Historical Reference

M. Julius Von Klaproth

If we may judge of the purity of race by purity of language, the Yakuts, who inhabit the shores of the Lena, must be considered as of unmixed Turkish race. Their speech, as M. Julius Klaproth has proved, is nearly that of the Osmanli (Ottoman) themselves, and it has been said that a Turk of Stambul would be understood among the Yakuts on the Lena. Probability is in favor of the opinion of Blumenbach, that a long residence in the climate of North-eastern Asia has changed the features of the race. The language of the Yakuts being unmixed, we may be allowed to infer from this circumstance the purity of their stock, though their features are those of the Mongols and Kalmuck.
Report of the annual meeting, Issues 1-2 British Association for the Advancement of Science J. Murray., 1833

Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth on Julius Klaproth

Klaproth.—Among those to whom I bow the most deeply, who, with all his faults of temper and some few mistakes (and who has made so few), I hold to have been the greatest giant among the writers on Eastern subjects, is Julius Klaproth. The vast range of his linguistic acquirements, his instinct and ingenuity and fertility are astounding. He was the first to reduce the chaos of Asiatic history to something like order, and it is astonishing how little real advance has been made in many of the subjects he treated since he wrote. I am immensely indebted to him. I shall never cease to reverence his memory. Hisvarious papers and essays are so numerous that it is not convenient to enumerate them. Many of them may be seen in the Journal Asiatique, others in various collections, while his travels to the Caucasus and his Asia Polyglotta are universally known ; but there is hardly a point of Eastern history which he has not illuminated.
History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century ...: The Mongols proper and the Kalmuks, Part 1 of History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century, Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth, Longmans, Green, and co., 1876

It is only once in a thousand years that men of the gigantic powers of Klaproth, at once a profound linguist and a most acute ethnologist, come to the surface. For these reasons, therefore, I do not deem it an objection that one who is writing an Eastern history should collect his materials from secondary sources, but rather an advantage.
History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century ...: The Mongols proper and the Kalmuks, Part 1 of History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century, Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth, Longmans, Green, and co., 1876

M. Von Klaproth.

It is a new proof of the little consideration in which Oriental literature is held in this country, that the death of one of its most accomplished Continental professors, Julius von Klaproth, has hitherto attracted scarcely any notice. By some unaccountable oversight, although the event happened in August last, it has never yet been announced in our publication, although the extraordinary talents and acquirements of M. Klaproth would entitle him to prominent notice, if he had not other claims as a diligent and able contributor to this Journal, for several years, until his malady disabled him from writing, and a frequent and valued correspondent.

The ensuing biography of this eminent orientalist is almost exclusively derived from a memoir by M. C. Landresse, inserted in the Journal Asiatique of Paris, which " renders to his labors, his talents, and his memory, that public homage which the professors of literature owe to those who illustrate it with their labors."

M. Henry Julius Klaproth was born at Berlin, on the 11th October 1783, and he began, so early as the age of fourteen, to devote himself to those studies which soon raised him to the first rank of Oriental scholars. His perseverance and sagacity acquired for him, when a very young man, a store of knowledge which is rarely attained in mature age. His father, the celebrated chemist, whose predilection for the exact sciences disqualified him for appreciating the merits of Oriental literature, considered that his son was wasting his time in vain and frivolous speculations. This path of study, it must be confessed, was then sufficiently unpopular and unpromising, whilst chemical science was enjoying the luster and renown which the discoveries of Black, Priestley, Bergmann, Lavoisier, Vauquelin, and Klaproth, had deservedly earned for it.

The tenderness of his mother secretly encouraged the ardent passion in her son, which the cold taste of his father condemned and ridiculed. Young Klaproth felt at this time that insatiable eagerness for books, which never for an instant deserted him, or was suspended even in the midst of pain; and Mrs. Klaproth, out of her own slender accumulations, afforded him the means of feeding his inappeasable appetite. He availed himself, with equal avidity and discernment, of this resource, and he has been often heard, at a later period of life, to express in the warmest terms his gratitude for it.

That instinctive kind of inclination, or invincible bent of curiosity, which is sometimes called genius, and which decides the choice of studies or vocations, directed the taste of M. Klaproth to the narratives of travelers. He contrived, for some time, to keep the balance tolerably equal between his own inclinations and his father's wishes; he even studied chemistry with success, and acquired considerable skill in mineralogy, which was ultimately useful to him in his travels. But the scale soon preponderated in favor of his own favorite pursuits; he neglected and abandoned all other studies for those which were more difficult, and, as some would have said, less useful. The regret which his father experienced at his son's dislike of the career which he had marked out for him, was soon consoled by his success, and he lived long enough to confess " how groundless were his apprehensions, and how futile his prejudices, against a course of application which promised to shed a new glory upon his name."

