The “Zhi Gong Tu” treatise is a valuable source for studying the history, ethnography, and culture of Central Asian countries and regions. This article presents the translation and comments on the “Central Asian” part of the 2nd volume of the album, which mainly includes the territories of the modern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Republic and adjacent regions: Ili, Turfan, Hami, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turfan, Badakhshan, Andijan (Uzbekistan) and some others. The structure of the entries is mainly the same: a paired image of representatives of peoples and nationalities, predominantly a man and a woman, supplemented by a short textual annotation, including a historical reference, description of the lifestyle, clothing and attributes of the inhabitants of the area. The illustrations are an interesting source for historical and ethnographic research, since in addition to fixing the external appearance of the inhabitants of the regions at that time, in some cases one can see a tendency in describing some historical details to please the emperor, for in the first place it was him whom the album was originally composed for. This tendentiousness allows us to qualify “Zhi gong tu” as an example of “patriotic agitation” literature of the XVIIth century.
Translated title of the contribution"ILLUSTRATED TRIBUTARIES OF THE QING EMPIRE" (HUANG QING ZHIGONG TU) AS A SOURCE FOR STUDIES OF XVIII CENT. CENTRAL ASIA, VOL.II
Original languageRussian
Pages (from-to)85-108
JournalСовременные востоковедческие исследования
Volume1
Issue number4
StatePublished - Dec 2019

ID: 51154524