Translations from Russian and other European languages are my own unless otherwise indicated. In cases where my own rendering of a Russian source closely matches or has been influenced by an earlier researcher's translation, I have chosen to acknowledge the overlap in my notes rather than resorting to suboptimal wording simply for the sake of staking out a version of my own.
Names and terms taken from Tibetan, Mongolian, and other Asian languages are transliterated with an eye toward familiarity and reader-friendliness. With respect to Chinese, I have favored the Wade-Giles system of romanization, both for period flavor and because Roerich himself used it in his English-language publications, but I have included pinyin versions for the sake of clarity.
Note on Languages, Names, and Dates
Place names in Europe and Asia have changed frequently since Roerich's birth, or are rendered differently by neighboring languages. Throughout the text, I have attempted to make it clear how, when Roerich was in what he considered to be Peking, Urga, or Bombay, he was in Beijing, Ulaan- baatar, and Mumbai—and so forth—and anyone familiar with Russian history knows how Roerich's hometown of Saint Petersburg became Petrograd during World War I, Leningrad from the 1920s through the 1980s, and Saint Petersburg again after the collapse of the USSR. Regarding dates, Russia before 1918 continued to measure time with the Julian calendar, which ran thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar used commonly in the West. When necessary, this book distinguishes between the two systems by using the abbreviations "OS" (old style) and "NS" (new style), respectively.
Abbreviations and Foreign Terms
Amtorg American Trading Corporation (joint-stock enterprise facilitating Soviet trade in the United States)
ARCA American-Russian Cultural Association
GKK Main Concessions Committee (aka Glavkontsesskom)
GOI Government of India
Gosizdat State Publishing House of the USSR
HRI Himalayan Research Institute (aka Urusvati)
IAK Imperial Archaeological Commission
INO Foreign Department (of the OGPU)
IOPKh Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts
IRAO Imperial Russian Archaeological Society
IRCA Indo-Russian Cultural Association
Kadet Member of Constitutional Democratic Party
KMT Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang)
miriskusnik Member of World of Art Society
Mir iskusstva World of Art (exhibition society and art journal)
MKhT Moscow Art Theatre
MTsR International Center of the Roerichs (Moscow)
NEP New Economic Policy
NKID People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (aka Narkomindel)
NKVD People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Soviet secret
police, 1934-1946; see also OGPU)
NOLD Novgorod Society of Antiquarian Enthusiasts
NRM Nicholas Roerich Museum (New York)
OGPU Unified State Political Administration (Soviet secret
police, 1923-1934; also see NKVD)
peredvizhniki Wanderers or Itinerants (exhibition society)
PPC Pre-Petrine Commission
RAO Russian Anthroposophical Society
ROVS Russian All-Military Union
RPS Religious-Philosophical Society
RTO Russian Theosophical Society
SDI Union of Practitioners of Art (aka Arts Union)
Smena vekh Change of Landmarks (emigre publication)
SR Member of Socialist Revolutionary Party
SRKh Union of Russian Artists
TASS Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union
TS Theosophical Society
Vesy The Scales (art journal)
VOKS All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
VSNKh Supreme Council of the National Economy
Zolotoe runo Golden Fleece (art journal)
Code Words and Spiritual Names Used by Roerich's "Inner Circle"
Albina Maria Germanova
Amrida Katherine Campbell
Avirakh Maurice Lichtmann
Chakhembula Nikolai Kordashevsky
the "Flaming One" Franklin Delano Roosevelt (also the "Wavering One"
and "Stephen")
Fuyama Nicholas Roerich
Galahad Henry Wallace
Kai Stepan Mitusov
Kansas Mongolia
Liumou Sviatoslav Roerich
Logvan Louis Horch
Modra Frances Grant
"Monkeys" the British
Naru Tatyana Grebenshchikova
Ojana Esther Lichtmann
Poruma Nettie Horch
Radna Sina Lichtmann
"Rulers" the Japanese (also "Our Friends")
the "Sour One" Cordell Hull
Tarukhan Georgii Grebenshchikov
"Tigers" the Soviets
Udraya George Roerich
Urusvati Helena Roerich
Yaruya Vladimir Shibaev
Nicholas Roerich
INTRODUCTION The Artist Who Would Be King.?
It may be that you do not like his art, but at all events you can hardly refuse it the tribute of your interest. . . . The adulation of his admirers is perhaps no less capricious than the disparagement of his detractors; but one thing can never be doubtful, and that is that he had genius.
—W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
O
n September 20, 1927, one of the most unusual expeditions in modern history approached the Dumbur Pass, the gateway leading from southwest China into northern Tibet. To the rear lay the salt flats of the Tsaidam Basin and the sunbaked wasteland of the Gobi Desert. Ahead was the road to Lhasa, the seat of His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and the least accessible city on earth. This curious caravan flew the United States flag, but not one of its members was American, and it had traveled part of its way in vehicles provided by the Soviet Union. The party included Buryat and Mongol porters, Tibetan lamas, and nine Russians—among them a Leningrad physician, a former tsarist colonel, a future priest, a Harvard-educated scholar of Asian languages, and two teenaged girls. Leading them were a middle-aged woman of aristocratic bearing and her husband, a bald, bearded painter of small frame and medium height. His name was Nicholas Roerich.
Before setting out, Roerich had told the world that his journey's aims were artistic and academic. He wished to paint the Himalayas and other remote parts of Asia. An amateur archaeologist and ethnographer, he hoped to study the myths and folklore of this poorly understood corner of the earth. He completed his canvases and conducted his research, but kept his primary goal a secret from the press and the public: Roerich went to the east desiring to locate the legendary kingdom of Shambhala and, using it as a foundation, establish a pan-Buddhist state of his own, encompassing Mongolia, Central Asia, the Himalayas, and parts of Siberia. Fulfilling this "Great Plan," he believed, would give a final turn to the cosmic wheel. Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, would manifest himself and shepherd the world through apocalypse to an age of peace and beauty.
Roerich's expedition, of course, ushered in no such epoch. He failed even to reach Lhasa, and his party was expelled from Tibet after a brutal—and, for some, fatal—winter in the highlands. This did not stop him from claiming fame on the order of explorers like Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein, and Roy Chapman Andrews. Seven years later, he received another chance to bring his Great Plan to fruition, during a trip sponsored by one of Franklin Roosevelt's cabinet members and paid for by the US government. This second venture faltered as badly as the first, precipitating scandals that influenced the outcome of no fewer than three presidential elections.