Russian Sources of Qur’ānic Ethnography. III: Hajj from Russia in Russian intelligence Reports (Late 19th — Early 20th Centuries)

Abstract

Archival material related to the activities of Russian intelligence in the late 19th — early 20th centuries that aimed at suppressing the spread of pan–Islamic and pan–Turkish propaganda within the Russian Empire and tracking hajji road networks continues to be of serious academic importance. Being the little–studied primary source to the history of Russian Islam they allow us to see the true goals of official St. Petersburg in its policy towards the world of Islam both within the empire and beyond its borders. The article is based on materials related to a series of trips of Russian intelligence officers to the Middle East (Staff Captain ‘Abd al–‘Aziz Davletshin (Istanbul, Jeddah, Mecca, Medina, 1898), Captain Boris Shelkovnikov (Baghdad, Mosul and Basra vilayets of the Ottoman Empire, 1902—1903), Captain Nikolay Terletsky (the Hejaz railway, 1904, 1910), Staff Captain Ilyas Chanyshev (Turkey, Afghanistan and India, 1909—1910), Panteleimon Antaki (Istanbul and Cairo, 1911). The title of the article may seem misleading, but at this stage our task is to present the possible sources of Qur’anic ethnography in all their completeness and originality. Specialists in Arabian ethnography are well aware of the phenomenon of long–term preservation of deeply archaic elements of material culture and economic activities in the region. In this regard, the material of those trips often turns out to be important for Qur’ānic ethnography as well. The commented publication of such material will be the second part of our work. Such British sources are very well known, and their texts are cited, among other things, for historical and ethnographic purposes. Meanwhile, the Russian sources in question remain virtually unknown.The results of Chanyshev and Antaki's trips go beyond the scope of the Qur’anic ethnography proper, but they are important for understanding the problems associated with the hajj from Russia in their entirety.