Iakinf Bičurin as a translator from Chinese

Long revered as the “father of Russian sinology ,” Iakinf Bičurin (1777-1853) was instru- mental in the development of Chinese studies in the Russian Empire. Bičurin was the author of many publications on China and East Asian history, some of which were also widely circulated in W estern Europe. In 1830, he founded the School of Kjachta (Kjachtinskoe učilišče), Russia’ s first public school dedicated to training translators from Chinese. Translation was the cornerstone of Bičurin’ s successful scholarly activity and his key to turning Russian sinology from an eclectic enterprise to a world-class academic milieu, especially during the first period of his literary activity . Not only did translation play a crucial role in Bičurin’ s pedagogical model, based on memorising the Chinese clas- sics while translating them into Russian, but also in his methodical approach to retrieving fresh knowledge of China directly from native sources, which contributed to his relevance with an in- creasingly demanding public.