Nikolai Kuehner
| Nikolai Kuehner | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1877 |
| Died | 1955 |
| Nationality | USSR |
| Fields | Orientalist |
Nikolai Kuehner (also Kühner, Kuhner, Кюнер Николай Васильевич, 14 September 1877, Tiflis - April 5, 1955, Leningrad) was a prominent scientist known as Orientalist, Sinologist, Tibetolog, Manchurist, geographer, and ethnographer.
N.Kuehner was born into a family of a music teacher, his father was Wilhelm Friedrich (Vasily) Kuehner (d. 1911), an ethnically German music teacher in the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Women's Institute, a composer and accompanist, of Lutheran confession. N.Kuehner's mother was Mary Kuzminichna Berezkina (d. 1924) from a family of physicians, of Greek orthodox confession. From his youth, N.Kuehner took an interest in Eastern countries, culture and history of China, Japan, Tibet.
After graduating from the Tiflis Gymnasium in 1896, N.Kuehner enrolled in the Sino-Manchurian-Mongolian of the Oriental Languages department in the St. Petersburg University. After graduation (1900, with a gold medal) N.Kuehner was retained in the university to prepare for a professorship, and received a two-year assignment to China and Japan. N.Kuehner learned seven Oriental (including Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, Korean, Japanese) and 10 European languages. Upon return, N.Kuehner was appointed in 1902 to the newly established Oriental Institute in Vladivostok, later transformed into a Far Eastern State University.
In Vladivostok, N.Kuehner created his best works, and received recognition of the scientific community. In 1909, 1912, and 1915 N.Kuehner traveled to China, Korea and Japan to improve his linguistic skills. In Vladivostok, N.Kuehner prepared his master's thesis "Geographical Description of Tibet" (1907–08), which became a major contribution to the national Orientalism, still retaining its value as one of the key fundamental work in the field of the history, geography, and ethnography of Tibet. In the Oriental Institute N.Kuehner developed and read a course on history, geography, and ethnography of the Far East. After the 1917 fall of Czardom, N.Kühner decided to remain in Vladivostok, even though a majority of the professors left to the European part of the country or fled abroad. N.Kuehner was one of the first Russian sinologists who began working on a new history of China, authoring the work "Essays on the recent political history of China" (Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, 1927). N.Kuehner collected extensive material on the history and culture of China, Korea and Japan. In the autumn of 1925, N.Kühner moved to Leningrad, where was a professor at the Oriental Faculty of the Leningrad State University. From 1932, he also became a senior fellow and a head of the Eastern and Southeastern Asia section at the USSR Academy of Sciences Ethnography Institute. N.Kuehner was also teaching at the Leningrad Oriental Institute, reading courses on the history, ethnography, geography, and history of material culture of the Far East.
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