[KS] Afanasii - or is it Aleksey? - Ivanovich SerEdin-Sabatin
Afostercarter at aol.com
Afostercarter at aol.com
Sat Feb 20 06:46:58 EST 2010
Dear George, Anthony, Clark and all,
Fascinating stuff. But I fear some of you seem at
cross purposes, owing to varied confusionism:
1. The mis-spelling to which Bro Anthony refers is
surely of the gentleman's surname, not the first name.
All searches suggest the first part should be Seredin,
not Seridin as George wrote.
2. Whereas Afanasii /Afanasy/Afanasij is simply
a choice of romanizations of the Russian double vowel ий.
Thus one can say Georgii or Georgy. The strange-looking
-ij variant is more unusual nowadays, I think.
3. Similarly, the reason why George can't find "Paul
Moellendorf" on Google is because that is not how his
name is spelled. You are missing both the final F,
and the Von. Other variations include his often used
middle name Georg, and whether to render the German
letter O with umlaut ö in English as OE or simply O.
Varying your search spellings may thus yield different
and more results. For starters, here's PGvM's Wikipedia entry
(complete with a truly splendid photograph):
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Georg_von_Möllendorff_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Georg_von_Möllendorff)
4. Finally, back to George's great-grandfather.
My googling throws up quite a few references where
Seredin-Sabatin's first name is given as Aleksey; in fact more
than those who call him Afanasy, etc. Presumably this is
one and the same person? If so, which forename is correct?
Here are some links. The JoongAng Ilbo has Afanasij:
_http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2914115_
(http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2914115)
_http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2906696_
(http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2906696)
Most others go for Aleksey - including Gari Ledyard in these
pages, way back in 1995: _http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/queenmin.txt_
(http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/queenmin.txt)
The Marmot (Robert Koehler) also mentions him a fair bit, eg
_http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/04/23/jeongdong-the-coming-of-the-west/_
(http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/04/23/jeongdong-the-coming-of-the-west/)
_http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/08/20/deoksugung-palace-2/_
(http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/08/20/deoksugung-palace-2/)
I hope these clarifications are helpful.
Good luck in your researches. Just remember to
check all spellings, and google all possible variants!
Cheers
Aidan FC
Aidan Foster-Carter
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds
University, UK
Flat 1, 40 Magdalen Road, Exeter, Devon, EX2 4TE, England, UK
T: (+44, no 0) 07970 741307 (mobile); 01392 257753 Skype:
Aidan.Foster.Carter
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com) ,
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com) W:
_www.aidanfc.net_ (http://www.aidanfc.net/)
____________
In a message dated 2/20/2010 04:45:39 GMT Standard Time,
georgedorian at comcast.net writes:
Hello Clark,
Thank your for your reply.
I found "Living Dangerously in Korea" on Amazon. If I understand
correctly,
the review of the book indicates that the book looks at Korea from 1900 to
1950. My great-grandfather was there from about 1886 to 1905. So it seems
that that book misses the mark a bit.
As for Paul Moellendorf; Google seems to have no hits - that must be a
first!
Over the last 12 months or so I've been in contact with a number of people
in Korea and Russia who are researching Afanasii, and this has renewed my
interest. I've started a Wikipedia page about him and am writing a
journal/book about my ancestors. There are a number of family stories
about
my ancestors, but there are "holes" in the stories. For example we know
that Afanasii attended some kind of Naval college in St. Petersburg, but,
so
far, there is no mention of him in such Russian archives.
I find that researching my ancestors to be very interesting. Like an
"Easter egg hunt". As I mentioned, I am in communication with a number of
scalars (besides surfing the web) and they each have a peace of the puzzle,
it's just a matter of collecting all the peaces. I am looking for other
individuals with an interest in my Great-grandfather so that we can
"compleat the puzzle". If you feel have a like interest in this then I
would be grateful if you could help me.
Sincerely, George
Ps, I live about 10 miles north of San Francisco.
-----Original Message-----
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
[mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Clark W Sorensen
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 5:39 PM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] Afanasii Ivanovich Seridin-Sabatin
George,
The book that comes to mind is Donald Clark's "Living Dangerously in Korea"
that has a whole chapter on the Russians living in Korea. I'm not sure he
goes back as far as King Kojong's reign, but it would be a start. There are
undoubtely Russian language sources on this. Maybe you could find
information in the biography of Paul Moellendorf (I don't have the exact
reference, but I've seen a title). Moellendorf was an ethnic German citizen
of the Russian Empire who worked for King Kojong in the 1880s.
Clark W. Sorensen, Chair
Korean Studies Program
University of Washington
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010, George Dorian wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am researching my great-grandfather, Afanasii Ivanovich
Seridin-Sabatin.
> He was an architect working (in part) for the king of Korea about 100
years
> ago. I have some information about him, but I'm always looking for
more.
> I'm also looking for confirmation of information and details for
information
> that I have. Any help is appreciated.
>
> I'd also be happy to share information that I have with intrested
parties.
>
> Thanks, George Dorian
>
>
>
In a message dated 2/20/2010 05:23:43 GMT Standard Time,
georgedorian at comcast.net writes:
Hello Brother Anthony,
Thanks you for your reply!
As for the spelling of my great-grandfather: This is a bit of a mystery.
My
family records show his name spelled Afanasii. This is the way it's
spelled
in Afanasii's son's, Peter's, autobiography. However, the original was
written in Russian and the translation spells it Afanasii, so maybe the
translation was wrong. In other places I've see it spelled Afanasy. Yours
is the first time I've see it spelled Afanasij. So, as I said, a bit of a
mystery. For the moment I'm using the spelling Afanasii because that's the
first I knew.
Thank you for the link to the article, however I found it some days ago.
Regarding the assassination of Queen Min: Have you seen Afanasii's
testimony of those events? Here is a link to it:
http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/queenmin.txt
Over the last 12 months or so I've been in contact with a number of people
in Korea and Russia who are researching Afanasii, and this has renewed my
interest. I've started a Wikipedia page about him and am writing a
journal/book about my ancestors. There are a number of family stories
about
my ancestors, but there are "holes" in the stories. For example we know
that Afanasii attended some kind of Naval college in St. Petersburg, but,
so
far, there is no mention of him in such Russian archives.
I find that researching my ancestors to be very interesting. Like an
"Easter egg hunt". As I mentioned, I am in communication with a number of
scalars (besides surfing the web) and they each have a peace of the puzzle,
it's just a matter of collecting all the peaces. I am looking for other
individuals with an interest in my Great-grandfather so that we can
"compleat the puzzle". If you feel that you are category then I would be
grateful if you could help me.
Sincerely, George
Ps, I live about 10 miles north of San Francisco.
-----Original Message-----
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
[mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Brother Anthony
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 5:29 PM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] Afanasii Ivanovich Seridin-Sabatin
I hope that the way you spell your grandfather's name in your message
(Seridin-Sabatin) is a one-off error? I can find a lot of references to him
(116) doing a Google search with the spelling Afanasij Ivanovich Seredin
Sabatin (375 if you omit the first name which has various spellings),
including this article in the "JoongAng Daily" from last December:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2914115 which reminds
us that he was probably the only Western witness present at the murder of
the Empress Myeongseong. It would certainly be good to know if there are
longer published studies of his life and his Korean buildings. Did he leave
any diaries etc?
Brother Anthony
Sogang University, Korea
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/
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