Norzunov, Ovsha Muchkinovich

A descendant of a noble Kalmyk family, zaysang of the Bolshederbetovsky ulus of the Stavropol province .

First trip to Tibet

Norzunov first traveled to Tibet via Urga in 1898-1899, on behalf of A. Dorzhiev delivering a letter to the Dalai Lama on the course of his negotiations in St. Petersburg. Upon his return to St. Petersburg in September 1899, Dorzhiev decided to send O. Norzunov again as a contact person to Lhasa. Then O. Norzunov became interested in the Russian Geographical Society , to which he handed over notes about his journey. ^[one]

Second Trip to Tibet

At the beginning of 1900, Norzunov received from the Society the same camera as Tsybikov and a set of photographic plates from the Lumiere Brothers company. For the second time, Norzunov’s path to Tibet was through France, where Dorzhiev ordered the foundry workers to make several hundred metal cups for Lhasa monasteries. Norzunov was supposed to deliver the cups to Lhasa.

Norzunov arrived from Marseille to Calcutta on the French steamer Duplex on March 6, 1900, while G. Ts. Tsybikov was already in Lhasa. Here he came under police suspicion as a Russian spy. After a months-long trial, during which Norzunov lived in the Ghum monastery near Darjeeling and regularly reported at the local police station, he was deported to Russia in the autumn of that year. He brought with him photographs of Darjeeling.

Third Trip to Tibet

At the end of 1900, Norzunov went to Tibet for the third time, together with Dorzhiev and six other satellites. They traveled to Lhasa along the caravan “Northern Road” through Mongolia and Western China.

Norzunov arrived in Lhasa on February 28, 1901, and was there for about a month. In this short period, he took his famous photographs of Lhasa. He returned to Russia with Dorzhiev as part of the "emergency Tibetan embassy" to the Russian court to sign the Russian-Tibetan treaty.

Norzunov described his stay in Lhasa and the return trip through Nepal, India and Ceylon in an essay published by J. Deniker . In it, the traveler noted that photographing in Lhasa was fraught with great difficulties and risks: he constantly had to hide and hide his camera from others, since photographing in Tibet was forbidden under pain of execution.

Publish photos

The first to Petersburg and Paris were photographs of Norzunov (probably to Petersburg in June-July 1901 with the embassy of A. Dorzhiev ).

In the same year, one of his photographs with a view of the Potala Palace was published by J. Deniker in the October issue of the Parisian journal Geography. ^[2] Thus, he became the author of the first published photograph of Lhasa.

In 1903, Izvestia IRGO published a Tsybikov lecture, ^[3] and with it lists of the best photographs of Norzunov and Tsybikov (45 and 32 units, respectively). To the lists were attached 9 photographs of Norzunov with views of Lhasa, the Galdan and Tashilhumpo monasteries (the residence of the Panchen Lama ). (These lists, along with photographs, were then printed as a separate print. ^[4]

In the West, individual photographs of Norzunov and Tsybikov were published in various journals in 1903-1905, including two articles by J. Deniker. ^[5] They first spoke in detail about the three travels of Norzunov, the second publication was a translation into French of his travel notes. Both articles were illustrated by photographs taken by O. Norzunov in Lhasa and en route to Tibet. In 1904, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington posted in its annual report an English translation of Tsybikov’s lecture, supplied with the nine mentioned photographs of Norzunov ^[6] A year later, 11 photographs with views of Lhasa (6 Norzunov and 5 Tsybikov. ^[7] appeared in the National Geographic magazine. The source of new photographs published in Western magazines was the album published by the Russian Geographical Society at the end of 1903, which included 50 photographs of Norzunov and Tsybikov (29 and 21, respectively) and which was a cardboard box with photographs, each from which it was pasted onto a cardboard sheet.The publication was intended as a gift from the Russian Geographical Society to foreign geographical societies.It is also known that in the summer of 1905, during the visit of the 13th Dalai Lama to Urga G. Ts, Tsybikov personally presented him with the Russian Geographical Society album.

Subsequent years

During the Revolution of 1905-1907, Ovshe Norzunov advocated greater freedom of practice of Buddhism. On February 5, 1905, in his report addressed to the Chairman of the State Secretary Sergei Witte Bagsh Dorji Setenov, Noyon David Tundutov and Zaysang Ovsha Norzunov, Ledzhin Arluyev asked to remove all restrictions on religious issues that were posed by the administration, as well as to exclude from official practice the terms "idolater" and "pagan" and equate Buddhists in rights with the Orthodox. ^[eight]

In 1911, in the retinue of Aghvan Dorzhiev, O. Norzunov oversees the construction of a Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg .

In 1929, Norzunov as a "harmful element" was evicted to the city of Kamyshin in the Lower Volga region, from where he fled. After that, his tracks are lost.

In December 1901, a similar picture of Potala appeared in the London Geographic Journal - it was taken long before Norzunov as a “member of the Nepalese friendly mission” heading for the Beijing Court, as evidenced by the signature on it. ^[9]

• Borlan Lidzhiev. Tibetan mission of scout Norzunov . Information Agency of the Republic of Kalmykia. Bumbin Orne.
• Photography Potala

• Andreev A.I. Photos in Russian expeditions to Central Asia of the 19th - early 20th centuries. G. Tsybikov and O. Norzunov - the first photographers of Tibet // Buddhist culture: history, source study, linguistics and art. The second Dorzhiev readings. Conference proceedings. St. Petersburg November 9-11, 2006. St. Petersburg, 2008.S. 189-199;
• J. D. Dorzhiev , A. M. Kondratov. Gombozhab Tsybikov. Irkutsk, 1990.
• G. Ts. Tsybikov. Selected works in 2 volumes. Novosibirsk, 1991.
• Joseph Deniker. Trois Voyages a Lhassa (1898-1901) par Ovche Narzounof, pelerin kalmouk // Le Tour du Monde. Vol. X, Nouvelle Serie, # # 19, 20 (7-14 Mai 1904).