The Russian edition of the book of the
legendary researcher of the republic, Sevyan Vainshtein (1926-2008),
“Mysterious Tuva”, was distributed to the libraries of Tuva.
The German version of the book “Mysterious
Tuva – Expeditions into the Heart of Asia” was first published in 2002 by the
German publisher “Alouette Verlag” (Hamburg,
Germany). For a
whole month, Juergen Boden, the head of the publishing house, lived in the Moscow apartment of
Sevyan Vainshtein while they both worked on the book, deciphering the field
notes of the researcher, taken in the 50-60’s of the last century.
In 2006, the book was re-formed, and was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in
the new version.
In 2006, the scholar started work on the
Russian edition. But the book saw the light of the world only in 2009, thanks
to the support of the Gosduma delegate Larisa Shoigu, with the help of the
Cultural Foundation “Por-Bazhyn”.
The Russian language edition of “Mysterious
Tuva” consists of 2000 specimens.
The book is directed to a wide circle of
readers, and allows them, as Sergei Shoigu
expressed it, “to feel like a participant of many years of expeditions for study of the unique culture
of Tuva, and to develop a deeper appreciation of Tuva’s rich historical
heritage.”
This is the last book in the series of
historic-ethnographic works about Tuva and Tuvans, written and prepared by
Vainshtein personally – the author missed the publication by four months. For this series of works, the author was
honored with the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay prize, awarded for a major contribution
to the study of problems of anthropology and ethnology. This is the first
edition of the book in Russia,
in Russian language.
The presentation of the book took place on
June 24 in the National Museum of Tuva; Sevyan Vainshtein, as a recent graduate
of MGU, was a director of the museum when he was starting his research of the
ethnogenesis of Tuvans.
“The publishing of this book is only a
small part of returning the debt we owe to the great scholar”, considers Larisa
Shoigu. The delegate brought one half of the entire edition as a present to the
republic – for the collections of the museums, libraries and schools.
In September 2009, the widow of the
scholar, Alla Vainshtein will attend the celebrations of the 80th
Anniversary of the National
Museum.
[
Translator’s note: Incidentally,
Sevyan Vainshtein’s “Nomads of South Siberia”, Cambridge University Press 1980,
English language version, which was unavailable for decades, was re-issued
earlier this year (2009), and is now available again.]
