Materials of the Inspection of the Chinese Language Department of Far East State University, December 1935 – January 1936. Part 1

Abstract

“Oriental Institute Journal” publishes a series of documents related to the dramatic pages in the history of the Far Eastern University and the Russian higher school as a whole. One of the indicative situations that reveal the atmosphere of that time is a set of documents stored in the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East. These are the documents related to the internal audit of the educational activities of the staff of the Department of Chinese Studies, conducted in December 1935 – January 1936. The audit was initiated by M. Potapov's note in the university newspaper (Fig. 1). The author, on behalf of Chinese-learning students, reproaches the teachers (Rudakov and Zhang are mentioned) for despotism and formalism, evading the decisions of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government. In response, the faculty administration organized an audit of the work of the Department of Chinese Studies, authorizing K. P. Feklin, an employee of the Department of Japanese Studies, and student activists (Potapov and Denishchenko). The “inspection team” presented several analytical and summarizing documents: materials, conclusions, and practical proposals. In these documents, the work of teachers A. V. Rudakov, T. D. Chervonetsky, and Zhang Yue Ren was criticized. As a result, A. V. Rudakov (Fig. 2) and T. D. Chervonetsky (Fig. 3) presented explanatory notes to the administration of the faculty and the university. The publication of the entire series of documents is scheduled for four issues in 2021.