Reconnoitering Central Eurasia: Russian Geographic Research Expeditions, 1850–90

The Russian Empire and the Russian Geographical Society employed the use of scientific, ethnographic, and geographic research expeditions in its so-called “reconnoitering” of Central Eurasian lands during the second half of the 19th century.  The expeditions and the expeditionary leaders under discussion were sent to the region for a number of reasons, including the gaining of samopoznanie (self-knowledge) of lands and peoples already under imperial control, but more often to gather information on lands and peoples beyond Russian borders.  These expeditions collected samples of flora and fauna, mapped the territory, made ethnographic observations, and provided other information of use for future settlement or colonization.  The individuals who led these expeditions also became important instigators of the further eastward colonization of the region by shifting the research focus of the Geographical Society beyond Russian Turkestan (during the 1850s and 1860s) to research in China, Tibet, and Eastern Turkestan (from the 1870s until the end of the century).  The individuals who led these expeditions were from a wide range of ethnic and national backgrounds, but the nature of their work ultimately conformed to the norms of expected Russian/Western scientific and geographic scholarship.  These expeditions are comparatively analyzed in light of a growing body of scholarly work on the use of geographical expeditions in a number of national historical contexts.