Peter Goullart (russian: Пётр Гуляр) (1901 - June 5, 1978) was a Russian-born traveler, explorer and author, who is best known for a number of books describing the life and customs of various peoples living in remote parts of

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

Life

Goullart was born in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in 1901 into a well-educated family, and spent his youth in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was interested in the

Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...

from an early age. After

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was ...

he fled to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and eventually settled in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1924. He perfected his Chinese and worked as a tour guide for Western tourists and businesspeople, accompanying them on their trips throughout East and South-East Asia. During this time he developed an interest in

Daoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...

and in exploring the remote mountainous areas of Western China. In 1939 following the

Japanese invasion of China The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Thea ...

, Goullart secured an appointment as a representative of the

Chinese Industrial Cooperatives Chinese Industrial Cooperatives () (CICs) were organisations established in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937- 1945) to support China's war effort by organizing small-scale grassroots industrial and economic development. The movement ...

(an agency of the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

Government), first in what is now western

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, then in 1942 in the ancient city of

Lijiang Lijiang (), also known as Likiang, is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China. It has an area of and had a population of 1,253,878 at the 2020 census whom 288,787 lived in the built-up area (metro) made of Gucheng ...

, in the North-Western corner of Yunnan Province. He lived in Lijiang for over eight years at the time when it was an important transit stop on the vital trading and supply route from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to China during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Goullart documented life and customs of inhabitants of this remote region, in particular,

Nakhi People The Nakhi or Nashi (; Naxi: ; lit.: "Black people") are an East Asian ethnic group inhabiting the foothills of the Himalayas in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, as well as the southwestern part of Sichuan Province in China. The Nakh ...

, in his first book, ''Forgotten Kingdom''. In 1949 shortly after the communist takeover, Goullart left Lijiang on a chartered plane to Kunming together with the botanist and explorer

Joseph Rock Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884 – 1962) was an Austrian-American botanist, explorer, geographer, linguist, ethnographer and photographer. Life Josef Franz Karl Rock was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a steward of a Polish count. As a r ...

. He left China and then lived and worked in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, and continued to write about his travels throughout Southeast Asia. All his books were written and published in English. He died in the house of his friend Desmond Neill in Singapore on June 5, 1978.

Works

*Goullart, P., Report on the industrial cooperatives of Likiang, Yunnan, 1945. *Goullart, P.
Forgotten Kingdom
J. Murray, 1955. *Goullart, P., Princes of the Black Bone. Life on the Tibetan Borderlands, J. Murray, 1959. (published in the US as Land of the lamas: Adventures in secret Tibet, Dutton, 1959) *Goullart, P., The Monastery of Jade Mountain, J. Murray, 1961. *Goullart, P., River of the White Lily: Life in Sarawak (Malaysian heritage series), J. Murray, 1965.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goullart, Peter 1978 deaths Explorers of Central Asia White Russian emigrants to China