Professor of Chinese Studies Jakob Brandt and His Experience of Teaching Russian Language to the Chinese

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the sinologist Yakov Yakovlevich Brandt (Brandt, J.J.; 1869–1946), who lived in Beijing. The orientalist graduated from the Saratov gymnasium and the oriental department of St. Petersburg University (1892). Having entered the service in the Ministry of the Imperial Household in 1894, he then worked in the Ministry of Finance. In 1901, he was appointed head of the Beijing department of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). Having developed his own methodology, Brandt spent many years teaching the Russian language to the Chinese and Chinese for the Russians. He was the first to develop the program of teaching diplomatic Chinese, having published several manuals (“Diplomatic Conversations” and “Collection of treatises between Russia and China.” Being the oldest professor at the Chinese Institute of Russian Language and Literature, he published works on Chinese studies in Russian, Chinese and English, and repeatedly advised students from the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg. He also taught at the North China Union Language School. Communication with foreign orientalists helped him publish several works in English. The Sinologist was also involved in political and social activities. The article also provides brief notes about Russian orientalists in Beijing. While preparing it, the author used the memoirs of the sinologist’s contemporaries (I.G. Baranov, I.I. Serebrennikov and A.N. Speshnev), materials from foreign collections (Archive and Library of the Hoover Institution — HILA; Russian collection of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu; Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco — MRK) including private ones (M. Drozdov, Shanghai, NN, Beijing).

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