Giovanni Stary is an outstanding specialist in Manchu Studies. Till his recent retirement he held the chair of Manchu at the University of Venice (Italy). Stary covered many fields, especially literature, shamanism, history. He convinced scholars that Manchu was not just a dead language but had merits of its own and deserved to be recognized as an independent discipline. Besides focusing on the early history of the Manchus and Manchu indigenous literature, he discovered the literature of the Sibe, Manchus in Xinjiang’s Ili region, which are officially regarded as a separate minority in China. Of his many publications a selection is offered in this volume (in German, English or Italian) – they supplement his monographs and comprise the latest results of his research. With index.