XXXII Международный конгресс ИИСАА. 26–28 апреля 2023 г.

Россия и Восток. К 300-летию СПбГУ. Материалы конгресса 99 Источниковедение и историография Османской империи и республиканской Турции давали возможность ПСР представлять свое противостояние оппозиции внутри страны и критикам за пределами Турции, а с ним и весь политический процесс в стране в совершенно иной плоскости — как идеологическое противостояние, как борьбу за историческую справедливость. Zhukov K. A. (SPbU, Saint-Petersburg) Vasily Ivanovich Kelsiev (1835–1872) and his works about the Ottoman Turkey The present paper is devoted to Vasily Kelsiev, a Russian political activist, Slavophil, journalist, translator of the Bible, historian, ethnographer, polyglot who knew around 25 foreign languages. Probably he was a prototype of Shatov — a personage of the Demons , the anti-nihilistic roman by Fedor Dostoevsky. As a lecture goer Vasily Kelsiev attended the Oriental Department of St. Petersburg University in 1855–1857. Among his university teachers, one can mention Professor Ilya N. Berezin and Professor Vasily P. Vasiliev. To the latter Kelsiev owed his knowledge of Buddhism. It is interestingly to note, that Kelsiev’s second wife, Zinaida Verderevskaya (Ragosin), is mostly famous as Orientalist. She went to the United States in 1874 where she wrote several books devoted to the history of the Ancient East and became a member of American Oriental Society. Vasily Kelsiev’s political and philosophical legacy has not been the subject of study by Orientalists so far. To some extent, the present paper aims to fill this gap up. Strictly speaking, this is a kind of continuation of some previous papers delivered by the author at various scholarly meetings a few years ago 1 . Having become a follower and supporter ofAlexander Hertzen in late fifties, Kelsiev soon found himself in the Ottoman Empire. Firstly, he stayed in Constantinople (from October 1862 to December 1863) where he established and maintained close political contacts with Polish and Circassian emigrants. Then he moved to the small city of Tulcea on the river Danube (stayed there from December 1863 toApril 1865) where he founded a revolutionary society in order to make anti-Tsarist propaganda among local Russian Old-Believers. In those days, the Russian revolutionaries in London regarded 1 Zhukov K. A. Горчаков versus Кельсиев: материалы комиссии П. П. Ланского (1867 г.) // Науч- ная конференция «К. Н. Леонтьев и русский консерватизм» (СПб., Пушкинский Дом / ИРЛИ РАН, 14–15 ноября 2016 г. (Gorchakov versus Kelsiev: the materials of Petr P. Lanskoy Commission of the year 1867 // Conference “Konstantin N. Leontiev and Russian Conservatism”. St. Petersburg, The Institute of Russian Literature RAN / Pushkinskij Dom, 14.11–15.11. 2016); Zhukov K. A. О «кельсиевском следе» в творчестве Достоевского // XLII Международные чтения «Достоевский и мировая культура». СПб., Литературно-мемориальный музей Ф. М. Достоевского, 9–12 ноября 2017 г. (On “Kelsiev’s presence” in the works of Dostoevsky // The XLII International Conference “Dostoyevsky and the World Culture”. St. Petersburg, F. M. Dostoyevsky Literary Memorial Museum, 09.11–12.11. 2017).