Acknowledgements:
The study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), number 20-012-00098.
Abstract:
The article provides an analytical overview of the books by Russian authors of the 19th century, containing information about Abkhazia. Among the studied editions are well-known books that have widespread use in science, as well as rare ones, which have not been given due attention. The reviewed publications contain information about Abkhazia of a physical-geographical, military-topographic, military-statistical, historical-ethnographic, linguistic and archaeological nature. The article attempts to establish the differences in the authors’ cognitive interest in Abkhazia. The materials of the analyzed texts differ in terms of their volume, some of them represent a section or chapter of a book, and there are also generalizing publications entirely devoted to Abkhazia. Despite the discrepancies encountered between the editions in the description of the ethnic appearance of the Abkhaz people, they all contributed to the accumulation of knowledge about it, and played an important role in the formation of scientific Abkhaz studies. Biased assessments and condemnatory characteristics given by individual authors to historical circumstances have been critically analyzed.
References
Bazyleva, E. A. “Kavkazskii otdel Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva i ego biblioteka” [“Caucasian Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and its Library”]. Omskii nauchnyi vestnik, no. 5, 2015, pp. 12–15. (In Russ.)
Khrushkova, L. G. “Praskov’ia Sergeevna Uvarova — vydaiushchiisia issledovatel’ khristianskikh pamiatnikov Kavkaza” [“Praskovya Sergeevna Uvarova, an Outstanding Researcher of the Christian Monuments of the Caucasus”]. In: Aktual’nye voprosy istorii khristianstva na Severnom Kavkaze [Actual Issues of the History of Christianity in the North Caucasus]. Stavropol’, Izdatel’skii tsentr StPDS Publ., 2013, pp. 100–116. (In Russ.)
Shamba, S. M. “Rossiia – Abkhaziia: istoriia i sovremennost’” [“Russia – Abkhazia: History and Modernity]. Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta, no. 3(12), 2010, pp. 9–13. (In Russ.)
