Krasnov, A.N.: From the Cradle of Civilisation. Letters from a Journey Around the World

Title

Iz kolybeli tsivilizatsii. Pis’ma iz krugosvetnogo puteshestviia, Sankt-Peterburg 1898

From the Cradle of Civilisation. Letters from a Journey Around the World

Keywords

Summary

The book consists of twenty-four chapters, a preface, and a conclusion. In the preface, the author explains that he was tasked with accompanying an expedition to study the tea regions of Asia as a naturalist and geographer in 1895. This assignment gave him the opportunity to visit India, Ceylon, China, Japan and even North America during his journey back home. He equates this journey around the world with the adventures of Jules Vernes’ characters, and with the explorations of Samuel Baker, Henry Stanley and others. The opening four chapters report the itinerary from Kharkiv and Odessa to Constantinople and Egypt, before the group proceeded towards India. Particular attention is devoted to the Egyptian desert, its climate, flora and fauna, as well as to the landscape along the Nile banks and to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Information on the daily life of the fellahs, whom he describes as trapped in a seemingly hopeless routine, and on the history of ancient Egypt (with regards, especially, to the construction of the pyramids) are also provided.

In the book’s conclusions, the author, contemplating the evolution of civilization, claims that it did not originate in Europe or America, but rather in Asia. He argues that Russia has the potential to bridge the technological advancements of Western civilisation with the moral principles that have traditionally held the most prominent place in Asia.

Bio

Andrei Krasnov was a Russian botanist and geographer. Born in a Don Cossack’s family (he was the brother of Petr Krasnov), he graduated from Saint Petersburg University in 1885, having attended the courses of Vasilii Dokuchaev and Andrei Beketov. He remained there to pursue a professorship, before moving to Kharkov University (1889-1911). In 1912 he began working at the Batumi Botanical Garden, which he had also founded. Krasnov’s primary interest was the study of the flora of Central Asia, the steppes of the Northern hemisphere, and the subtropical tea-growing areas of Asia. He participated in numerous botanical expeditions to various regions, including Altai (1882), Tian Shan (1886), the Caucasus (1890, 1905), North America (1890), Java (1892), Japan, China, and Ceylon (1895), and the Mediterranean (1898). He introduced the method of comparative geobotany to study the history of the present-day flora.

Sources

F. Mil’kov, A.N. Krasnov – geograf i puteshestvennik, Moskva 1955;

S. Lipshits, “Krasnov A.N.”, in Otechestvennye fiziko-geografy i puteshestvenniki, Moskva 1959, p. 548-549;

I. Beilin, V. Parnes, Andrei Nikolaevich Krasnov, Moskva 1968;

Afrika. Entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik, ed. by A. Gromyko, t. 1, Moskva 1986, p. 26.

M.E.