Inventing an East of one’s own: the Third Congress of Orientalists in St. Petersburg and its Caucasian materials

The article is written as part of the study of the process of production of knowledge about the East by European scientists in the empires of modern times and the discussion about the objectivity of such knowledge. Based on archival documents introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, it analyzes the issues of preparation and holding of the Third International Congress of Orientalists in 1876 in St. Petersburg and the peculiarities of presenting Caucasian materials at it. It is emphasized that Oriental studies in Russia had their own specific features. They were directed not only to the outer East, but also to the Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire, among which the Caucasus occupied almost the first place. It is concluded that the organization of preparatory work for the presentation of Caucasian materials at the congress showed their obvious dependence on the decision of the central and local authorities. Through the allocated funding, the Caucasian governor influenced the volume and nature of scientific knowledge about the Caucasus presented at the congress. The government tightly controlled the initiatives of scientists, since the study of the region was considered an important component of its “civilization” and integration into the imperial state space. At the same time, the Caucasian materials of the congress showed that the knowledge of Russian specialists about the real East was very scattered and fragmented. Representatives of local ethnic groups, even those carefully selected at the preparatory stage, were not represented in the work of the Caucasian sections of the congress.