Paul Pelliot

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Paul Pelliot
Pelliot Mission Plan

Paul Pelliot (born May 28, 1878 in Paris ; † October 26, 1945 there ) was a French sinologist and Central Asia researcher . He led several archaeological expeditions to Central Asia and in the course of his research became the founder of Mongolian historical research, Mongolian Studies . He was a student of Sylvain Lévi .

Live and act

The sinologist Erich Haenisch describes Pelliot in his obituary in 1951 as a scientist with outstanding intellectual and judgmental acuity, who had an almost unimaginable, universal knowledge. He also learned any language easily and seldom made mistakes. In his work area " East and Inner Asia " he provided reliable foundations for a possible synopsis of the cultural development, history and language of this area.

Pelliot was already famous as a 22-year-old young man, Haenisch mentioned. Originally he wanted to work in the diplomatic service and first studied English at the Sorbonne , then Mandarin Chinese at the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes. He completed the three-year course in just two years and caught the attention of the sinologist and professor at the Collège de France Édouard Chavannes , who sponsored him. Other teachers were the Sanskrit researchers Sylvain Lévi and H. Dordier. In 1900 he went to Hanoi and did research at the École d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). From here he also stayed in Beijing to find and study written sources. He was trapped with other foreigners and diplomats in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion and was awarded the Legion of Honor for bravery on his return to Hanoi . He procured food during the siege, using his very good knowledge of Chinese, and captured a flag during the fighting. In 1901 he became a professor of Chinese at EFEO. In 1904 he returned to France to take part in the Orientalist Congress in Algiers in 1905.

Pelliot between the manuscripts in Grotto 163 at Mogao.

From 1906, Pelliot undertook excavations and researches in Turkestan on behalf of the French government in the area, in which Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein had already made sensational finds between 1894 and 1908 . Also, Prussian , Russian and English expeditions talking simultaneously on there. He was accompanied by the army doctor Louis Vaillant and the photographer Charles Nouette. He also met Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim in Samarkand and allowed him to accompany him on his expedition. He was aware that Mannerheim was a Russian spy and in return he had a payment, a Cossack escort and the use of the Trans-Caspian railway in Russia guaranteed. On the actual expedition, however, they soon parted ways. Pelliot was given access to a large handwritten library of Abbot Wang Yuanlu in the Mogao Grottoes 15 miles southwest of Dunhuang . Aurel Stein had already acquired manuscripts from this, but Pelliot, in contrast to Stein, knew classical Chinese and other languages ​​of the texts and was thus able to make a much more informed selection. He spent three weeks there in April 1908 selecting the manuscripts and bought them from the abbot for 500 tael . He returned to Paris on October 24, 1909.

The texts were written in Chinese, Tibetan and other Central Asian languages. Their time of origin was in the 4th / 5th Dated 18th century AD. This find made him famous. Apart from two papers with E. Chavannes, he has published nothing more about it. The exact report that Pelliot wrote from memory about the library and his finds and that became known on his return in Paris initially met with disbelief there. Pelliot had only a few minutes for his quick review in April 1908 for each of the individual manuscripts, but had an excellent memory. He was accused of wasting public money and buying forged manuscripts. One of his critics hit Pelliot on a banquet in 1910, which led to legal repercussions. Finally he received support from Aurel Stein.

In 1911 he was given a chair in the languages ​​and history of Central Asia at the Collège de France, which was created for him . During World War I he was a military attaché in Beijing. In 1921 he became a member of the Collège de France. He was also an honorary member of the German Oriental Society and from 1920 until his death in 1945 published the first international specialist journal for Sinology with the name T'oung Pao , founded in 1890 . Since 1922 he was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and since 1931 of the British Academy . In 1934 he became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences .

Pelliot became a member of the Société asiatique after the war and published a large number of articles in the two journals T'oung Pao and Journal Asiatique, in which he also demanded high standards for the bibliographical, textual and linguistic competence of sinologists. In his Chinese courses , the Asian scholar Denis Sinor reported , he had students without any previous knowledge translate a text with a dictionary and showered them with detailed comments. He also reprimanded colleagues for incorrect knowledge. His colleague Hellmut Wilhelm called him a "sinology policeman".

Pelliot stood for the classic combination of language and history in Sinology. He reacted in a hurtful and defensive manner to violent criticism from other departments in the social and cultural sciences.

In 1945 he died of cancer .

reception

Apart from a large number of publications, for example in the specialist journals T'oung Pao and Journal asiatique , Pelliot does not have any summarizing, evaluating accounts of his excavations and linguistic research. He left a number of essays and notes for other researchers to evaluate. A first posthumous publication was the text reconstruction and translation of the Yuanchao mishi元朝 秘史 (Texts on the Secret History of the Mongols ). According to Haenisch, he was the first sinologist to restore a coherent piece of text in the Mongolian wording. It is therefore his right to be called the founder of Mongolian historical research. The turkologist Poppe and Asia Scientists Sinor not assessed the work Pelliot as high as Haenisch.

Pelliot's commentary on this translation has been lost; the estate only contains "Mongolian notes". They may provide more information. In 1951, the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft suggested evaluating the estate. Even after Pelliot's death, one needed his leading hand in Sinology.

In the late 1940s, Pelliot was viewed as a "criminal" in China for stealing Chinese cultural goods.

Pelliot also had a name in Marco Polo research. His notes on this were published posthumously.

Appreciation

In the Musée Guimet in Paris, a gallery is named after him.

