Hidden Asia · Modernised and illustrated edition
The Embassy of His Imperial Majesty of Great Russia to the Emperor of China
Modernized, illustrated English edition of Die Gesandschafft Ihro Käyserl. Majest. von Gross-Rußland an den Sinesischen Käyser by Georg Johann Unverzagt (1719-1722).
From Saint Petersburg to Peking, Unverzagt follows Peter the Great's embassy to the court of Kangxi.
Read more ↓- about 170 pages
- Paperback
- English
- 18th century
About this book
In July 1719, Peter the Great sends Captain Lev Izmailov to Peking at the head of one hundred and sixty men. In the baggage: a glass clock that plays twelve minuets, giant mirrors, an ebony cabinet and ten thousand ermine pelts. The aim: to open trade with Kangxi, Emperor of China.
Georg Johann Unverzagt, a young member of the retinue, keeps the journal of the adventure. Sixteen months on the road: the Volga under the first snows, the Urals by sledge, Christmas at Tobolsk, Lake Baikal crossed between headwinds and pack ice, the long wait at Selenginsk, then the Mongolian steppe with its camels and yurts all the way to the Great Wall, passed on 14 November 1720.
In Peking, the ambassadors' residence is ringed by ten thousand men, and a quarrel over the letter of credence keeps the embassy shut in for weeks. At last comes the audience of 23 December: forehead to the ground before the throne, tarasun offered from the emperor's own hand, banquets served on gold plate. Then the Chinese New Year, the dragon fireworks, the leopard hunt. But seven hundred Mongol families who have crossed into Russia threaten to ruin everything.
When the embassy departs, Unverzagt stays in Peking with the resident Lorenz Lange. It will fall to him to bring back to the tsar, across the desert and the ice of Siberia, the eighteen tapestries given by Kangxi. A rare, first-hand view of Kangxi's China through the eyes of a young European.
Product details
- Publisher
- Itinerarium Éditions
- Series
- Hidden Asia
- The author
- Georg Johann Unverzagt (1701-1767)
- Date of the journey
- 1719-1722
- Modern edition by
- Thierry Ruolz
- Language
- English
- Format
- Paperback, 6 × 9 in (15.2 × 22.9 cm)
- Pages
- about 170
The author
Georg Johann Unverzagt (1701-1767)
Georg Johann Unverzagt (1701-1767) is eighteen when he leaves in 1719 with Peter the Great's embassy to the Kangxi emperor. Left in Peking with the resident Lorenz Lange after the envoy Izmailov's departure, he returns alone to Russia through Mongolia and Siberia, charged with the tapestries given by the emperor, and presents them to the tsar at Murom in 1722. He drew from the journey an account, Die Gesandschafft Ihro Käyserl. Majest. von Gross-Rußland an den Sinesischen Käyser, printed at Lübeck (1725 according to several records, 1727 for the revised edition held in libraries). According to one biographical note, he later taught engraving at the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.
All books by Georg Johann Unverzagt (1701-1767) →The journey mapped
In the Same Place, Through the Centuries
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John Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia, to Diverse Parts of Asia (1763)
Unverzagt's best reading companion walked at his side: the Scottish physician John Bell belonged to the same Izmailov embassy.
Read a free edition → -
Lorenz Lange, Journal de la résidence du sieur Lange, agent de Sa Majesté impériale de la Grande Russie à la cour de la Chine, dans les années 1721 et 1722 (1726)
When the embassy leaves in March 1721, Unverzagt stays in Peking with the resident Lorenz Lange, and it is the continuation of that stay that Lange's journal recounts, published in French at Leiden in 1726, then translated into…
Read a free edition → -
Egor Timkovski, Voyage à Péking, à travers la Mongolie, en 1820 et 1821 (1827)
Exactly a century after Unverzagt, Egor Timkovsky, an official of the Russian Asiatic Department, escorts the new Orthodox ecclesiastical mission to Peking, just as Izmailov's embassy had already led an archimandrite there.
Read a free edition → -
Évariste Huc, Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine (1850)
In 1844, the Lazarist priests Évariste Huc and Joseph Gabet leave their mission at Xiwanzi, north of the Great Wall, not far from Kalgan where Unverzagt entered China.
Read a free edition →
The modern editor
