Preliminary Catalogue of the Sven Hedin Map Library
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 19 Number 1 Himalayan Research Bulletin Article 8 1999 Preliminary Catalogue of the Sven Hedin Map Library Philippe Forêt University of Oklahoma, Norman Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Forêt, Philippe. 1999. Preliminary Catalogue of the Sven Hedin Map Library. HIMALAYA 19(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol19/iss1/8 This Research Report is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Preliminary Catalogue of the Sven Hedin Map Library National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm The Sven Hedin Foundation (Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden) Philippe Foret Department of Geography and International Academic Programs University of Oklahoma, Norman Introduction remained intact since the 1950's. The historians of Sven Hedin (1865-1952) is now remembered in geography and cartography have neglected Sven Hedin's continental Europe and Japan mostly for his travel map collection largely because it has never been accounts of Tibet and Turkestan and not for his properly catalogued. Examining the map library allows scientific survey of Central Asia. The English versions us to understand the incremental, pedestrian, meticulous of his books have not been reprinted since the late and stubborn ways in which scientific knowledge was 1960's and are now collector's items. Who would resist pursued during the golden age of European colonialism the urge of paying good money for the 1941 edition of in Asia. A Conquest of Tibet, that the book jacket describes as: Sven Hedin's first cartographic production seems to "A hair-raising account of an actual journey into the have been a six volume world atlas which he completed barbaric interior of a strange, forbidden country." My in 1883, at the early age of eighteen. He was only Life as an Explorer: The Great Adventurer's Classic twenty-eight when the University of Halle awarded him Memoir is the only title by Sven Hedin easily available a Ph.D for Der Demavend nach eigener Beobachtung, an in the USA (note 1). Dr. Hedin's talent for sharing with uncharacteristically short dissertation that he based on a popular audience tales of his feats as a Ladakhi his mountain fieldwork. Sven Hedin once stated what he explorer has somehow contributed to diminishing his expected his field mapping techniques to achieve: scholarly status in our collective memory. The "without claiming precision [my maps] should convey a enthusiastic crowds that greeted him in 1909, when he clear picture of the country's morphology and distances received honorary doctoral degrees from the universities covered and that around these should group themselves of Oxford, Cambridge and La Sorbonne, vanished a long all such geographical features as were within sight and time ago. His uncompromising pro-German position at all conceivable from a caravan at ordinary marching and his vocal support of the Nazi regime later turned pace" (note 4). Years of laborious and precise mapping him into an embarrassing academic figure who is now followed his survey expeditions of 1893-1897, 1899- almost forgotten. 1902, and 1906-1909, and eventually resulted in the Dr. Sven Hedin has nevertheless been the most compilation of the formidable Southern Tibet (note 5). prolific geographer and popular explorer of Central Asia The nine volumes of Southern Tibet include 234 maps, (note 2). What remains from hi s work today is a and are supplemented by a volume of map sheets of number of remarkable collections kept in beautiful Central Asia, Tibet, East Turkestan, and Eastern Pamir, Stockholm. The Sven Hedin Map Library is unique as well as maps of Sven Hedin's routes, and by a second because it exhaustively documents six decades of volume of 52 hypsometrical map sheets. The research activity by this prominent scholar (note 3). constitution of the Sven Hedin map library is largely What makes this map library so valuable is that it has the result of this monumental task. SVEN HEDIN MAP CATALOGUE/Foret 21 The maps catalogued here are now stored in the Notes: basement of the library of the National Museum of I. Sven Hedin, A Conquest ofTibet (Garden City, NY: Ethnography of Stockholm, which has inherited Sven Halcyon House, 1941 ). Sven Hedin , My Life as Hedin's library and collections. Dr. Hedin's archives are Explorer: The Great Adventurer's Classic Memoir (New estimated to contain tens of thousands of letters, maps, York: Kodansha International, 1996). sketches, diaries, news clippings, loose leaf charts and 2. Gosta Mantell, "Sven Hedin. The Explorer," Etlmos, maps, book manuscripts, and religious objects. The 1965, volume 30, pages 7-24. estate also includes books and journals on Central Asia 3. S. Linne, "Sven Hedin and the Ethnographical and geography. This map