Shaumian, T.

Russian scholar T.Shaumian has devoted some thirty years of her life to study of the Tibetan question. In her work she has been the first to cite rare archival documents from the Russian foreign political archive, she has acquainted herself with materials in the National Archive of India, and written a doctoral dissertation that immediately aroused the interest of Western specialists. Comparing and collating archival sources, she maintains that “Russia and England pursued incursive policies not so much with the aim of conquest as with an interest in developing trade and acquiring new sources of raw materials and market outlets for the growing bourgeois trade of both countries, and in Asia these two converging streams of expansion collided. Russia never raised the question of direct military intervention in Tibetan affairs, and never considered the annexation of Tibet. Russia cleverly used the Tibetan question to bring pressure to bear on Great Britain with the aim of exacting advantages in other areas of Asia.” This book was written specially for Mellen Books, and is a unique contribution to knowledge of this subject. It incorporates rare archival documents. An earlier abbreviated version of this work was published by Oxford University Press in Delhi and was immediately bought up by specialists. In the present version, two extra chapters have been added, making this edition the most complete and comprehensive account of its subject. About the author: Russian historian and orientalist T.Shaumian has over two hundred publications to her credit on the history and contemporary international relations of South and Central Asia. The present work represents the fruit of many years’ work in archives of Russia and India. In Russian