Nikolay Przhevalsky and Russian Expansion: the Exploration of Central and East Asia
Overview
Between 1869 and 1884, Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839-1888) conducted a number of expeditions of exploration into central Asia. During these expeditions he helped to chart the interior of Siberia, Mongolia, and China. He made a number of important natural history discoveries, including the last discovered species of wild horse and wild camel. He became the first European since Marco Polo (1254-1324) to visit Lop Nor in China and he was the first European to explore the upper portions of the Huang Ho River, a river important in Chinese history and folklore for over three thousand years.
Background
During the first part of the nineteenth century Russia was not a large nation. However, like the United States, it had a large expanse of land, stretching to the Pacific Ocean, that was occupied by nontechnological people. In the middle of the century, following the sale of Alaska to the United States, defeat in the Crimean War, and the sale of some of the Kuril Islands to Japan, Russia began to flex its muscles in central Asia, in part to help compensate for these other losses.
At this time, too, the Chinese were distracted by foreign incursions and internal rebellion (the Taiping rebellion), drawing their attention away from the northern border.
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