, f. 761, op. 1, d, 41, l. 1].

Despite being busy before leaving Verkhneudinsk for Vladivostok, P. P. Schmidt briefly expresses specific thoughts on the transcription of Chinese characters, knowing that this problem concerns his St. Petersburg colleagues [Weber et al., 1908, pp. 74-95]. Discussing scientific problems with colleagues is one of the features of Pyotr Petrovich's creative laboratory. Thus, he actively discussed the problems of Tungus-Manchu ethnography with I. A. Lopatin.8 In a letter dated March 4 (17), 1918, he explains in detail his point of view on the origin of the ethnonym "goldy". In his opinion, this word entered the languages of neighboring peoples from the language of the Golds themselves, and not at all borrowed from the Japanese or Gilyaks). Lopatin, 1922, pp. 16-17].

In another letter, he develops his ideas about the ancient settlement of peoples: "I have no doubt that even around the Birth of Christ, all of Eastern Siberia and the entire Amur basin were occupied by Paleasiatic peoples. To the south of them lived directly Korean tribes, which I also consider to be Paleasiatic... In any case, there is no reason to look for the homeland of the Tungus-Manchu proto-people in present-day Manchuria. There are not very many ancient Chinese loanwords in the Manchu language (several dozen), and all of them relate approximately to the second half of the first millennium after the Birth of Christ... The Manchu-Tungus tribes probably occupied the Selenga River basin, where we find many names of localities that are explained by Manchu-Mongolian words. The tributaries of the Selenga River are adjacent to the tributaries of the Argun River, which is the only way for Northern Mongolia and Transbaikalia to communicate with Manchuria. In these places, some tribes separated and moved north. Their descendants are the Tungus tribes, namely: the Tungus proper, Orochons, Manegras, Lamuts, Samagirs and Negidals. Other tribes went further along the Amur and occupied Manchuria. The Manchu tribes descend from the latter, namely: the Manchus proper (descendants of the Djurgens), the Golds (with the Olchi and Oroks), and the Orochi (with the Udihe and Kyakara)... " (Lopatin, 1922, pp. 19-21) .9 Apparently, these problems deeply worried P. P. Schmid-

8 Ivan A. Lopatin (1888-1970)-Russian and American ethnographer, archaeologist and anthropologist, privat-docent of the State Far Eastern University, Head of the Ethnographic Department of the Vladivostok State Regional Museum, Secretary of the Administrative Committee of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region. In the mid-1920s, he emigrated via China to the United States, where in 1935 he defended his doctoral dissertation, taught at universities in the country, and conducted field research among American Indians.

9 I. A. Lopatin also draws attention to P. P. Schmidt's short work "Ethnography of the Far East" in the collection "Vivat, Academia", published by students of the Oriental Institute. Vladivostok, 1915.

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After a short break, he again addresses them in a letter to V. L. Kotvich dated March 7 (20), 1918: "I have no doubt that Eastern Siberia and the entire Amur basin were occupied by Paleasians, and it is very possible that the Korean tribes living in the neighborhood of the Paleasiatic ones can also be counted among them. the last one. In any case, comparing Korean with Gilyatsky gives us various scientific surprises. In both languages, only deaf consonants are found at the beginning of words, but there are no voiced ones... " [PFA RAS, f. 761, op. 1, d, 41, l. 3].

