Our Notes & References

Documenting the Russian colonisation of Dagestan: fine copy of this important account, finely illustrated with maps and views of Dagestan and Baku, by “one of the founders of Russian Oriental studies in the 19th century” (Polchaeva, our translation here and elsewhere).

Upon receiving his Master in Oriental Literature at the Kazan University, Ilia Berezin (1818-96) joined an expedition to the Muslim East. The journey took place in 1842-45 and included visits to Dagestan, Transcaucasia, Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Persia; according to him, such an extensive trip had “not yet been undertaken in Asia by any Russian explorer, and even among foreign explorers such an example will not be found very soon”. Guided by instructions of his teacher, the noted orientalist Aleksandr Kazembek, Berezin conducted a comprehensive study of local dialects, literature, lifestyle, customs, religion, history and monuments. On his return he was appointed to the same University as Professor of the Turkish and Tatar languages.

Berezin “obtained rich, in some parts completely new materials on the history and geography of the East” (Ladygina). The present Journey describes his trip from Astrakhan to the Persian border in an accessible and entertaining way: Berezin highlighted that he wrote “the book for the broader reading public, not for scholars, and therefore I avoid dry dogmatic presentation”. The readership’s response was positive (see below the various editions); the academician Sergei Oldenburg noted in 1919: “we read Berezin’s travel notes with pleasure and use them even now, after 70 years”.

The description of the culture, life and manners of the peoples of the Caucasus turns into a brief historical sketch, with insightful additions about the demographics, road conditions, and even meteorological characteristics in the appendices. Berezin gives details about the rank of the Shamkhals (rulers of Kumyk people in Dagestan), the Highlanders, and shares his colonialist reflections about the leader of North Caucasian resistance Imam Shamil (1797-1871): “Shamil’s struggle with Russian enlightenment is coming to an end day by day: the strength of Russian arms and the common sense of the Mountaineers are little by little triumphing over the insidious sermons of the cunning Fanatic […] Very soon the pacified Dagestan, with an admixture of Russian population, will present one of the most industrious and abundant regions of Russia”.

Berezin also presents some perspectives of the colonised Caucasians in various passages: “from further conversation it appeared that my Turk was not an Osmanli at all, but a pure Shapsug [one of the twelve major Circassian tribes], who in his youth had come to Constantinople and entered the service of that Kapudan-Pasha […] In his long service at the court of the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha, Shapsug learnt perfectly the Ottoman dialect, and most importantly, became completely acquainted with the weak situation of the Muslim East, from whose unanimous and headstrong revolt he expected the final extermination of infidels, mainly Moscovites”.

In the last two chapters, Berezin describes his trip from Baku to Lankaran, the city near the southern border with Iran, discusses the local oil wells and Indian fire-worshippers, and hypothesises the origin of the mysterious structures swallowed up by water in Baku.

During his journey, our enlightened author conducted thorough field research by questioning local residents, collecting urban legends and copying epigraphic materials from tombstones in Kyrkhlyar cemetery in Derbent (Dagestan) and the walls of mosques. He also referred to the data from earlier “expeditions of Russian explorers (Urusov, Bekovich, Tokmachev, Gumbolt, Gmelin and Voinovich among others) and works of Arab historians (al-Masudi, Hamdallah Mustawfi Qazvini, Abulfeda, Seyid Yahya Bakuvi)” (Polchaeva).

This is the second, expanded edition, published just a year after the first. Berezin’s travel reports were partially published in the Uchenye zapiski [Scientific Notes] of Kazan University in 1845-1846; the first edition of the Journey through Dagestan and Transcaucasia came out in 1849 as a first part of his two-volume series Puteshestvie po Vostoku [Travelling the East], which also included Puteshestvie po Severnoi Persii [Journey through Northern Persia] (1852). Our expanded edition is usually considered as a separate work and does not include the sub-title of “Puteshestvie po Vostoku”. Its preface highlights that this new work contains an extensive addition in chapter 4 on Dagestani townspeople, new notes at the end, corrections and “quite a few new drawings carved on wood by the artist [Georgii] Gogenfelden” (1828-1908).

It is richly illustrated with 14 plates, showing many Muslim architectural landmarks, landscapes, peoples, the Derbent fortress plan, views of the city, a plan of Baku and its main sights among other.

Rare: we couldn’t trace any example of any edition at auction outside Russia, and only one of ours there. OCLC locates four copies in the US (Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia) and none of the first edition (or possibly one in the London Library).

Provenance

Bibliot. Imperat. Novoros. Universiteta (stamp to verso of title and small paper label); Prof. Philip Longworth (1933-2021, historian and writer, esp. on Russian history).

Bibliography

Obolianinov 167 (mentionning 16 plates, but no copy found with plates 15 & 16); Miansarov 3135; Olga Ladygina, “V poiskakh Solomonovoi pechati: kak Ilia Berezin izuchal vostok”, Russkoe Geograficheskoe Obshchestvo, 2022; Fatimat Polchaeva, “Sopostavitelnyi analiz dvukh glav raboty I. N. Berezina ‘Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaziu'”, Manuskript, #11 (97), 2018; Pogodin M. P., “Puteshestvie po Dagestanu i Zakavkaziu I.Berezina” // Moskvitianin, 1850.