[KS] Afanasii - or is it Aleksey? - Ivanovich SerEdin-Sabatin

Sat Feb 20 14:47:17 EST 2010

Hello Aidan and all! 

First, thank you all for taking the time to write me!  

Yes I did accidentally miss-spell Seredin.  My apology for the trouble.  

I read the Wikipedia page for Moellendorf.  Thanks for the info.  

I’m acquainted with Mr. Ledyard and Robert Koehler.  

As I mentioned, it’s a matter of fitting the small pieces together, but first the peaces have to be found!  I’m considering starting a Google group for intrested parties researching my great-grandfather, since this is my primary focus.  I was wondering if any of you be interested in joining? 

George 

PS Aidan, I was in London and Scotland in March of ’08.  Absolutely loved the time there!  

-----Original Message-----
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Afostercarter at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 3:47 AM
To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws; ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr; sangok at u.washington.edu
Cc: marmotshole at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [KS] Afanasii - or is it Aleksey? - Ivanovich SerEdin-Sabatin

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

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,     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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