P. P. Schmidt, like his colleagues at the Oriental Institute, worked extensively and fruitfully in preparing textbooks for teaching Chinese and Manchu. In 1907, in Vladivostok, P. P. Schmidt published "An Introductory Lecture on the Manchu language, delivered at the Eastern Institute in 1907", and the following year in the "Izvestiya Vostochnogo Instituta" "Textbook of the Manchu language". The author used the services of Manchu informants to create these works. Chinese language teaching was conducted at a high level, and the educational process was attended by well-educated Chinese lecturers Wang Yi-zhi and Shanqing, who were invited to the Institute on the recommendation of P. P. Schmidt and A. V. Rudakov. Textbooks created by professors of the Oriental Institute A. M. Pozdneev, P. P. Schmidt, E. G. Spalvin, G. V. Podstavin and others were in demand by the Faculty of Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University for use as teaching aids. Acad. V. M. Alekseev, who was critical of his teacher acad. V. P. Vasiliev and his school, later recognized the achievements of the professors of the Vladivostok Institute: "Professors, direct students of V. P. Vasilyeva - P. P. Schmidt, A.V. Rudakov, N. V. Kuehner, E. G. Spalvin, A.M. Pozdneev, G. V. Podstavin, G. Tsybikov and others. - we created a short-term but very efficient school that served the Far East during the period of the strongest development of Russia's activities on the CER... There were cases when the pupils of this school, who followed seemingly completely different paths, often diametrically opposed, such as P. P. Schmidt, nevertheless openly recognized themselves as students only of Vasiliev... The Moscow school often had teachers with insufficient qualifications. On the contrary, the Vladivostok School had highly qualified teachers, such as A.V. Rudakov and P. P. Schmidt (especially the latter with very serious qualifications)" [Alekseev, 1982, pp. 166-167, 222].

Although, as can be seen, V. M. Alekseev always singled out P. P. Schmidt as a scientist and teacher, whose textbooks are successfully used in the teaching practice of the Faculty of Oriental Languages in St. Petersburg, he considered his textbooks, however, like other sinologists, just self-help books. Well, that was V. M. Alekseev. However, in the case of extracurricular independent work, he still considered it necessary to focus on the use of a "self - help guide": "The emphasis should be placed on the guidance of a self-help guide such as P. P. Schmidt" [Alekseev, 1982, pp. 227-228]. It seems to me that we should not trust the somewhat zealous assessments of the venerable sinologist, but we should also listen to other opinions. P. E. Skachkov, an outstanding specialist in the history of Chinese studies, highly appreciated P. P. Schmidt's lectures on the Chinese language, anthologies, a textbook of the Manchu language, and especially the experience of Chinese grammar with a linguistic introduction to the study of the Chinese language (Skachkov, 1975, p.182). Such a view of this part of P. P. Schmidt's scientific heritage seems to be correct and fair.

The breadth of Schmidt's interests is indicated by such works as" Studying China Abroad "(1909)," Summary of Lectures on the Political Organization of China "(1911) and, of course," Experience of Mandarin Grammar", which passed through two editions (1902, 1915). Each of his works contains fresh ideas that have not lost their significance for modern researchers.-

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phone numbers. And today I would like to emphasize the importance and relevance from a scientific point of view of his ideas about the non-unity of the spoken Chinese language, outlined and summarized in the "Experience of Mandarin Grammar": "Chinese from Beijing, Canton, and Fujui can only talk to each other through translators or writing. Most of the words in all the dialects are essentially the same, but over time they have undergone significant phonetic changes, and as for the written signs, they have remained unchanged, only every Chinese usually reads them from phonetics." Or even more categorically: "If the Chinese adopted the European alphabet, at least ten new languages would be formed, and the current Chinese books would have to be translated into these different languages" (Schmidt, 1915). P. P. Schmidt's thoughts on the place of the Chinese language in morphological and genealogical classifications are not only of historiographical interest. He developed the concept of the Indochinese family of languages, which, in his opinion, combined Tibetan, Burmese, Siamese (Thai) and other languages along with Chinese.

During the Vladivostok period, P. P. Schmidt did a lot to strengthen the institute library, giving it the Chinese and Manchu books he brought from Beijing. He purposefully collected material about the Tungus-Manchu languages and peoples of the Far East. While still in China, he became familiar with the language and ethnography of the Nanai-Kilen group. He worked extensively with informants from the Manchus and Chinese. In 1908. Pyotr Petrovich undertook an expedition to the Tungus-Manchu peoples of the Russian Far East, the materials of which, unfortunately, remained unpublished in Russia, but they were owned by the collector and used them at different times in his teaching and research work. Under the guidance of Professor P. P. Schmidt, the material on Tungus-Manchu languages in the Far East was collected by students of the Eastern Institute. In his letter to the Russian Committee for the Study of Central and Eastern Asia, read out at a meeting of the Committee on September 27, 1903, Pyotr Petrovich reported on the linguistic materials collected by students Scharenberg and Dobrolovsky "for the study of the languages of Dakhur and Gold" [Izvestiya Russkogo Komiteta, No. 2, March 1904, p. 3].. The report of the committee for 1904 also reported on the receipt of materials from Professor P. P. Schmidt [Izvestiya Russkogo Komiteta, No. 5, May 1905, p. 22]. Contacts with scientists who worked in the Russian Committee helped Pyotr Petrovich keep up to date with the latest research carried out by the Committee. In November-December 1915, P. P. Schmidt, together with other professors of the Eastern Institute, advised the famous Far Eastern traveler and scientist V. K. Arsenyev, who was working at that time on his "Oroch dictionary" [Tarasova, 1985, p.304].

