Potanin, Grigory Nikolaevich

POTANIN, GRIGORY NIKOLAEVICH

(b. Semiyarsky, Russia, 4 October 1835; d. Tomsk, U.S.S.R., 30 June 1920)

geography, biogeography, ethnography.

The son of a Cossack officer, Potanin studied at the military school in Omsk from 1846 to 1852 and then served as junior cavalry officer in the Cossack regiment in Semipalatinsk. From 1859 to 1862 he studied at the University of St. Petersburg. His scientific research was connected chiefly with the activities of the Russian Geographical Society, of which he became a member in 1862. In 1862-1864 he participated in the society’s astronomical-geodesical and geographical expedition led by K. V. Struve, with whom he published a detailed geographical and ethnographical description of Lake Zaysan and the Tarbagatay mountain range. On a commission from the society, Potanin made five major expeditions through Inner Asia: into northwestern Mongolia through the Mongolian Altay (1876-1877); through the Tannu-Ola mountain range to China and Tibet (1879-1880); through the eastern border area of Tibet and Nan Shan (1884-1886), his most extensive journey, through Szechwan and the eastern regions of Tibet to Bhutan (1892-1893); and to the eastern border area of Mongolia and the Great Hsingan (1899). As a result of these journeys Potanin gave the first extensive and detailed information on the geography, geology, and economy of little-known regions of Mongolia, and his research helped to create a basic geographical framework for Inner Asia.

Potanin also gathered extensive zoogeographical data, published on the flora and fauna of Inner Asia, and assembled carefully collected herbariums. He discovered many plants, including three species of phanerogams, one of which is named for him. The ethnographical material on the life, economy, and culture of the peoples of Asia that he published are of great importance; the most valuable deal with Turkic and Mongolian tribes (Dungan, Tangut, Chinese, and Tibetans). In addition to organizing a series of expeditions to Siberia, Potanin was also the initiator and founder of the Society for the Study of Siberia, in Tomsk, and a number of museums and expeditions. A mountain in the Nan Shan and a glacier in the Mongolian Altay are named for him.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Potanin’s writings include “Puteshestvie na ozero Zaysan i v rechnuyu oblast Chernogo Irtysha do ozera Marka-Kul i gory Sar-Tau, letom 1863 god a” (“Travels to Lake Zaysan and the River Area of the Black Irtysh to Lake Marka-Kol and the Sar-Tau Mountains in the Summer of 1863”), Zapiski Imperatorskago russkago geograficheskago obshchestva, po obshchei geografii, 1 (1867), written with K. V. Struve; “Poezdka po Vostochnomu Tarbagatayu letom 1864 goda” (“Trip Through the Eastern Tarbagatay in the Summer of 1864”), ibid., written with K. V. Struve; Ocherki Severo-Zapadnoy Mongolii (“Sketches of Northwestern Mongolia”), 4 pts. (St. Petersburg, 1881-1883); Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongolia (“The Tangut-Tibetan Border of China and Central Mongolia”), 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1893); and “Poezdka v srednyuyu chast Bolshogo Khingana, letom 1899 goda” (“Trip to the Middle Part of the Great Hsingan in the Summer of 1899”), in Zapiski Imperatorskago russkago geograficheskago obshchestva, po obshchei geografii, 37 , no. 5 (1901).

II. Secondary Literature. On Potanin and his work, see L. S. Berg, Vsesoyuznoe Geograficheskoe obshchestvo za sto let (“The All-Union Geographical Society for One Hundred Years”; Moscow-Leningrad, 1946); Y. N. Bessonov and V. Y. Yakubovich, Po Vnutrenney Azii (“Through Inner Asia”; Moscow, 1947); M. A. Lyalina, Puteshestvie po Kitayu, Tibetu i Mongolii (“Travels Through China, Tibet, and Mongolia”; St. Petersburg, 1898); and V. A. Obruche1v, Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin. Zhizn i cleyatclnost (“. . . Life and Work”; Moscow-Leningrad, 1947); and Puteshestvia Potanina (“Potanin’s Travels”; Moscow, 1953).

Y. A. Demidovich