Soviet Russia and Tibet: The Debacle of Secret Diplomacy, 1918-1930s (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, 4) - Hardcover

Andreyev, Alexandre

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004129529 ISBN 13: 9789004129528

Publisher: Brill, 2003

Synopsis

This is the first investigation into the little-known Bolshevik foreign ministry's strenuous efforts to win Lhasa over to the Soviet cause in the 1920s. Examining the history of relations between Russia (tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet) and Tibet from the 17th century to the 1990s, the author puts at the core of his narrative the previously unknown story of clandestine negotiations between the Soviet government and the 13th Dalai Lama, forming part of Moscow's bitter struggle against British imperialism in Asia.
The book provides insight into Soviet secret diplomacy and draws important conclusions relating to the history of Anglo-Russian competition for Tibet and Tibet's status prior to 1951.

About this title

About the Author

Alexandre I. Andreyev, Ph.D. (1998) in History, St Petersburg University, is Senior Research Associate at the Institute for the History of Science & Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg. He has published extensively on Buddhism in Russia and Russian exploration in Central Asia including The Buddhist Shrine of Petrograd (1992) and From Lake Baikal to Sacred Lhasa (1997).

Review

"...a valuable and very readable contribution to our understanding of modern Tibetan history. The author presents a large number of thus-far unknown facts on the activities of Soviet officials in Tibet in the 1920's en 1930's and their assessment of the political, military and social situation in Central Tibet." - Martin Slobodnik, in: Archiv Orientalni, 2004
"...clearly written and persuasively argued..." - G.E. Snow, in: Choice, 2004

Edition details

• Publisher: Brill
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 9004129529
• ISBN 13: 9789004129528
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 434