The Expeditions And Research Of The Russian Geographical Society About The History And Geography In The Border Areas Of China Before1917

Russian Geographical Society, which was built in1845, is one of the four oldest professional research institutions in the area of geography in the world. Although it’s the youngest one in these geographical societies, depending on the advantage of semi-official academic institution, with the powerful support from the Russian government, Russian Geographical Society rapidly developed since being born, and got some valuable research results. Apparently, according to the articles the task of Russian Geographical Society is to " collect, arrange and spread all the geographical, folk-custom and statistic information in Russia, specially the information about Russia itself, and spread real Russia in other countries". But in fact intelligence collection for government had become one of the most important tasks of him. For accomplishing the scientific and political tasks, according to the expansion policies of government Russian Geographical Society sent scores expeditions to border areas of China in the special historical period from the late19C to the early20C. These expeditions not only obtained the geographical and geological datum, but also based on the theory of "human geography" collected the materials about the history, economic, folk, custom and so on. Although the political attribute of these expeditions has the influence to the objectivity of results in a certain extent. But it can’t be denied that because of these expeditions Semenov, Przhevalsky, Potanin, Pevzov, Kozlov and other expeditors succeeded, and the secret Central Asia was shown to the masses. And at the same time they also provided important reference materials to research the history, culture and folk-custom in border areas of China, and then promoted the development of Russian sinology.In reference to the professional journals, reports and travel diaries, which were published since19c about the Russian Geographical Society and the history of Russian oriental studies, the writer in this article cards almost all the expeditions and research activities about sinology from foundation to October Revolution, try to analyze the characteristics of sinology research of Russian Geographical Society. This article is divided to5chapters. In the first chapter are introduced the construction process and initial activities of Russian Geographical Society and analyzed relationship between the society and Russian government so as to show its background of " semi-official academic institution". In the chapters2to4, all the expeditions and researched in the sinology area, which were accomplished by Russian Geographical Society, are expounded in accordance with three period, and the characteristics of each period are analyzed. And at the same time more attention is paid to the representative figures of each period. In chapter5are introduced the publications of Russian Geographical Society. Among it, it’s made a catalogue to the articles in the 《Russian Geographic Society Bulletin》 and 《Annual Report of the Russian Geographic Society》. And it the conclusion is discussed the development characteristics of expeditions and researched of history and geography in the border areas of China, which were finished by Russian Geographic Society.