“And What is ‘The East’? Let us Better Say: ‘The Easts’”. Interview with Alexey V. Malashenko: On Teachers, Student Life, “Natural Selection” in Academic Research, and Arabic Literature

Abstract

Alexey Malashenko is one of the most famous modern Russian Arabists and Islamic scholars. He is the author of numerous Russian, English, French, and Arabic works on political Islam, political processes in the Middle East, and the post-Soviet space. Among them: “The official ideology of modern Algeria” (Moscow: Nauka, 1983); “Islamic Renaissance in Contemporary Russia” (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 1998); “My Islam” (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010) and others. His career in academic research started at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For many years he was a member of the scientific council and chairman of the “Religion, Society and Security” program of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Today he leads scientific research at The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute. In connection with the anniversary of the scientist, a representative of another generation of Arabists, head of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS Vasily Kuznetsov, decided to talk with Aleksey Malashenko about his teachers, colleagues, and students, about Arab and Islamic studies, about the development of Russian oriental studies over the past few decades.