About the sources of the Chinese-Russian dictionary of I. K. Rossokhin (18th century)

The article is devoted to a search for sources of the Chinese-Russian dictionary by Illarion Kalinovich Rossokhin (1717–1761). According to V. P. Taranovich, I. K. Rossokhin was the first Russian-born sinologist who started his scientific and pedagogical work over 200 years ago. He was a student at the Second Russian Clerical Mission in Beijing and lived in China for more than ten years, mastering the Chinese and Manchu languages. On his return to Russia, he took a job to translate and teach Chinese and Manchu at the School of Chinese and Manchu Languages at the Academy of Sciences, one of the earliest Schools of Chinese in Russia, which existed from 1741 till 1751. In his work, he used some textbooks brought from China, including the dictionary discussed in this article. Although one of the earliest Chinese-Russian dictionaries, it has not been sufficiently studied so far, nor its sources investigated. It turns out that the Institute for Oriental Manuscripts of the Academy of Sciences stores the manuscript of translations from Smotritsky’s Grammar entitled A collection of the most important extracts translated from Russian, which was used as the earliest textbook for learning Russian in China in the 18th century. It was found that I. K. Rossokhin was involved in the translation. Our comparison shows that there are many similarities between the two manuscripts, corroborated by both historical and philological evidence. Based on the results of our comparative analysis, we have come to the conclusion that the Collection could serve as one of the sources of the dictionary by I. K. Rossokhin. I. K. Rossokhin shortened and edited it for a specific purpose. A possible source of the dictionary of I. K. Rоssokhin can also be the primer brought from China by the head of the Second mission Nikolay Adoratsky. However, unfortunately, it is still unknown where it is located and what it represents.