This article is about Grigory Potanin. For other uses, see Potanin

Potanin

Potanin is a Russian surname that may refer to:* 9915 Potanin, asteroid* Grigory Potanin , Russian explorer* Vladimir Potanin , Russian businessman...

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Grigory Nikolayaevich Potanin (alt. Grigorij Potanin) was a Russian explorer of Inner Asia

Inner Asia

Inner Asia has a range of meanings among different researchers and in different countries. Denis Sinor defined Inner Asia broadly as the homelands of the Altaic peoples and the Uralic peoples .German makes a distinction between "Zentralasien", meaning Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and...

 who aligned himself with the Siberian separatist movement

Siberian separatism

Siberian regionalism , is a political movement to form an autonomous Siberian polity. It originated in the mid-19th century and reached a high tide with the military activities of Aleksandr Kolchak and Viktor Pepelyayev during the Russian Civil War....

. The 9915 Potanin

9915 Potanin

9915 Potanin is a C-type main belt asteroid. It orbits the Sun once every 5.05 years.Discovered on September 8, 1977 by Nikolai Chernykh, it was given the provisional designation "". It was later renamed "Potanin" after Grigorij Potanin, a Russian explorer of Siberia.- References :...

 asteroid bears his name.

Early life

Potanin attended a Page Corps

Page Corps

Page Corps was a military academy in Imperial Russia, which prepared sons of the nobility and of senior officers for military service....

 in Omsk

Omsk

-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

, a military school for children from wealthy families.

Potanin initially travelled to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 while serving with a Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 division in Altaj in the 1850s. He returned to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in 1858 to study Mathematical Physics

Mathematical physics

Mathematical physics refers to development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines this area as: "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and...

. He was arrested for his participation in student demonstrations in 1861, and expelled from Saint Petersburg University. After spending three months in Petropavlovskaya fortress, he returned to Siberia.

After leaving prison, he travelled to Siberia with Nikolai M. Yadrintsev, where he began to work as a publisher. Due to his support for regionality and rights for Siberian peoples, he was arrested on charges of supporting separatism

Separatism

Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...

 for Siberia in 1867. Convicted, he was sentenced to three years in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 and fifteen of hard labour. His hard labour was reduced to five years, and during those five years he wrote a book on the history of Siberia.

In 1876, Potanin lead an expedition into Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

. The expedition spent the winter of 1876 - 1877 in Kobdo, with bitter cold and few provisions. While there, the expedition collected various biological specimens and conducted ethnological

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 research. The expedition split into two parts upon leaving the city in the middle of March, 1877. Some members went to Han-Chai, while Potanin and some others left for Hami and Uliastai

Uliastai

Uliastai is a city in Mongolia. It is located in the western part of the country, 1,115 kilometers from the capital Ulaanbaatar. Uliastai is the capital of Zavkhan Province and was the 10th most populous city in the country with a population of 24,276 , now this city has 16,240 population and is...

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1884 - 1886 expedition

Potatin journeyed to northern China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 from 1884 to 1886 with Augustus Ivonovitch Skassi. His expedition departed Peking on May 13, 1884. The expedition travelled first over the U-tai-shan mountains, arriving in Hohhot

Hohhot

Hohhot , is a city in north-central China and the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, serving as the region's administrative, economic, and cultural centre....

. The expedition left Hohhot and travelled across the Yellow River

Yellow River

The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

 into the Ordos Desert

Ordos Desert

The Ordos Desert is a desert and steppe region lying on a plateau in the south of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China . The soil of the Ordos is a mixture of clay and sand and, as a result, is poorly suited for agriculture. It extends over an area of...

. They travelled to the ruins of Borobalgassun and from there on to Lang-chau

Lanzhou

Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. A prefecture-level city, it is a key regional transportation hub, allowing areas further west to maintain railroad connections to the eastern half of the country....

. He encountered a Turkish people

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 called the Salars, and Potanin recorded information about their language. He then spent time recording the cultural practices of the Amdos Mongols. The party then travelled to Si-ning

Xining

Xining is the capital of Qinghai province, People's Republic of China, and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. It has 2,208,708 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 1,198,304 live in the built up area made of 4 urban districts.-History:...

 and met its governor, who authorised their travel into eastern Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

. They departed Si-ning and went to Ming-chau, crossing the high altitude Tibetan Plateau

Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau , also known as the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, in addition to smaller portions of western Sichuan, southwestern Gansu, and northern Yunnan in Western China and Ladakh in...

, where they recorded information on the native vegetation. There, the expedition visited Gui-dui, Bóunan, Labrang and Josi before reaching Ming-chau. The expedition ran out of supplies in Sung-pang-ting, and turned back towards Lang-chau, stopping in Lung-an-fu, Ven-hsien, Tse-chau, Hung-chang-fu and Di-dao. They spent the winter of 1885 in the Kumbum Monastery

Kumbum Monastery

Kumbum Monastery is a Buddhist monastery in Qinghai province, China. Kumbum was founded in 1583 in a narrow valley close to the village of Lusar in the Tibetan cultural region of Amdo. Its superior monastery is Drepung, immediately to the west of Lhasa...

, before returning to Russia.

While there, he was the first westerner to report on the East Yugur and West Yugur languages, making a glossary that was published in his book on the expedition, The Tangut-Tibetan Borderlands of China and Central Mongolia in 1893. The book also contains a language glossary for the Salar language

Salar language

Salar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China; some also live in Ghulja, Xinjiang...

.

Later life

In 1889, Potanin lead the group that formed the first University

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 is Russian Asia, Tomsk State University

Tomsk State University

Tomsk State University , formerly Imperial Tomsk University, is the first university in Siberia—it was founded in 1878 in Tomsk, Russia. TSU opened in 1888 with only one department, the medical school...

, in Tomsk

Tomsk

Tomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Tom River. One of the oldest towns in Siberia, Tomsk celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2004...

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Potanin was arrested in 1905 for his support of the Revolution of 1905.

Potanin was a leading light in the oblastniki which aimed at some degree of regional self-government for Siberia, but this movement lacked any party or regional organisation, and was limited to a small group of intellectuals mainly based at Tomsk University. It was here that they organised a Regional Conference in August 1917, and a Congress in October to draft a constitution for an autonomous Siberia. Potanin was elected chairman of the Provisional Siberian Council 8 December 1918 at Tomsk by delegates from the major centres of Siberia. But this assembly was largely dominated by the Esery

Socialist-Revolutionary Party

thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...

 (Social Revolutionaries, SRs), and Potanin resented being used as a mere figurehead and resigned in protest 12 January 1918 as the first Siboduma convened. Subsequently he abandoned the idea of Siberian autonomy in favour of a strong central authority able to restore order and defeat the Bolsheviks. The members of Siboduma dispersed or were rounded up by local Red Guards on the night of January 25-26 1918. Potanin died at Tomsk in June 1920.

Potaninskaya Street in Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...

, Russia, is called after him.