Emil Bretschneider was a Russian

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 sinologist of Baltic German

Baltic German

The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...

 descent and a correspondent member of Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

. He graduated from the medical school of University of Dorpat in Dorpat Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 and was first posted as a physician by the Russian legation to Tehran

Tehran

Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

. From 1866 to 1883 he was posted as physician by the Russian legation to Pekin

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

.

Overview

In 1866 the publication of book titled "Cathay and the Way Thither" by orientalist Henry Yule

Henry Yule

Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...

 stirred up Bretschneider's interest in sinology. However, he felt that the extensive material contained in Chinese books was under-utilized by western sinologists because many of them did not read Chinese, and when they quoted Chinese material, they relied on second hand sources. Emil Bretschneider while in Pekin, befriended the Archimandrite Palladius Kafarov of the Russian Orthodox Church Mission to Pekin, a famous sinologist in his own right; Bretschneider also took advantage of the excellent library of the Russian Ecclestic Mission with extensive collection of Chinese books on history, geography and botany, he began his own first hand research into ancient Chinese literature, particular in botany and geography.

In 1870 he published his first article in sinology: "Fu Sang-- Who discovered America ?", followed by the publication in London of "On the Knowledge Possessed by the Chinese of the Arabs and Arabian Colonies Mentioned in Chinese Books".

In 1875 he published the article "Notes on Chinese medieval travellers to the West" in Shanghai. In 1881 he published "Early European researches into the flora of China (American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai), a topic often ignored by contemporary sinologists due to lack of training in botany. Bretschneider was a pioneer in this field.

In 1888 he published Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, Trubner Oriental Series, London; this book included his English translation of three important Chinese
works about the history and geography of central Asia, namely Travel to The West by Yelü Chucai, Genghis Khan's chief adviser; Travels to the West by Taoist monk Kiu Chang Chun

Qiu Chuji

Qiu Chuji was a Daoist disciple of Wang Chongyang. He was the most famous among the Seven True Daoists of the North...

 and The Peregrinations of Ye-Lu Hi-Liang (the grandson of Yelu Chucai), translated from The Annual of Yuan dynasty.

He was a correspondent member of the Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

.