Pyotr Petrovich had an extensive circle of scientific acquaintances, which began to form in his homeland, and then during his studies in St. Petersburg. During his stay in China, he met both Chinese and foreign scientists. P. P. Schmidt corresponded with many of them, which was partially preserved in various archives. He corresponded with Latvian scientists and cultural figures, such as Janis Rainis. In peacetime, he traveled from Vladivostok to his homeland. It can be assumed that at that time he met with his teachers and colleagues in St. Petersburg, and this helped him to keep abreast of the latest achievements of Russian and world Oriental studies.

It seems that after his divorce from his wife in 1910, Pyotr Petrovich's life gradually became more complicated. The outbreak of the First World War made it much more difficult to communicate with Latvia, where now he could not travel. The situation also worsened in Vladivostok, where life became increasingly difficult after the revolution. Uncertainty in the Institute's position also began to take its toll. In 1918, an old acquaintance of P. P. Schmidt, an American professor.

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B. Laufer 10 invited him to move to the United States, promising him a place in the Chinese department at the prestigious Columbia University.

Pyotr Petrovich was in a state of confusion. In a letter to V. L. Kotvich in Petrograd on March 7 (20), 1918, he wrote: "Finally, a few more words about my position at the Oriental Institute. As you can see, I am still alive and well, and the Japanese consul promised that he would not allow the intelligentsia to be beaten up, and I would be very happy if he added that he would not allow starvation. But how long will we live without money? B. Laufer invited me to join Columbia University in New York, but it is unlikely that a Russian citizen can now count on such a post? But let's hope that here we will live to see peace and order. But what happens next? All my life I have been engaged in scientific work, do I really have to live here again, far from cultural centers, from scientific societies? I have already earned a pension here, and could live on a comparatively small salary in Petrograd or Moscow. But it is very difficult for me here, although at present you may envy us. It is a great and perhaps the only misfortune of the Institute that there are so few professors here. Petrograd doesn't seem to understand this. In any case, I won't stay here (emphasis added - A. R.). If I get a pension, I'll get a job somewhere in the country, because the local climate is very bad for me, worse than Petrograd. I will answer you with pleasure if you are interested in anything. I am now finishing a work on the Olcha-Gold language and other records of my journey. You can't even dream of a Chinese dictionary anymore. Heartfelt greetings from your P. Schmidt" [PFA RAS, f. 761, op. 1, d. 41, l. 4].

P. P. Schmidt actively worked at the Oriental Institute, where he even served as director of the Institute for six months from the fall of 1918, and at the newly created Faculty of History and Philology, where he taught the course "Introduction to Linguistics"at the Department of Comparative Linguistics and Sanskrit in the 1918-1919 academic year. By the way, he was a friend of the chairman of the Committee for the establishment of this new private higher education institution in Vladivostok, which indicates his high personal and scientific authority among colleagues and his strong positions in Far Eastern Oriental studies. He collaborated with S. M. Shirokogorov in the study of shamanic and folklore Manchu texts, in particular, in the translation of the Legend of the Shaman Nishan. According to the latter, as early as 1920, P. P. Schmidt continued to prepare for publication a work specifically devoted to borrowing in Russian from Tatar, Mongolian,and other languages (Shirokogorov, 1923, p. 42) .12 Since 1918, more and more well-known refugee scientists from various university and other educational centers of the country arrived in Vladivostok: the philosopher and theologian M. N. Yershov from Kazan, the jurist V. A. Ryazanovsky, who began his journey to the east in Yaroslavl, the Tomsk professor N. Ya. Novombergsky, and the indologist from India in an attempt to reach Petrograd A. M. Mervart with his wife L. A. Mervart and many others, with most of them, as, for example, with S. M. Shirokogorov and his wife E. N. Shirokogorova, Pyotr Petrovich developed good relations. It is known that the Shirokogorovs also highly valued his company. Later, in December 1922, in a letter to L. J. Sternberg in Petrograd from Shanghai, S. M. Shirokogorov wrote:

