ОБ ИЗУЧЕНИИ КАМБОДЖИ В РОССИИ (Cambodian Studies in Russia)

This concise and yet well-document study shows us how the public and scientific interest in Khmer civilization and Cambodia started to develop in Russia from the mid-1880s. 

According to the author, the first mention of Cambodia in Russian media dates back to 1825, with…a translation from the English of American merchant captain John White travel to that country while he was exploring possible maritime trade routes in the Gulf of Tonkin (Путешествие капитала Уайта в Камбодию (Пер. с англ.) Северный архив . СПб., 1825, ч. 14, № 5, с.- 66 – 82). 

Possibly the earliest mention of Cambodia in modern Russia appeared in the perediocal Severny Arkhiv, Northern ArchiveWhile Russian diplomats and military leaders were focusing their attention on Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand), Russian scholars and Orientalists were perusing the works on Ancient Khmer civilization from French explorers, archaelogists and linguists, such as Auguste Barth, Louis Finot, Abel Rémusat, Doudart de Lagrée, Henri Mouhot.

After analyzing the first Russian major study on Khmer Art published in 1886, the author comments the written accounts of diplomat Grigory de Vollan and aristocrat-globetrotter Prince Konstantin Viazemsky, who became close friends during their visits to Southeast Asia. While the former carefully studied the Angkorean site and the history of Khmer civilization, the latter was the first Russian writer to vividly describe the mores of Cambodian people in his Путешествие вокруг Азии верхом (Travels Across Asia on Horseback (1892) (Отдел рукописей ГБ СССР им. В.И.Ленина. Фонд 178, ед.хр. 8390).

Elena Zapadova has picked two notations from Viazemsky’s relation of his visit to Cambodia, characteristic of his keen eye for daily life (and female beauty): 

• “… ловят тут также крабов и приманкой служит не что иное, как тело самих ловильщиц. Девки просто становятся минут на двадцать по пояс в такое тинное место, где их много, и вылезают потом все облепленные крабами; ноги у них иногда бывают общипаны до крови, ибо крабы очень крепко впиваются своими клешнями. Выйдя на берег, девка выберет всех облепивших ее крабов и потом опять идет в трясину повторять ту же операцию”. (‘they also catch crabs here, and the bait is nothing else but the body of the catchers themselves. Girls just stay twenty minutes up to the waist in a muddy place where the crabs abund, and then they crawl out all covered with crabs; their legs are sometimes plucked to blood, because crabs dig very hard with their claws. Coming out to the shore, the girl will choose all the crabs that have stuck to her, and then again goes into the pond to repeat the same operation.’)
• ‘Он побывал и на представлении, где разыгрывались сцены из Рамаяны ​“под звуки оглушительной, но не лишенной приятности музыки. Участвующие были одни женщины, некоторые в страшных масках, и хотя весьма мало одеты, но очень пестро и богато’. (‘He also attended a performance where scenes from the Ramayana were played out ​“to the sounds of deafening, but not unpleasant music. Perfomers were some women, often wearing frightening masks, and although they were really scarcely dressed, the costumes were very colorful and richly adorned.”

In addition to several academic works on Cambodia, the author notes that Russian bestselling author Vera Kolokolnikova devoted one of her many books to Indochina at the turn of the century.