Poetics of Journal Articles of “Honorary Writer” Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin (Fr. Iakinf)

The name of Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin, a prominent 19th-century Russian Orientalist, is well known in both Russian and international Oriental studies. His scholarly work has been thoroughly studied, primarily from the perspective of the history of Russian Sinology. Numerous works are devoted to Bichurin's translation work, and his biography has been thoroughly researched. However, the language of Father Iakinth's scholarly and popular works remains entirely unexplored. Despite the diverse research devoted to historical, functional, and authorial stylistic issues, it must be acknowledged that Russian and international scholarly literature lacks any systematic description of the writing style or idiostyle of Bichurin, the author of numerous scholarly, popular, and artistic works. During his missionary service in China, Bichurin authored more than one hundred scientific works on various aspects of Chinese life, basing his analysis not only on personal observations but also, for the first time, on ancient written sources that he himself translated. This article examines the stylistic and poetic features of his publications in popular 19th-century journals—such as Otechestvennye Zapiski, Syn Otechestva, Severnyy Arkhiv, and Moskvityanin—which collectively represent the idiostyle had been developing for over two decades. Our analysis identifies the artistic features that made his articles recognizable and exemplary for later generations of science popularizers. We explore his techniques for engaging the reader, consider the functions of his compound words, and demonstrate the main poetic characteristics of his ethnographic articles on China, whose literary merits were highly valued by prominent contemporary writers.