Taranchinskiie Pesni [Songs of Taranchi].
[collected and translated by N.N. Pantusov]. Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences 1890
First edition Octavo, pp.[ii], xvii, [i], 154, 3 lithographic plates and 3 leaves of music, 2 folding. Volume 17, part one of the Transactions of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Ethnographic section. Original light blue printed wrappers, very mildly foxed. A very good, uncut and unopened copy.
The songs of the Taranchi Chinese, the Muslim sedentary population living in oases around the Tarim Basin in today's Xinjiang province of China, with illustrations of their musical instruments. There was a mass emigration of Muslim people from north-western China into the Russian Empire after the failure of the Dungan revolt, 1862-1877. "In accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg signed in February 1881, which required the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Upper Ili Basin (the Kulja area), the Hui and Taranchi (Uighur) people of the region were allowed to opt for moving to the Russian side of the border. Most chose that option; according to the Russian statistics, 4,682 Hui moved to Russian Empire under the treaty. They migrated in many small groups between 1881-83, settling in the village of Sokuluk some 30 km west of Bishkek, as well as in a number of points between the Chinese border and Sokuluk, in south-eastern Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan"(Wikipedia). Nikolai Nikolaevich Pantusov, 1849-1909, recorded a number of Taranchi songs in Kullja, during his expedition organised with the help of G.A. Kolpakovski, General Governor of Russian Turkestan, in 1881-1882. The texts of the songs were printed in the original Arabic script, followed by the Russian translation. The preface, written in Verny city (modern Almaty), contains a description of indigenous musical instruments, manners and customs. The drawings of Taranchi musical instruments were made by a local artist, Hasan-akhun Setildin and, as Pantusov notes, they represent an example of the Taranchi's art, some techniques of which were adopted from Chinese.