Manchu-Mongolian Society: Examining Early-to-Mid 20th Century Regional Scientific Publications

Introduction. The article focuses on Manchu-Mongolian society as a historical and cultural community of East Asia which has had significant impacts on destinies and paths of many Eurasian peoples. Having been dramatically influenced by both objective and subjective factors in the early-to-mid 20th century, one part actually lost its identity while the other one preserved and even strengthened it. These and many other aspects have been actively explored by Russian (Soviet) and foreign scientific communities but works authored by our compatriots to have lived and worked in the to be examined region have been largely overlooked. Goals. The study attempts a source analysis of publications that somehow cast light on Manchu-Mongolian society and that were published in scientific centers of the Far East in the early-to-mid 20th century. Materials and methods. The work examines articles and notes from journals once published by the Society of Russian Orientalists, Society for the Study of Manchuria, Russian Law Faculty of Harbin, and non-periodical editions. The research methodology was determined by an interdisciplinary approach with the prevalence of historical tools. The work comprises data collection, thematic monitoring of publications, discourse analysis, a narrative approach, external and internal criticism of sources and their textual analysis, systemic historical and retrospective methods. The conducted research identifies key early 20th-century trends of Mongolian and Manchu studies, delineates the place of Manchu-Mongolian peoples in the population structure of the Qing Empire / Republic of China assigned to the former in those publications, characterizes the degree of awareness about legal traditions and law practices of the region. Conclusions. The publications under study and their authors contributed a lot to the understanding of the mentioned region of East Asia and its native peoples. The paper states that Orientalists at large — and particularly those engaged in historical and political studies — are obliged to revive names of those researchers, travelers, translators and other participants to have joined that grandiose process of exploring the Manchu-Mongolian region in the early-to-mid 20th century, and made (and still do) our stay in this part of Eurasia peaceful, with most complete knowledge about the latter.

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