Abstract
In the article below, which is written in accordance with the writings of the Moldavian scholar and diplomat Nicolae Milescu Spătaru (1636-1708), we intend to enlighten the ethnographic significance of them and, as a result, their contribution to the genesis of cultural anthropology as a modern science of cultural diversity and variability worldwide. It is generally acknowledged that Milescu’s travelogue (especially his Description of China, based on his mission to China as the representative of the Russian government, between 1675-1678) has substantially enriched the cartography of Far East or Northeast Asia, one still less known to the European society from the second half of the seventeenth century. Nicolae Milescu is to be rightly recognized as an important reference of proto-anthropology as well as of the history and geography of the late Middle-Ages.
Keywords: Nicolae Milescu Spătaru, Description of China, ethnography, proto-anthropology.
Cuvinte-cheie: Nicolae Milescu Spătaru, Descrierea Chinei, etnografie, proto-antropologie.