Archimandrite Palladius (Pyotr Ivanovich Kafarov, 1817–1878) was a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church, a participant in the 12th and the head of the 13th and 15th Beijing Spiritual Missions, and one of the founders of Russian academic Oriental studies. Archimandrite Palladius's knowledge and experience allowed him to become the head of the ethnographic expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to the Amur and South Ussuri regions. One of the results of this expedition was his diary, “Travel Notes on the Route from Beijing to Blagoveshchensk via Manchuria in 1870”, which is a unique source on the geography, ethnography, social, political, and economic life of northern and northeastern China during the late Qing period. Based on these notes, an attempt is made to reconstruct the elements of China's religious landscape during this period. Kafarov's observations of the presence of Buddhist and Taoist shrines and religious structures, such as obo, which maintained ties with the region's shamanic past, the worship of natural objects (mountains), zoolatry, and the overall religious and syncretic nature of beliefs, indicate the close interethnic interaction and the interpenetration of religious beliefs in the cultures of the peoples living in northern and northeastern China during the late Qing Empire.
Key words: religious landscape, China, Far Eastern frontier, borderland, travelogue, ethnography
DOI: 10.22250/20728662-2026-1-62-76
About the author
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Evgeniya A. Kontaleva – PhD, Assistant Professor of the Department of Religious Studies and History, Amur State University; |