Buryatia of the 1920s in the Travel Journal of German Physician Karl Wilmanns

Introduction. The article is based on the travel diary of German doctor Karl Wilmanns reflecting his impressions of the trip to Buryat-Mongolia. K. Wilmanns, a psychiatrist from Heidelberg, and A. Stühmer, a venereologist from Münster, were members of the group to have organized the joint 1928 Soviet-German expedition for the study of syphilis in Buryat-Mongolia. In the summer of 1926, they undertook a reconnaissance trip to the BMASSR for an initial assessment of the situation. Their visit determined the course of further preparatory arrangements, scientific and practical agendas of the Soviet and German sides. Goals. The article is aimed at singling out of descriptions and characteristics of Buryat-Mongolia, its multinational population, and cultures from the general narrative of the document and analysis of this material in the political and cultural contexts of the Soviet-German medical cooperation of the 1920s. Results. The study reveals some previously unknown information about the city of Verkhneudinsk and Khorinsky Aimag of the BMASSR during the NEP era. In particular, the travel journal outlines the atmosphere of daily life in a small town in the periphery of the USSR, describes its residents and features of the region’s economic conditions, highlights its nature and objects of tangible and intangible culture. The document also provides insight into the healthcare system of the BMASSR, as well as new data on the physical condition of the republic’s population. The diary’s materials proved essential in further analysis of archival materials about the subsequent conflict between Soviet and German participants that arose after the Germans returned to their homeland. Conclusions. The investigation of materials contained in Wilmanns’ diary disprove the Soviet-era belief that his research was racist. On the contrary, Wilmanns’ reasoning demonstrates sympathy to the Buryat people, empathy for their problems, and a desire to help them. The rather meager medical content of the diary is compensated by Wilmanns and Stühmer’s reports on their trip to the BMASSR in the summer of 1926 which were discovered in the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

1. Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch.

2. Bundesarchiv, Abteilung Potsdam.

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