The royal library of Berlin, which abounds in many rarities, possesses a pretty large collection of Chinese books. M. Klaproth, at the first sight of them, was seized with an irresistible ambition to learn the language in which they were written. The only means of accomplishing this object were an incomplete dictionary, edited by Mentzel, under the direction of Father Couplet, and a manuscript Chinese and Spanish dictionary, by Father Dias, equally imperfect. His industry was, perhaps, sharpened by these defective implements, and the interest which this curious language inspired was so great, that this novel study captivated his mind and absorbed all his attention. The time drew near when the examiners went through the different schools, to require from each student an account of his progress. Klaproth turn came, and he was unable to answer the simplest questions. The examiner, tired of interrogating him, observed, " Why, you know nothing at all, Sir !" " I beg your pardon, Sir," replied Klaproth; " I know Chinese." " What! Chinese? And who taught it you?" "Nobody, Sir; I learned it by myself." "But even in China, a whole life is scarcely sufficient to acquire a knowledge of their books." " I will convince you, Sir, it is no such thing." Away went the scholar to his paper-case, and produced to the eyes of the astonished examiner copies of Chinese characters, essays of translations, and extracts from original works. He was now upon his proper ground; there was no hesitation, no perplexity; all was ease and confidence; from student he had ascended at once to master, and might retort upon others the reproach of ignorance which had just been leveled at him. His answers were satisfactory; he obviated doubts and difficulties; explained the pretended mystery of the Chinese tongue, and, after displaying the spoils of his patient industry, he described, with all the enthusiasm of a discoverer, the irresistible fascinations of a study from which he could not withhold his nights, after having sacrificed his days.

His reputation commenced from this moment; his unassisted acquisition of such a language as the Chinese, then deemed almost unconquerable,* caused young Klaproth to be looked upon as a literary phenomenon. His exclusive application to this study had, however, left his education, in other respects, defective, and, in 1801, he tore himself, with reluctance, at the instance of his father, from Berlin, to study the Greek and Latin classics at Halle. In a few months he had performed all that was required of him, and, in the summer of 1802, he was prosecuting at Dresden the studies he had been forced to forego at Berlin. Towards the close of this year, he published, at Weimar, in German, the first numbers of his Asiatic Magazine,! containing valuable memoirs and documents respecting the history and geography of Asia.

Soon after this, the Academy of St. Petersburg named M. Klaproth one of their associates for Asiatic languages and literature. This nomination, which was not purely of an honorary character, determined him to proceed to Russia, a country which opened boundless resources to his ardent and inquisitive mind, a country which was eager to welcome learned foreigners, and where he hoped, like other ingenious men, to find better pecuniary prospects, and larger facilities of inquiry, than Prussia presented. The result did not fulfill his expectations.

He had already distinguished himself in Russia by the novelty and importance of his researches, when an extraordinary embassy to Peking afforded him a fair opportunity of augmenting and completing them. Before even the ambassador had been fixed upon, M. Klaproth was appointed to accompany him, together with a long train of scientific persons, besides political and commercial agents. The department of science was assigned to Count John Potocki; that of politics and commerce to Count Golowkin, the chief of the embassy. Great efforts were made by the government to secure an accurate report respecting the geography of the country between Lake Baikal and the frontiers of China, the steppes of the Kirghiz, and the manners of its Asiatic nomade subjects.

* One of the Jesuits missionaries writing from Peking, represents the acquisition of the Chinese language a native of Europe as impossible.

t He commenced another periodical work, under the same title, m 111(1. in French. It ceased after three numbers had appeared owing to want of encouragement.

Before Count Golowkin had completed his arrangements, M. Klaproth set off in the spring of 1805, visited Kasan and Perm, crossed the Ural mountains at Yekaterinburg, followed the Irtysh from Tobolsk to Omsk, whence he proceeded to Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, where the embassy was to rendezvous. This route led him amongst the Samoyeds and the Finnish and Tartar tribes, that dwell on the banks of the Yenisei, from the Frozen Sea to Lake Baikal, extending from the Obi far into the eastern part of North Siberia. South of this province, he met with tribes of Mongol origin; he raided amongst the Tunguses of Tobolsk and Irkutsk; with the Bashkir’s, the Yakuts, the Kirghiz, &c.; he studied their manners, collected vocabularies of their dialects, and noted their national physiognomy, in order to distinguish the characteristic traits of the families whose races had crossed. " Guided by the analogies and distinctions he remarked, he ascertained the relations of consanguinity and community of origin of tribes, which are now placed remotely from each other; he reduced their languages into families and subdivided them into dialects; then, following the different nations in their migrations, he traced them from station to station, till they became blended and confounded together in the nations of Middle Asia. These observations, the fruit of much reflection and confirmed by farther inquiries, constituted the foundation of an immense work, in which the people of Asia are distributed according to their languages, and the order of their primitive races, with the exactness so essential in such matters. The classification adopted by M. Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, as it comes into use, will soon prevent our confounding, with De Guignes or Blumenbach, all the nations of Northern Asia in one, denominated sometimes Huns and sometimes Mongols."