10 Laufer Berthold (1874-1934) was a German and American scholar, ethnographer, anthropologist, and orientalist. In 1898, he emigrated from Germany to the United States. In 1898-1899, he studied the aborigines of Sakhalin and Primorye, and repeatedly made expeditions to China. From 1915 to 1934, he was head of the Department of Anthropology at the Natural History Museum in Chicago.

11 In a letter to the Russian and Finnish scientist Gustav Ion Ramstedt dated December 10 (the year is not specified, it can be assumed that it was 1919), P. P. Schmidt wrote: "I only served as the director of the Eastern Institute for half a year, but now I am only a professor with him." Thus, it can be stated that P. P. Schmidt was one of the leading scientists of this Institute. Therefore, it was strange to read an article by N. P. Gridina [Gridina, 1996], in which the name of P. P. Schmidt was not mentioned at all.

12 Obviously, the work of P. P. Schmidt, reported by S. M. Shirokogorov, was not only not printed, but also not preserved.

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So: "Scientific life in Vladivostok is almost nonexistent. A few professors of the former Eastern Institute and a few "refugees", specialists in defections, are of course very little interested in scientific issues, and with the departure of P. P. Schmidt, it became completely boring " [PFA RAS, f. 282, op. 2, d. 319, l. 26].

The years 1918-1920 were not easy in Vladivostok and for Pyotr Petrovich. In this increasingly complex situation, we must make a choice, the only right choice, but what is the right choice? In his letters, he is equally interested in discussing purely scientific issues (this has always been his primary concern and was the main thing for him), as well as practical life.

Here is another excerpt from his letter to V. L. Kotvich, probably written in 1919. (the email itself does not contain a date): "It is difficult to foresee what fate awaits Petrograd and Vladivostok, so I still want to enjoy the freedom of communication and write you a letter about my plans. I have no doubt that the Manj[Ur] language is of great importance to Sinologists, Altaists, and even Indo-Germanists, and therefore we should not only collect materials, but also think about a new grammar and a new dictionary... I consider Zakharov's dictionary to be exemplary in its rich phraseology and, perhaps, also in its translations and explanations but as for the subtleties and minutiae, it is clear on every page that we are dealing with a practical figure, and not with a linguist. I have already noted several hundred errors, although I have not yet done any special analysis of the dictionary. If we wanted to reprint only the revised edition of Zakharov's dictionary, it would be impossible to leave a single page without corrections... If I could somehow get rid of the Oriental Institute and transfer to Petrograd, I would probably undertake a revision of Zakharov's dictionary, since I have collected almost all the necessary documents. vest lexical material of the Manj [Ur] language, t[o] e [st] Chinese-Manjur dictionaries. In the same way, I purchased all the Manj [Ur] grammars in Chinese, as I had previously intended to publish a grammar of the Manj[Ur] language, but recently I no longer dream of this plan. On the contrary, I have become a pessimist and fear such a reaction in science as in medieval times. As for pure science, there will be no money for it, and there will be no martyrs who will work without remuneration. I consider the" comprehensive study of the country "and the" practical direction " of the institute or academy to be just a misfortune for practice. In my deep conviction, practical life requires only learned specialists, but I can't imagine where a practical know-it-all is needed. For 19 years now, the local district court has been inviting me as an expert on Chinese cases. The goal is certainly practical, but I can only apply my knowledge of language and ethnography. Students are only interested in scientific explanations, but they soon get bored with translations without explanations. I have met many envoys, consuls, border commissioners, and governors-general here, but no one has yet asked my opinion on Chinese politics or our treatises. None of the private merchants asked me what I thought of private affairs. And they're right! They seem to understand that everyone should do their own thing and not interfere with the activities of other specialists. Only learned auditors from Petrograd brought us their ideas about the "practical study of the East", about the "Russian cause" and other phrases of modern mythology. Thus, the tasks of the Russian cause seem to consist in a struggle against science and common sense. No matter how we interpret these ideas, they are not without consequences, and I fear the demise of our institute. Where I'll stay is hard to say. In America, Russian subjects are now not allowed at all. I can't go to my homeland either, and Petrograd, as I read in the newspapers, is now worse than Vladivostok... I can't say anything definite about Nikan. If the syllable ni resembles ni, nai, ny, njalma, then it is still unclear why this word is placed before the defined word. The Golds have another word

