Background
He was born to a family of Chuvash priests and studied in the Kazan seminary.
He was born to a family of Chuvash priests and studied in the Kazan seminary.
The genuine objects of his interest were Chinese history and language. He was forthwith accused of lacking religious zeal, stripped of his abbot"s rank and incarcerated in the Valaam Monastery. There he translated a number of ancient and medieval Chinese manuscripts, which had previously been unknown in Europe.
In succeeding decades he published many volumes on Chinese and Mongolian history, geography, religion, statistics, and agriculture.
lieutenant was Bichurin who came up with the idea for the name East Turkestan to replace the term "Chinese Turkestan" in 1829. In 1837 he opened the first Chinese-language school in the Russian Empire.
Foreign his sinological contributions, he was elected to the Russian, German, and French Academies of Sciences.
Russian Academy of Sciences.