The embassy assembled at Irkutsk at the close of the summer of 1805, and reached Kiakhta on the 17th October. Here obstacles, thrown in the way by the Chinese authorities, detained it till the end of the year; but the delay was favorable to the objects of M. Klaproth. He applied himself with indefatigable industry to acquire a variety of Tartar dialects; he learned the Mongol, perfected himself in the Manchu, and besides a valuable store of notes and other materials, he obtained a pretty large collection of Chinese, Tibetan, Manchu and Mongol works.

Meanwhile the cold became severe; mercury froze, and the felt tents of the Mongols were a bad protection against the rigorous inclemency of the weather. Privations and fatigue had, however, little effect upon the zeal of M. Klaproth, from which much benefit would have resulted to Oriental letters had the embassy been permitted to proceed to Peking. Alter crossing the frontiers, Count Golowkin became embroiled with the Chinese viceroy of Mongolia, at Ourga, in a dispute about etiquette, and the embassy was compelled to retrograde to Kiakhta, which it reached in March 1806.

Under the instructions of the Academy of St. Petersburg!], M. Klaproth continued to examine the northern frontiers of China as far as Ust-Kamenogorsk, where he was to inspect the Buddhist temples of Semipalatnaya and Ablaykit, and copy the Tibetan fragments said to exist there. After skirting the Saynnian mountains, traversing the Altai chain, and making an excursion from the Irtysh to Lake Ust-Kamenogorsk, in the Eleuth country, some distance from the southern frontier of Siberia, he returned by way of Omsk to St. Petersburg ; where he arrived at the beginning of 1807- The academy, to which lie made a circumstantial report of his travels, recompensed his zeal, activity, and intelligence, by appointing him academician extraordinary, prior to the allotted time, and the Emperor Alexander, besides other marks of particular regard, granted him a pension of 300 rubles.

Another testimony to his merits was his selection, at the recommendation of Count Potocki, to survey the new conquests of this immense empire in Georgia, and on the shores of the Caspian. He departed on this mission in September 1807; his instructions were given him by the academy, which defrayed his expenses; they required him to ascertain the extent of the new territories; to report upon the soil and moral character of the people; to study their dialects, explore their annals, and collect their traditions; and he was to push his researches as far as Baku, and even into Persia, if possible.

He arrived at Georsiewsk in November, intending, till the close of winter, to restrict his excursions to the northern part of the line of the Caucasus, and not to proceed to Tiflis till the spring. But the plague, then ravaging the country, obliged him to cross the Caucasus in the middle of December, and he reached Tiflis in January 1808, which he made the pivot of his journeys. Political circumstances, as well as pestilential diseases, prevented his visit to Persiaand even to Baku; and he was recalled by the academy towards the end of the year 1808. The valuable fruits of this expedition are recorded in the narrative which he published in German and French.

