Voyage de Benjamin Bergmann, chez les Kalmuks.
Traduit de l'Allemand par M. Moris. Chatillon-sur-Seine 1825
First French edition pp.xxviii, 361, frontis, 11 plates of Kalmuk script. A very good copy from the Signet Library with their gilt coat of arms on front and rear boards. Bound in full contemporary calf, edges a little rubbed, neatly rebacked. Half title foxed, but otherwise clean throughout apart from occasional spots in margin.
Benjamin Bergmann (1772-1856) "rediscovered" the Kalmuks (the ones left behind), a people derived from the western branch of the Mongols, who had migrated to the lower Volga during the 17th century from Dzungaria, and who had missed the return to their original lands in 1770. In 1802 Bergmann published the first examples of Kalmuk epic literature translated into German and thereby created a surge of interest in the literature of the area. His best-known publication 'Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmuken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803' was published between 1804 and 1805.