In the late XIXth century, Punjab, or the Land of Five Rivers, remained terra incognita for Russia. Representing one of Eurasian gateways, the region was of great importance from the military strategic point of view: though the Great Game for dominance in Central Asia between Russia and Great Britain had almost come to a close, the governments of both countries stayed alert and tried to use all possibilities for intelligence activities in the sensitive areas. The mission of Russian officer Andrei Snesarev (1856-1937) – a future military commander, a strategist, and a researcher – was to explore territories between the Russian Turkestan and British India, and to get reconnaissance information about the Anglo-British army.
Though his visit to India in 1899-1900 was rather short, Snesarev managed to obtain a profound understanding of the country and its people in general and of Punjab in particular. In the 1900-1920s, he authored several research books on India’s geography, ethnology, economics, and culture. Among them were ‘Physical India’ published in 1926, and ‘Ethnographic India’ prepared by 1930, but published only in 1981. The ethnography volume focuses on India’s religions, castes, and rural traditions. Based on in-depth research combined with Snesarev’s personal experience in India and his interaction with the locals, it gives a vast coverage of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Parsism, Sikhism, and of some other religions represented in South Asia. Snesarev focused on most complicated issues of the theory of caste, which are still under discussion. Noting that ‘everyday life of the peoples of India is extremely diverse and complicated’ he pointed out that ‘this diversity can be seen not only in the spatial variation <…> but also in the historical perspective’ (Snesarev 1981) thus applying historical approach to the vast ethnologic and anthropologic material discussed in his writings.