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neka, a slave that could take on the meaning of Chinese... With a bow to Your P. Schmidt " [PFA RAS, f. 761, op. 1, d. 41, l. 5-6] 13.

So, P. P. Schmidt admitted that he did not intend to stay in Vladivostok any longer and, as he believed, three roads opened up before him. It was necessary to choose, he was already 50 years old, he had accumulated huge materials and extensive knowledge, colossal teaching experience, and at the same time he was tired, unsettled, and even had a desire to settle in the village. Based on his letters, we can assume the following. Speaking of options, researchers usually write that he was drawn to his homeland. It seems to me that there is no such nostalgia in the letters. Another option is American, but he believed that"Russian subjects are no longer allowed to enter America at all." He could not help but realize that in this situation, moving to America would be the most preferable: it was quiet there, there is a well-known university where he could implement his scientific plans, but there is practically no possibility to go there. This is the reality, therefore, the American option fell away. Whether P. P. Schmidt regretted it, we are not given to know. It seems to me that for him, judging by the above excerpts from letters to V. L. Kotvich, it was always most desirable to move to Petrograd. Everything was familiar to him from his student days, his teachers worked there, graduates of the Faculty of Oriental Languages of his generation already took a leading position there, there was a university, libraries, an Asian Museum, a Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography... As he rightly believed, there were the necessary conditions for the implementation of all his creative plans. He closely followed the scientific life in Petrograd. Schmidt considered it his duty to respond to the death of his teacher, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor N. I. Veselovsky, by publishing an article in his memory in a local journal [Schmidt, 1919, pp. 21-22]. But he can't even get to Petrograd now, and life there is now worse than in Vladivostok.

And suddenly an opportunity opened up: the compatriots who lived in Vladivostok, with whom he maintained close ties as a fellow countryman, were going home to independent Latvia by sea on a foreign ship. He has long made a firm decision not to stay in Vladivostok. And now there was a real opportunity to leave, and not to go somewhere unknown, but to his native Latvia, to the relatives to whom he was always attached, where he had his own home. Of course, he understood that in Riga he would not have much opportunity to really engage in scientific Oriental studies. Circumstances made it imperative to make a choice. And he did it-went to his homeland. So from a Russian citizen, he became a citizen of Latvia.

The Latvian period of Prof. P. P. Schmidt's life is an important period of his life, which deserves special detailed consideration. It seems to me that in that particular situation, as an orientalist, he did the maximum that could have been done in those conditions. He tried to teach Chinese at the university, but there was no public need for it. He processed and published materials collected by him in the Far East on the languages of the Tungus-Manchu peoples [Schmidt, 1923 (1); Schmidt, 1923 (2); Schmidt, 1928 (1); Schmidt, 1928 (2)], and his fundamental research was published in a prestigious journal in Leipzig. a monograph on Chinese elements in the Manchu language [Schmidt, 1932 (1), p. 573-628; Schmidt, 1932 (2), p. 233-276; Schmidt, 1932 (3), p.353-36]. The latter work immediately became known in the scientific world, while others remained the property of a narrow circle of specialists, so

13 I conditionally date this letter no later than 1919, based on the words of P. P. Schmidt that "for 19 years now, the local district court has been inviting me as an expert on Chinese cases." Let's assume that he could have received such an offer already in 1899, but rather in 1900, i.e. in the first years of his stay in Vladivostok.

