| The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how Buddhism informed the aesthetic and philosophical inquiries of Russian writers and artists from 1873 to 1919, and why they utilized specific Buddhist motifs. Until now the subject has received only fleeting attention from scholars, who have looked at it as simply another aspect of either Orientalism in Russian culture or of the general fashion for Theosophy and other esoteric movements. However, this dissertation has used an in-depth analysis of specific works of art and literature to argue that, when put in the context of broad socio-political (Russian Imperialism in Asia) and cultural indicators (private collections, art exhibition, conferences), the evocation of Buddhist resonances in modern Russian culture could come from a different source: the mania for traveling of that time. It was, indeed, the extreme mobility of Russian society which prompted the importation of foreign ideas both from the bordering Asian countries and from Western Europe. Travel, however, has been broadened in the present study to embrace two more general concepts---the real and the imaginary journey, both of which, in turn, are manifested in a series of nuanced interpretations. Hence the category of the "real journey" subsumes scientific expeditions, deportations to Siberia, military invasions, diplomatic missions, world tours, and international exhibitions. Conversely, the "imaginary journey" deals with the metaphorical traveling of specimens, ideas, and folkloric myths. Regardless of their affiliation with one category or the other, all these facets of the journey document how people and worldviews move fluidly in culture.;Using close reading and examination of historical evidence, I analyze the phenomenon of itinerancy of Buddhist motifs in Russian culture which reached its peak in this specific time-frame, i.e. from 1873 (when the famous explorer of Central Asia, Nikolai Przhevalsky, came back from his first Asian expedition) to 1919 (when the internationally renowned Orientologist Sergei Oldenburg organized the First Buddhist Exhibition in Petrograd). These two events marked the beginning and the end of an epoch which brought to maturity the "Oriental Renaissance," starting with the first half of the nineteenth century as Raymond Schwab so aptly described in his The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East (1680--1880). Still, it was not Schwab's book that prompted the topic of my dissertation, but Timothy Brook's Vermeer's Hat. The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. Here Professor Brook correlates the establishment of the Dutch East India Company with frequent journeys from the Netherlands to the East to the assimilation of new visual images and ideas consequently represented in Flemish paintings. In a similar fashion, I argue that frequent tours by artists and writers from Russia to Asia---Ivan Bunin's journey to Ceylon in 1911, Anton Chekhov's visit to India and Ceylon in 1895, David Burliuk's trip to Japan in 1919---explain the Buddhist references in works of art and literature that the representatives of the Russian creative world later produced. Thereafter, the Buddhist journey through Soviet Russia alighted upon very different destinations and witnessed very different outcomes---to constitute a new itinerary which provides rich material for another and subsequent exploration of the interaction of Orientology and modern Russian culture. |
