Mongolian studies

Mongolian studies is an interdisciplinary field of scholarly inquiry concerning Mongolian language, Mongolian history, and Mongolian culture. Scholars who work in the field of Mongolian studies are often referred to as Mongolists.

Isaac Jacob Schmidt is generally regarded as the "founder" of Mongolian studies as an academic discipline. Schmidt, a native of Amsterdam who emigrated to Russia on account of the French invasion, began his exposure to the Mongolic languages as a missionary of the Moravian Church among the Kalmyks, and translated the Gospel of Matthew into the Kalmyk language. Afterwards he moved to Moscow and then Saint Petersburg, where he produced his most famous work: the first translation of the Erdeniin Tobchi into a European language. He also compiled a dictionary of Mongolian and a translation of the seven then-known chapters of the Epic of King Gesar. Other major figures in the early history of Mongolian studies in Russia were Józef Kowalewski of Poland (who founded the Mongolian studies department at Kazan University) and Matthias Castrén of Finland (who wrote the first grammar of a modern Mongolic language, published after his death by Franz Anton Schiefner at Saint Petersburg University).