catalogue has 433 entries that Museum of Sweden, Stockholm," Ethnos, 1965, cover about 2,000 maps in German, Swedish, English, volume 30, pages 25-38. Latin, French, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese and other 4. Gosta Mantell, "Sven Hedin's Mapping in Asia," languages. Lack of language expertise has prevented me The Bulletin of th e Geological Institutions of the from cataloguing the maps in Russian that used to University of Uppsala, June 1961, volume 40, page belong to Sven Hedin, and this catalogue must therefore 484. be considered as preliminary and not definitive. Also 5. Sven Hedin, Southem Tibet. Discoveries inFormer included in this catalogue are the rare maps that Sven Times Compared with my own Researches in 1906- Hedin acquired on Asia and Europe since the sixteenth /908 (Stockholm: Generalstabens litografiska anstalt, century. Excluded from this catalogue are the maps that 1916-1922). are physically located within the books and journals of 6. Willy Hesse, Die Werke Sven Hedins (Stockholm: the Sven Hedin library, such as geographical journal Sven Hedin sfiftelse, Etnografiska museet, 1962 and maps and the maps of Chinese gazetteers. Dr. Hedin 1980. Three volumes). consulted all these maps when he prepared for publication his own maps, atlases, books, and Figures: expedition routes and travel accounts. Sven Hedin's 1. Sven Hedin's portrait. Source: "Fig. 8 Sven Hedin frequent and careless use, as well as paper acidity, during the expedition to Sinkiang in 1933-34'" (photo explain why most of these maps are now in a Hummel), Ethnos, 1965, volume 30, page 23. deteriorated state and why so many sheets are missing. 2. Map showing Sven Hedin's routes in Asia. Source: I hope that researchers will find this catalogue to be Gosta Mantell, "Sven Hedin's Mapping in Asia." a useful contribution to a better analysis of the culture, methodology, and technology of geography and 3. Sven Hedin's map of Tibet (detail). Source: Karla cartography at the turn of the 20th century. This map ofver Tibet. Efter Dr Sven Hedins originalkartor catalogue could at least be a small addition to the utarbetad vid Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalt af extremely comprehensive catalogue of Sven Hedin's Lojtnant C.J. Otto Kje/lstrom. Source: Sven Hedin, works prepared by Willy Hess (note 6). The Preliminmy Transhimalaya. Upptiickter och iifventyr in Tibet Catalogue of the Sven Hedin Map Library exists as a FileMaker Pro document, and may be easily searchable (Stockholm: Bonniers), volume 1. when it is put on the Web by the National Museum of 4. The Transhimalayan mountain range (detail). Source: Ethnography of Stockholm. Karta ofver Transhimalaya. Source: Sven Hedin, It is my pleasure to acknowledge the support of the Transhimalaya. Upptiickter och iifventyr in Tibet very obliging curators and staff of the National Museum (Stockholm: Bonniers), volume 2. of Ethnography of Stockholm. I was invited to work there as a guest researcher during the summers of 1996, 5. Sven Hedin's map of Mount Kailas (detail). Source: 1997 and 1998. I am especially thankful to From Camp 212 to Camp 234 1907 July 26-September Superintendents Hil.kan Wahlquist and Elisabet Lind. 8. Source: Sven Hedin, Southem Tibet, Pl. 27. Hil.kan loaned me his French bicycle for long lakeshore rides; Elisabet let me rent her gorgeous apartment, 6. The 1927-1935 expedition route map (detail). Source: which is only one island away from Sven Hedin's Dr. Sven Hedins expeditioner 1927-1935 i astra och residence in Stockholm. A summer grant from the me/lersta Asien. Source: Sven Hedin, ed., De Junior Faculty Research Program of the University of vetenskapliga resultaten av vara expeditioner i Central Oklahoma partially funded this project, and I express Asien och Tibet 1927-1935 av Sven Hedin och hans my thanks to Bret Wallach and Gary Cohen for having nedarbetare. Svenska sallskapet fOr antropologi och endorsed my applicetion for financial support .. geografi, Ymer, 1935, volume 4. Stockholm, July 21, 1998 and Zurich, August 18, 1999 22 HIMALAYAN RESEARCH BULLETIN XIX ( 1) 1999 Figure 1. Sven Hedin's Portrait SVEN HEDIN MAP CAT ALOGUE/Foret 23 Afghanistan. Pamir. Survey. Hedin ENTRY: Pamir 1: 1,250,000 Keywords ca 1895 Title Stockholm, Generalstabens litografiska anstalt Scale Date Afghanistan. Pamir. Survey. Hedin Publication place, publisher, editor Reiseweg von Dr. Sven Hedin im Pamir-gebiet von Description Rang-Kulnach dem Mus-Tag-Ata. Apri/1894 Source and location 1: 200,000 ca 1895 Berlin, Keller Sheet 12. Two copies Afghanistan. Iran. Pakistan. Transportation [No title] Arabia. Sinai ca 1910 Karte von Nordwestarabien London 1: 800,000 Source: General Staff Map 2149 1918 Kartographische Abteilung der Koniglichen Preul3ischen Afghanistan. Kashmir. Turkestan. Physical · Landesaufnahme Map of the North Western Frontier of1ndia ca 1892 Arabia.