Fonts (selection)

author

Essays
  • with Édouard Chavannes : Un traité manichéen retrouvé en Chine . In: Société asiatique (ed.): Journal Asiatique , 1911, pp. 499–617; 1913, pp. 99-199, 261-392, ISSN  0021-762X
  • Les influences iraniennes en Asie Centrale et en Extrême-Orient . In: René Mabillon. Revue d'Histoire et de Littérature Religieuses NS , 3 (1912), pp. 97-119, ISSN  0035-3620
  • Mon-ni et manichéens . In: Journal Asiatique , 1914, pp. 461-470, ISSN  0021-762X
  • "Le 'Cha-tcheou-tou-fou-t'ou-king' et la colonie sogdienne de la region du Lob Nor . In: Journal Asiatique , 1916, pp. 111-123, ISSN  0021-762X
  • with Gino Borghezio, Henri Masse and Eugène Tisserant: Les Mongols et la Papauté. Documents nouveaux . In: Revue de l'Orient chrétien 3e sér. 3 (23), 1922/23, pp. 3-30; 4 (24), 1924, pp. 225-335; 8 (28), 1931, pp. 3-84.
  • Les traditions manichéennes au Foukien . In: T'oung Pao , Vol. 22 (1923), pp. 193-208.
  • Neuf notes sur des questions d'Asie Centrale . In: T'oung Pao , Vol. 24 (1929), pp. 201-265.
Books
  • Histoire Secrète des Mongols . Restitution du texte mongol et traduction française des chapitres I à VI. Oeuvres posthumes de Paul Pelliot 1, Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient, Adrien-Maisonneuve. Paris 1949.
  • Les Débuts de l'imprimerie en Chine. Oeuvres posthumes de Paul Pelliot 4. Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient, Adrien-Maisonneuve. Paris 1953
  • Louis Hambis (Ed.): Notes on Marco Polo . Klincksieck, Paris 1959/63 (posthumous)
  • Recherches sur les chrétiens d'Asie centrale et d_Extreme-Orient I . Imprimerie Nationale, Paris 1973.
  • Antonino Forte (Ed.): L'inscription nestorienne de Si-ngan-fou . Scuola di studi sull'Asia orientale, Kyoto 1996, ISBN 2-85757-056-2 .

editor

  • Meou-tseu, ou les doutes levés . In: T'oung Pao , Vol. 19 (1920), pp. 255-433.
  • with Robert Gauthiot: Le sûtra des causes et des effets du bien et du mal . Edité 'et traduit d'après les textes sogdien , chinois et tibétain . Paris 1920 (2 volumes)

Secondary literature

  • Erich Haenisch: Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878 to October 26, 1945) . Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. 101, 1951, pp. 9-10.
  • Nicole Vandier-Nicolas, Monique Maillard: Les Grottes de Touen-houang . Published by the Collège de France, Paris 1981. (With notes by Pelliot.)
  • Hartmut Walravens : Paul Pelliot (1878-1945): his life and works: A Bibliography . Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2001.
  • Drège, Jean-Pierre / Zink, Michel / Pinault, Georges-Jean / Will, Pierre-Etienne / Scherrer-Schaub (eds.): Paul Pelliot, de l'histoire à la légende . Colloque international, Collège de France et Académie. Published by Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 2013.
  • Eric Tamm, The Horse That Leaps Through Clouds: A Tale of Espionage, the Silk Road and the Rise of Modern China, Vancouver: Douglas & Mcintyre 2010

Web links

Commons : Paul Pelliot  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Die kleine Enzyklopädie , Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, Volume 2, p. 332.
  2. ↑ Eric Tamm, The Horse That Leaps Through Clouds: A Tale of Espionage, the Silk Road and the Rise of Modern China, Vancouver: Douglas & Mcintyre 2010
  3. ↑ Erich Haenisch: Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878 to October 26, 1945) . Journal of the German Oriental Society , Vol. 101 1951, pp. 9-10.
  4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  5. ^ KNAW Past Members: Paul Pelliot. Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Cf. Bruce Brooks: Paul Pellier (Sinological Profiles) , umass.edu June 9, 2004.
  7. ↑ The work contains many errors, but also very much that is correct, e.g. B. the spelling of new words, commented the sinologist Erwin Ritter von Zach in a review. Because of his many errors, Pelliot should read texts by his colleague Toyohachi Fujita in order to track them down. Regarding the quality of his translation, he advised Pelliot not to be surprised if his name was no longer mentioned in the latest edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929). Pelliot had banned Zach from the T'oung Pao in the same year because of insufficient expertise as a writer. See Hartmut Walravens (Ed.): Erwin Ritter von Zach (1872–1942) Collected Reviews. Chinese history, religion, and philosophy under criticism. Berlin 2005, p. 95.
  8. ↑ Erich Haenisch: Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878 to October 26, 1945) , in: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländische Gesellschaft, vol. 101 (1951), pp. 9-10.
  9. ^ Justin Jacobs: Confronting Indiana Jones - Chinese Nationalism, Historical Imperialism, and the Criminalization of Aurel Stein and the Raiders of Dunhuang, 1899-1944 , in: Sherman Cochran / Paul G. Pickowicz (eds.): China on the Margins , Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press 2010, pp. 65-90 (here: p. 83).
  10. ^ Unchanged reprint. Kraus Reprint, Nendeln 1975.
personal data
SURNAME Pelliot, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sinologist and Central Asian researcher
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1945
Place of death Paris