The numerous vocabularies collected by M. Klaproth, during his two journeys, and the comparisons to which he subjected them, qualified him for a species of study which, though ungrateful and unattractive, was long ago pointed out by Leibnitz as the surest means of arriving at an accurate knowledge of the origin of nations, namely, the comparative study of languages. No pursuit demands at once more judgment in the choice of materials, and more discretion in the use of them. It became with M. Klaproth a passion; with the enthusiasm of his age and the ardor of his character, he plunged into the chaos of etymological hypotheses, where, though he often collected scattered rays of light, he was sometimes deluded by ignei fatui. But if he was not always guided in these researches by the necessary circumspection, he evinced considerable skill in the combination and direction of the means he employed. The results he obtained from a comparison of the different dialects of the Old Continent, inspired him with the desire of comparing the languages of Northern Asia with those of America, and solving, in this way, the enigma respecting the origin of the races which people the New Continent. The manifest affinities, and some remarkable analogies, which he discovered between the roots of the American tongues and those of certain other dialects, appeared to him sufficient to demonstrate that those roots sprung from a common stock, or mother-tongue, which, he thought, had numerous relations with the languages of the Samoyeds and Kamtskchadales. He fancied he perceived the affiliated dialects stretching in a vast chain along the north-west coast of America, from Queen Charlotte's Archipelago to the River of the Amazons, over southern Canada, the United States, Louisiana, Florida, the Great and Little Antilles, the Caribbean Islands, and Guiana. At the same time, he found in the physiognomy and manners of these races resemblances to -those of northern Asia. Many of these hypotheses are founded upon such minute analogies, that much reliance cannot be placed upon them. It is remarkable that M. Klaproth was not slow to discover or to expose the fallacy of these imaginary analogies in others. In communicating his discovery to the academy of St. Petersburg, he supported it by a vocabulary of Carib words, which he had met with in various dialects of northern Asia. He exhibited his views in a comparative table, under the odd title of Hie et Ubique,* and in others of his works, corrected, however, and modified by further inquiries and reflection. " He then began to think that, in the comparative as in the analytical study of languages, nothing is so dangerous as being too systematic and desirous of explaining every tiling; he admitted a sort of general, universal analogy, which lie called ' antediluvian,' and which he detected in dialects in which it would be almost absurd to seek for real analogies." M. Klaproth, himself, acknowledged that resemblance of language was not sufficient to prove the descent of the races of the New Continent from those of the Old.

When he abstained from large and hold deductions, and had the prudence to confine himself to more tractable subjects, the results of his comprehensive knowledge of languages, and his accuracy of research, supplied him with many new and curious materials to elucidate the primitive history of nations. He demonstrated that the native races of Great and Little Bukhara are erroneously classed amongst Turkish tribes, since they are of Persian origin; by the help of an Uighur vocabulary, he established the fact, that a people of Turkish origin, originally from the banks of the Orkhon and the Sclinga, gradually spread themselves westward as far as the sources of the Irtysh, and, after ruling over Little Bukhara, became blended, in their migrations, with the 1 Uzbeks and the Kirghiz. In another work, he considers the origin of the Afghans, which has been reported to be Armenian, Arabian, Georgian, and even Jewish; and he substitutes plausible conjectures for wild hypotheses. The academy of St. Petersburg printed his dissertation on the Afghans, at its own expense, apart from its memoirs, as well as a collection by M. Klaproth, entitled Archives pour la Litterature Orientate. They both appeared in 1810.

About this time, he had been employed to prepare a catalogue of the valuable collection of Chinese and Tartar works belonging to the academy. It might have been expected that, occupied so advantageously and so agreeably to his taste, in a country which afforded ample scope fur his inquiries, he would not have been anxious to quit it; but, having been dispatched to Berlin, in 1811, to superintend the engraving of the different characters requisite for printing his works, he seized the opportunity with eagerness to bid an eternal adieu to Russia. This year appeared his Explanation of the inscription attributed to the great Chinese emperor, Yu, in which he maintains the authenticity of this monument against the sinologist Hager.

Germany was now a scene of political disorder, which was far from favorable to the cultivation of letters. M. Klaproth, who was employed on his Travels in Caucasus, endeavored to find a quiet asylum in the mountains which separate Silesia from Bohemia. But Silesia itself was invaded and ravaged by the French armies, and it was not till they were driven across the Rhine, in 1813-14, that he could resume the printing of his work.

He made some attempts to enter the service of France, which were unsuccessful ; and, in October 1814, he quitted Berlin with the determination of applying directly to Napoleon, at Porto Ferrajo. His application was cordially received, and he was ordered, by way of trial, to prepare a memoir on the different Asiatic races which inhabit the frontiers of Russia. Before he could finish it, the downfall of the power whose patronage he had solicited left him at Florence in a most difficult position. lie exerted all his resources to get to France, and, in June 1815, he arrived in Paris, where he took up his residence and continued to reside ever since.

In the capital of France, facilities for study were, at first, all the advantages he gained; he subsisted there in a precarious manner, until Baron William von Humboldt met with him, and employed all his great influence to improve the circumstances of his countryman. He knew him only by reputation, and by having found him at Dresden in a situation by no means comfortable, a short time after the battle of Leipzig; he was not ignorant of the circumstances of his journey to Porto Ferrajo; but he likewise knew the extent of his knowledge and of his labors, and he foresaw the benefit which literature might expect from such a man. At his recommendation, the king of Prussia conferred upon M. Klaproth (August 1816) the title of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, advancing him, in addition to a handsome salary, 80,000 francs towards the publication of his works, granting him permission to remain at Paris till they were entirely completed. To this liberal patronage we owe, amongst other works, the Supplement to the Chinese Dictionary, the Manchu Chrestomathy, and the Catalogue of Chinese and Manchu books in the library of Berlin.

