Soviet Atlantis: the Harappan Civilization in Soviet Oriental Studies in the 1920s and 1950s (to the 100th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization)

Abstract

In the 1920s, intensive excavations were carried out in the Indus Valley. The formed the foundation for the study of the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilization. Information about the progress of the work also reached the USSR, but for a long time Soviet orientalists could only state the importance of excavations, unable to independently interpret their results. In the late 1930s, interest in the fate of the Harappan civilization in Soviet science increased sharply due to the aggressive policy of Germany. Soviet orientalists saw certain parallels between the actions of Germany and the Aryans, who invaded India and destroyed the Dravidian culture of Harappa in the eyes of Soviet orientalists. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR allocated funds for the purchase of three articles by the Czechoslovak scientist B. Hrozny, with description of decipherment of Harappan inscriptions. This decipherment would provide the key to understanding the sense of the inscriptions and postulating “correct” conclusions. World Oriental studies did not accept the conclusions of B. Hrozny, but in the USSR his work found active support. It was the active introduction into the scientific circulation of these excavations in the Indus Valley that led to the final inclusion of India and China in the sphere of research on the history of the Ancient Orient. Interest in the conclusions of Hrozny was largely fueled by the independence of India (1947) and the proclamation of the republic (1950). In this regard, V. V. Struve is making a decisive attempt, based on the secondary interpretation of the excavations’ data of J. Marshall and E. Mackay, as well as a critical analysis of B. Hrozny’s approach to decipherment of Harappan inscriptions, to reconstruct the social type of the Harappan civilization, equalizing it typologically with the already known societies of the Ancient Orient. Struve’s conclusions are not based on the interpretation of the sources themselves, but on typological comparisons, that is, on conclusions made earlier about civilizations of the Middle East on the basis of the “correct” — class — approach, which in themselves were largely erroneous. By the mid-1950s the rhetoric of works on the history of the Harappan civilization is significantly softened. The main driver of interest in Soviet oriental studies of the 1920s — 1950s to the history of the Harappan civilization were changes in the situation in the world before and after World War II. Soviet orientalists created their own Harappa as an ideal ancient society, associating it in certain aspects with the USSR.