Natural History and Cultural History in the Eighteenth Century: The Asch Collection at Gottingen

FAIN: FT-54984-07

Michael Carhart
Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA 23529-0001)

I seek funding to spend nine weeks working with the Asch Collection of manuscript letters and artifacts at the Library and Natural History Museum at the Univ. of Gottingen, Germany, in order to begin my second monograph, "The Caucasians: Central Asia in the European Imagination." As Catherine the Great's chief military surgeon, Asch was sent hundreds of artifacts and written observations regarding the natural and cultural history of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia, which he forwarded to Gottingen, annotating them in more than 120 letters. These letters and artifacts, virtually untouched by historians, can open a window on a world of intellectual and scientific exchange that linked western Europe to Russia, Central Asia, and beyond.