page_title: Mikhail Stepanovich Andreev
section_title: With Alexander Polovtsov
hierarchical_section_title: Mikhail Stepanovich Andreev / With Alexander Polovtsov
caption_attribution_description: Museum of Applied Arts in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
context_page_description: Mikhail Stepanovich Andreev was a Russian-Uzbek and Soviet orientalist, cultural researcher of Central Asia, ethnographer, linguist, and archaeologist. He was initially supervised by Vladimir Nalivkin, and was the teacher of Olga Alexandrovna Sukhareva. He was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
context_section_description: In 1896, Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov Jr., special assignment officer of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Empire, arrived in Tashkent from St. Petersburg on a mission to study the status of resettlement in Central Asia and the Caucasus. On the recommendation of an expert on the Turkestan Territory, Vladimir Nalivkin, Andreev became Polovtsov's secretary. Andreev accompanied Polovtsov to the Transcaspian and Transcaucasus regions and became a permanent companion and employee of Polovtsov, a person who was not devoid of scientific interests and propensity for patronage. It soon became clear that Polovtsov, who had a reputation for being a sophisticated aesthete, preferred social relations with young men (Andreev in particular, who Polovtsov was very close to) instead of his wife, Sofia Panina, who left Polovtsov and retook her maiden name and original title.
  As Polovtsov's secretary, Andreev bought a house for him on his behalf in Tashkent from Tashkent merchant Nikolai Ivanovich Ivanov. Andreev restructured the house significantly in an oriental style. The architect of the restructuring was A. A. Burmeyster. The house was known in Tashkent as the "Polovtsov House". Various organizations operated out of the house, including a training center for ganch carving and embossing as well as an embroidery workshop. Since July 1937, the house housed the Handicraft Museum. Today, the house is the State Museum of Applied Arts of Uzbekistan.
  With the return of Polovtsov to his permanent residence, Andreev accepted his proposal to move to St. Petersburg, where, in connection with his scientific studies, he entered into live communication with prominent Russian orientalists such as S.F. Oldenburg, V. V. Radlov, and K. G. Zalemanom. These orientalists appreciated Andreev's erudite nature and his devotion to science, particularly his knowledge of the languages and life of the peoples of Central Asia. Andreev spent the winter of 1898 with Polovtsov in Paris, where they learned French. In addition to his official duties, he worked in the Eastern branch of the French National Library. However, even though he traveled and lived in many places, Andreev never broke his ties with Central Asia, and returned many times to live in Tashkent, where he continued to collect linguistic and ethnographic data.
  In 1902, Andreev drove through Osh to the Pamirs, to Vakhan, Ishkashim and back. The result of the trip was a scientific joint publication with Polovtsov on the ethnography of the Ishkashim and Vakhan tribes. During the trip and during his stay in Tashkent after, Andreev managed to collect data on the Yazgulyam language, which was then extremely obscure and almost unknown. In 1906, Andreev left for India, as Polovtsov was appointed Consul-General in Bombay. The Russian Academy of Sciences instructed him to collect ethnographic data. During his stay in India, he sent a collection of 1000 exhibits to the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography at the Academy of Sciences, as well as sending a report on British intelligence in India to the Governor-General of Turkestan. He also studied the Hindi and Pashto languages.
  In 1907, during a vacation, Andreev again arrived in Central Asia, where he walked on foot with Polovtsov from Kashgar, through the Himalayas, along the Karakorum pass to Western Tibet, and, from there, passing Yarkand, Tashkurgan, Vakhan, Shugnan and East Pamir in the Ferghana Valley. In 1911, he was elected a corresponding member fo the Geographical Society of Bengal. He served as the personal translator of the Consul and Vice-Consul of Russia in India and French Indochina from 1906 to 1914.
  Upon returning home to Central Asia, Andreev was appointed inspector of public schools in the Khojent and Jizzakh counties of the Samarkand region. The Russian Geographical Society entrusted him with the task of compiling an ethnographic map of the Turkestan Territory, for which he visited the Nur-Ata Mountains and Kyzylkum, which was adjacent to it, as well as going to the Matcha Mountains in 1916.
caption: Courtyard of the Polovtsov House (now the State Museum of Applied Arts)
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