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as "Proceedings of the University of Latvia" was a non-Oriental publication, and it was not followed by sinologists and Manchurians [Reshetov, 2006, pp. 219-224].

Pyotr Petrovich took part in international Oriental congresses and periodically visited leading foreign Oriental research centers (in 1927-in Uppsala, in 1928-in Oxford and Paris, in 1929-in Germany and Sweden, in 1930-in Leiden and Paris, in 1935-in Rome and Lund). He also corresponded with many Orientalists around the world, including those from the Soviet Union. In particular, the archive of Academician S. F. Oldenburg, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and Director of the Asian Museum of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, has preserved a letter from Pyotr Petrovich confirming the facts of his broad and multilateral relations: "Dear Sergey Fyodorovich, I am sending you two copies of the Oral Dictionary as a sign of gratitude for sending the Protodeacon's dictionary 14. Since the Orochi are dying out, it may be that my dictionary will be the last document of the Orochi language 15. At the same time, I am sending you a short article by my friend and colleague Dr. phil[ologie] E. von Tsach 16 on the Sihya language 17. I consider E. von Zach to be the best expert of the Chinese literary language among European sinologists. He is very interested in the Sihya language and would like to get photographic images of Sihya texts (better Chinese classics, not Buddhist books). E. von Zach lives in Weltevreden, on the island of Java. He would also like to receive the magazine "Vostok" for 1926 and 1927[s]. Unfortunately, I do not know how to help him in this matter. I will be very grateful for your answer. Dedicated to you P. Schmidt. 26.1. [19] 28 [g]" [PFA RAS, f. 208, op. 3, d. 665, l. 1].

As can be seen from the text of this letter, S. F. Oldenburg and P. P. Schmidt used to have correspondence and business scientific contacts. Pyotr Petrovich was clearly active in maintaining regular contacts with colleagues from different countries. He quickly learned about the latest Oriental literature, satisfying his personal scientific interest. Familiarity with the latest special literature sometimes resulted in an active discussion with colleagues. Thus, in 1931-1932, he discussed the problem of the unity of the Altaic languages through correspondence with his old friend from Vladivostok, S. M. Shirokogorov, who was then living in Beijing [PFA RAS, f. 820, op. 3, d. 880, l. 53, 55]. P. P. Schmidt maintained contacts with N. I. Kokhanovsky. It is quite likely that it was he who contributed to the relocation of this Vladivostok colleague to Riga [Reshetov, 2001, pp. 166-169].

From time to time, Professor P. P. Schmidt published small articles about the East in the local periodical press: the first articles on these topics were published in the Latvian press at the end of the XIX century, when he went to China. As a researcher and teacher, Petr Petrovich focused on the study of Baltic philology, folk religion, and Latvian folklore in their regional variants. His numerous and voluminous works on folk beliefs, Latvian folklore and Baltic philology were included in the golden fund of lettonics. His prestige in Riga, first of all, as a Lettonian, was very high, which was reflected in his choice for 1923-1925 as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology of the University of Latvia. In 1927, he was elected an honorary Doctor of the University of Uppsala (Sweden).

14 Protodeacons, 1888.

15 The Orochi as an independent ethnic group with their own language are preserved in our time. For more information about the Oroch of the second half of the XX - beginning of the XXI centuries, see: Larkin, 1964; Avrorin, 1966; Avrorin, 1978; Bereznitsky, 1999; Istoriya i kul'tura..., 2001]. P. P. Schmidt's foresight, fortunately, did not materialize.

16 Von Zach Erwin (1872-1942) was a well-known German sinologist and Doctor of Philology. It seems that the Soviet sinologist academician V. M. Alekseev did not share such a high assessment of E. von Zach [Alekseev, 1998, p.129, 189].

17 Sihya language - Sisya (Tangut) language [Nevsky, 1936: 57-59; Nevsky, 1960].

18 Veltenvreden is the old Dutch name for the central district of Jakarta (then Batavia).

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His second wife Ida, whom he married in Latvia, helped him a lot in his work, she arranged his life and took care of him in every possible way. They often lived on their native farm, where P. P. Schmidt planted young trees and took care of them.

