Early ethnographic accounts from Inner Asia

This table lists major 19th and early 20th century Western travellers who produced ethnographic accounts of Mongolia and Inner Asia.

Years in Inner Asia

Name

Nationality

Profession

Selected works

1844-1846

Evariste Huc

French

Missionary (Catholic)

Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China During the Years 1844-5-6

1870-1891

James Gilmour

British

Missionary

James Gilmour of Mongolia: His diaries, letters and reports (Lovett 1892)

1876-1885

Przhewalskii

Polish-Russian

Geographer

Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet (1876)

1876-1886

GI Potanin

Russian

Naturalist, Ethnographer

Путешествия Г.Н. Потанина по Китаю, Тибету и Монголии [Travels of GN Potanin in China, Tibet, and Mongolia] (1893)

1880s-1890s

W Radloff (Radlov)

German-

Russian

Linguist, Archaeologist, Ethnographer

Aus Sibirien [From Siberia] (1884)

1883-1909

William Woodville Rockhill

American

Diplomat, Tibetologist

The Land of the Lamas: Notes of a Journey Through China, Mongolia and Tibet (1891); Explorations in Mongolia and Tibet (1893); Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet: Based on the Collections in the U.S. National Museum (1895)

1886-1904

Francis Younghusband

British

Geographer

A Journey Across Central Asia, from Manchuria and Peking to Kashmir, over the Mustagh Pass. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography 10 (8), 1888.

1888-1892

Bronislav Gromchevsky

Polish-Russian

Explorer

1888-1926

Pyotr Kozlov

Russian

Explorer, archaeologist

Mongolia and Amdo and the Dead City of Khara-Khoto (1923)

1889-1891

Nikolai Yadrintsev

Russian

Archaeologist

1892-1893

AM Pozdneyev

Russian

Geographer

Монголия и монголы [Mongolia and the Mongols] (1896)

1894-1935

Sven Anders Hedin

Swedish

Geographer

Through Asia (1898); History of the expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 (1944)

1899-1902

Gombojab Tsybikov (Цэвэгийн Гомбожав)

Russian

Tibetologist

Избранные труды [Selected works] (1919)

1902

CW Campbell

British

Consul (GB)

Travels in Mongolia, 1902: A Journey by C. W. Campbell, the British Consul in China. Edited by Tim Coates (2000).

1910-1954

SI Rudenko

Russian

Physical anthropologist, archaeologist

1920-1930

RC Andrews

American

Naturalist, Paleontologist

Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalist’s Account of China’s “Great Northwest” (1921)

1925–1928

Nicholas Roerich

Russian

Artist, philosopher

1930s

AD Simukov

Russian

Geographer