Földvári Books

The First Comprehensive Survey of the Russian Empire and Siberia

Strahlenberg, Philipp Johann von

Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia, In so weit solches Das gantze Rußische Reich mit Siberien und der grossen Tatarey in sich begreiffet, […].

Stockholm: in Verlegung des Autoris, 1730. Illustrated with 21 engraved and woodcut illustrations, maps, and tables, several folding, and the folding Tabula Polyglotta on two folding leaves. The illustrations and maps were designed by Strahlenberg and Ferdinand Hilfreich Frisch. First edition. Provenance: Gyula Ortutay. Contemporary full calf, spine gilt in six compartments with red morocco lettering-piece. Red-speckled edges, paste-paper pastedowns. pp. [26] 438 [16]. With 10 engraved plates (3 folding), 1 folding woodcut map, 10 woodcut illustrations (one extending over three consecutive p.), and the folding Tabula Polyglotta (2 folding f.). Spine heavily worn, with substantial loss of leather along the upper joint and at the headcap, exposing several cords; joints partly split. Covers rubbed and marked, with scattered abrasions and small surface losses. The folding woodcut map with a neatly closed tear at one fold. Internally generally clean, in fine condition.

First edition of one of the most influential eighteenth-century works on the geography, peoples, and languages of the Russian Empire and Siberia, based largely on the author’s thirteen years of captivity and research in Siberia.

Captured after the Swedish defeat at Poltava in 1709, Philipp Johann Tabbert, ennobled von Strahlenberg (1676–1747), spent thirteen years in Russian captivity, chiefly at Tobolsk, where he travelled extensively through western Siberia with the naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt. The observations gathered during this period formed the basis of one of the earliest and most important descriptions of Siberia and Inner Asia. Conceived as the companion to the author’s map of Russia and Great Tartary, the work developed into a comprehensive historical, geographical, ethnographical, and linguistic survey of the Russian Empire and northern Asia. Strahlenberg explains in the preface that his geographical investigations led him to compare the languages of the region as a means of exploring the origins and relationships of its peoples. The result was the remarkable Tabula Polyglotta (Gentium Boreo-Orientalium vulgo Tatarorum Harmonia Linguarum), printed on two folding leaves and comparing thirty-two languages and dialects, together with the substantial Vocabularium Calmucco-Mungalicum. The survey ranges across the Russian Empire, with particular attention to Siberia and Great Tartary, treating geography, administration, the reforms of Peter the Great, ethnography, religion, archaeology, and natural history, while the engraved plates illustrate antiquities, inscriptions, burial monuments, plans, and other archaeological remains.

The large engraved map announced on the title page accompanied the work separately from the text volume. Strahlenberg explains that the ordinary impression, printed on heavy royal paper, could not conveniently be bound with the book, although an alternative impression on four thinner sheets was available for those wishing to insert it into the volume, accounting for its absence from many surviving copies. The map also gave influential expression to Strahlenberg’s proposed boundary between Europe and Asia along the Ural Mountains and associated river systems, a geographical division that subsequently gained wide acceptance.

The work was translated into English (1738), French (1757), and Spanish (1780), reflecting its enduring importance as one of the principal European accounts of the geography, peoples, and languages of the Russian Empire and Siberia.

Provenance: Gyula Ortutay (1910–1978), Hungarian ethnographer, folklorist, and politician, with his bookplate on the front pastedown.

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Price: €6,000.00