The literary productions which emanated from the pen of M. Klaproth, during his sojourn at Paris, and which appeared in a variety of periodical works, as well as separately, are very numerous. Though most of them are short, there are none which do not bear the strongest indications of profound study, patient research, and an accuracy which is the result of comprehensive knowledge of the subject, tenacity of attention, and a judgment habituated to close discussion. Some of these papers bear his name, others are anonymous, and some were published under assumed names; it was seldom, however, that the characteristics of his style, and his extent of reading, did not betray him: few could command the same resources, or apply them with equal effect. He was not over-solicitous about style; facts were his objects, and it was sufficient for him if he stated them with accuracy, precision, and perspicuity.

" But it is to be deeply regretted," observes M. Landresse," that he should have wasted so much time in discussions as useless to letters, as they were distressing to those who took an interest in their welfare. In this species of warfare, he displayed an ardor and a skill which were invincible; yet, however just might be his judgments, he strangely detracted from their merit and effect, by divesting them of that urbanity from which neither the profoundest knowledge, nor the goodness of a cause, can claim exemption. Men are to be dealt with most gently when they are in the wrong; M. Klaproth thought differently. The intemperance which he carried into controversies, had often the effect of imparting worth and importance to the notions he attacked; and he had, moreover, the misfortune to find, that nothing is so well calculated to inspire others with kindness as the manifestation of it on our own part."

This irritability of temper excited against M. Klaproth a prejudice which has greatly obscured the reputation he may justly claim. In the course of a discussion on his merits and learning, we happened to hear it remarked with asperity, but not altogether without reason, that he had resided so long amongst rude and unpolished people, that he had, insensibly, imbibed a tincture of their manners. Constant application, multiplied labors, and probably this very irritability of temper, undermined his constitution. For more than two years past, palpitations, the symptoms of which he alone understood, intimated to him that his days were numbered. His disorder was an aneurism, and he sunk under its effects suddenly, on the 27th August 1835, at one o'clock in the morning, in the midst of the invaluable library which he had collected at such cost and so many sacrifices.

" His sufferings," observes M. Landresse, " had scarcely interrupted his labors, but it is impossible to give even an approximate report of their number, extent, and condition. Almost inaccessible in his cabinet, maintaining no intercourse with the learned except by his books, he had not even a pupil, I might almost say a friend, to whom he confided the plans he had formed, the doubts he hoped to remove, the chasms he wished to fill; he died with the mortification of having abandoned works of importance already commenced, and plans too little developed to be undertaken and continued by others. It is, however, supposed that his commentary on Marco Polo, if not completed, is at least considerably advanced: this work is the fruit of thirty years' prodigious study and research, in which he consulted, compared, extracted, and translated all the Chinese, Tartar, and Persian texts, which could diffuse any light upon the places visited by the Venetian traveler. M. Klaproth appears likewise to have finished latterly a geographical, statistical, and historical description of the Chinese empire and its dependencies; and it is known that, some years ago, arrangements were concluded between him and a celebrated German bookseller, for the publication of a new Mithridates, which, besides a grammatical sketch and an analyzed text of each language, was to exhibit a comparative vocabulary of the dialects of the five portions of the world, and a table of the graphical system in use amongst all nations. He had just finished for the Prussian government a grand chart of Asia, in four sheets, which he intended to accompany with an explanatory and descriptive text. Lastly, he had undertaken to publish, for the Asiatic Society of Paris, a Georgian grammar and a Manchu dictionary."

The remains of M. Klaproth were deposited in the cemetery of Montmartre. His obsequies were performed with the pomp due to his eminent literary character ; amongst those who paid the last tribute to him after death was M. von Humboldt, who had been his most zealous patron during life.

A slight personal acquaintance, improved by a frequent correspondence, for several years, impressed us with a high esteem for the intellectual qualities and extraordinary industry of M. Klaproth, and convinces us that the void left by his loss will not soon be filled up. The havoc which the hand of death has made, within comparatively a few months, amongst Oriental scholars, in sweeping off such men as Remusat, Saint-Martin, De Chezy, Morrison, and Klaproth,—the first four at the very head of their respective departments, the last eminent in all,—is an inauspicious omen to the cultivation of Asiatic literature. Certain Vandals in India seem impatient to co-operate with the ravages of Time.
The Asiatic journal and monthly miscellany, Volume 19 Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1836