Pyotr Petrovich died on June 5, 1938 and was buried in the Riga city cemetery.

The scientific heritage of the outstanding Russian and Latvian scientist Prof. P. P. Schmidt is great and diverse. A sinologist, a Manchurian, a Lettonian, a linguist, an ethnographer, a folklorist, a religious scholar, a teacher, a propagandist and a popularizer of knowledge were happily united in it. And in each specific area of his studies, he achieved impressive results. But the era, the situation did not allow him to fully realize all his rich plans. However, even for what he did, grateful descendants will never forget the name of Peter Petrovich Schmidt. The significance of his scientific heritage was highlighted in a large, representative international scientific conference organized by the Latvian State University in Riga in February 2000. This is yet another strong indication of the ongoing attention paid to his scientific heritage.

list of literature

Avrorin V. A., Lebedeva E. P. Orochskie skazki i mifi [Oroch fairy tales and Myths]. Novosibirsk, 1966.

Avrorin V. A., Lebedeva E. P. Oroch texts and dictionary. L., 1978.

Alekseev V. M. Nauka o Vostoke [Science of the East]. Articles and documents. M " 1982.

Alekseev V. M. Letters to Eduard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot. St. Petersburg, 1998.

Bereznitskiy S. V. Mifologiya i verovaniya orochey [Mythology and beliefs of the Orochi]. SPb., 1999.

Weber K., Ivanov A., Kotvich V., Rudnev A. K voprosu o russkoy transcriptii kitayskikh ieroglifov [On the question of Russian transcription of Chinese hieroglyphs]. SPb., 1908 / / Zapiski Vostochnogo otdeliya Russkogo Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, 1907/1908, vol. XVIII.

Gridina N. P. The first university in the Russian Far East. Establishment and development of the Center for Oriental Studies // Russia and the Asia-Pacific Region. 1996. N 2.

Far Eastern State University. History and modernity. Vladivostok, 1997.

Datsyshen V. G. history of the study of the Chinese language in the Russian Empire. Krasnoyarsk, 2000.

I [vashkevi] h [B. A.] Writers, scientists, journalists in the Far East in 1918-1922. Vladivostok, 1922.

Proceedings of the Eastern Institute. Vladivostok, Vol. I, issue 1, 1900.

Proceedings of the Russian Committee for the Study of Central and Eastern Asia in Historical, Archaeological, Linguistic and Ethnographic Relations. St. Petersburg.

Istoriya i kul'tura orochey [History and Culture of the Orochi], St. Petersburg, 2001.
History of Russian Oriental studies from the middle of the XIX century to 1917, Moscow, 1997.

Kocheshkov N. V. Shmidt Pyotr Petrovich / / Proceedings of the Professorial Club, No. 4. Vladivostok, 1998.

Kocheshkov N. V. They were the first. Professor Pyotr Petrovich Schmidt / / Russia and the Asia-Pacific Region, No. 2. Vladivostok, 1999.

Larkin V. G. Orochi (historical and ethnographic essay from the middle of the XIX century to the present day). Moscow, 1964.

Lopatin I. A. Golds of the Amur, Ussuri and Sungari mountains. Experience of ethnographic description. Vladivostok, 1922.

Nevskiy N. A. Tangutskaya pismennost ' i ee fondy [Tangut writing and its foundations]. Trudy Instituta vostokovedeniya AN SSSR, vol. 17, 1936.

Nevsky N. A. Tangut Philology: Research and dictionary in two books, Moscow, 1960.
New time. 7.11.1902.

Pevnov A.M. Chtenie zhurzhenskikh pism [Reading Jurchen Letters], St. Petersburg, 2004.
Protodeakonov A. Kratkiy russko-orochenskiy slovar ' [Short Russian-Orochensky Dictionary]. Kazan, 1888.

PFA RAS (St. Petersburg Branch Of the Archive Of the Russian Academy of Sciences).

