Essay on the history of teaching Russian language in Xinjiang during the Qing Dynasty since the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century
Follow the developing relations between Russia and Qing Empire the topical issue was to train Russian language specialist by local officials. The biggest need in this kind of personnel was in the border of the two Emperies where the main bilateral ties were concentrated. Xinjiang that had mutual border with Russia had one of the special places in the Russian foreign policy. Active military and diplomatic, trade and economic activities of the Russians in this Chinese region created the necessary prerequisites for establishing government bodies there that were in charge of various aspects of bilateral relations including the training of interpreters for local authorities. Russian language studying in Xinjiang is a rather topical issue. Russian language school that was established there in the end of the 18th century was the first official school created by Chinese authorities out-of capital where Russian language was taught. In the early 20th century Xinjiang officials were the first from other local administrators who begun to send students to Russia for education purposes that was in the interest of popularizing Russian language in the Chinese border. At the same time in spite of high attention of authority to Russian language developing in Xinjiang the schools opened there were not able to secure to train this kind of specialists in full. There were little references in historical literature on Russian language schools graduates who had become a well-known Russian language specialist in the future.