Reshetov A.M. Shtrikhi k biografii N. I. Kokhanovskogo [Shtrikhi k biografii N. I. Kokhanovskogo] / / Kunerovskiye chteniya (1998-2000): kratkoe soderzhanie dokladov. SPb., 2001.

Reshetov A.M. Petr Petrovich Schmidt as a Tunguso-Manchu scholar / / Tunguso-Sibirica. Bd. 20. Tumen jalafun jecen aku Manchu Studies in Honor Giovanni stary. Wiesbaden, 2006.

Sem L. I. P. Schmidt's contribution to the study of the culture of the peoples of the Soviet and foreign Far East / / Culture of the peoples of the Far East of the USSR (19th-20th centuries). Vladivostok, 1978.

Skachkov P. E. At the turn of the century / / Problems of the Far East, 1975, N 3.

Skachkov P. E. Ocherki istorii russkogo sinaevedeniya [Essays on the History of Russian Chinese Studies]. Moscow, 1977.

14-ya nauchnaya konferentsiya "Obshchestvo i gosudarstvo v Kitae" [14th scientific conference "Society and the State in China"]. Abstracts of reports. Tsch. 3. Moscow, 1983.

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Tarasova A. I. Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev, Moscow, 1985.
Khokhlov A. N. Sozdanie Vostochnogo instituta v Vladivostok v 1899 g. - vazhnoe evoie v zhizni Rossii [The creation of the Eastern Institute in Vladivostok in 1899 is an important event in the life of Russia]. XXXI nauchnaya konferentsiya "Obshchestvo i gosudarstvo v Kitae", Moscow, 2001.
TsGIA SPb (Central State Historical Archive of Saint Petersburg). F. 14. Op. 3.

Shirokogorov S. M. Etnos. Research of the basic principles of changes in ethnic and ethnographic phenomena. Shanghai, 1923.

Schmidt P. P. Etnografiya Dalnogo Vostoka [Ethnography of the Far East] / / "Vivat, Academia", izdanie studentov Vostochnogo Instituta. Vladivostok, 1915.

Schmidt P. P. Experience of Mandarin grammar with texts for exercises. Manual for studying spoken Chinese of the Peking dialect. Ed. Second, revised and expanded. Vladivostok, 1915.

Sh [midt] P. N. I. Veselovsky // Scientific Notes of the Faculty of History and Philology in Vladivostok, 1919, vol. 1, ed. 2, issue 2.

Yakhontov K. Manchu Blockprints and Manuscripts in Riga. (Peter Schmidt's Collection) / / Petersburg Oriental Studies. Issue No. 4. St. Petersburg, 1993.

Lenson Y. Russian Diplomatic and Consular Officials in East Asia: A Handbook of Tsarist Russia and the Provisional Government in China, Japan andKoreafrom 1858 to 1924 and of Soviet Representatives inJapanfrom 1935 to 1968. Compiled on the Basis of Russian, Japanese and Chinese Sources with Historical Introduction. Tokyo, 1968.

Schmidt P. P. Der Lautwandel im Mandschu und Mongolischen // Peking Oriental Society Journal. Peking. Vol. IV. 1898.

Schmidt P. The language of the Negidals // Latvijas Augstskolas raksti. Riga, 1923, N 5 (1).

Schmidt P. The language of the Olchas // Latvijas Universitates raksti. Riga, 1923, N 8 (2).

Schmidt P. The language of the Oroches II Latvijas Universitates raksti. Riga, 1928, N 7 (1).

Schmidt P. The language of the Samagirs II Latvijas Universitates raksti. Riga, 1928, N 19 (2).

Schmidt P. Chinesische Elemente in Mandchu II Asia major. Leipzig, 1932, T. 7, N 4.

Schmidt P. Chinesische Elemente in Mandchu II Asia major. Leipzig, 1932, T. 8, N 1 - 2.

Schmidt P. Chinesische Elemente in Mandchu II Asia major. Leipzig, 1932, T. 9, N 3.

Walzavens Harztmut. Peter Schmidt.Ostasienwissenschafter, Linguist und Folklorist // Florilegia manjurica in memo-rium Walter Fuch. Wiesbaden, 1982.

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