The Scientific Status of Oriental Studies and the Fate of Russian Sinology

Abstract

The objective duality of the world, man and mankind should correspond to the pairing of Oriental studies and Western studies, however, science and pedagogy know only the first, or orientalistics. This monopoly was the result of the formation of the modern system of sciences in the field of the global domination of the West, representing the East as its opposite — the Non-West and / or interpreting interaction with it in value-asymmetric categories of culture and barbarism. The publication in 2006 of the Russian translation of E. Said's famous anti-Eastern book “Orientalism” and the scientific and educational reform of 2010-2013, provoked a discussion of Russian orientalists in the sense of the concepts of the East and the scientific status of Oriental studies as a complex and supra-branch discipline, which is either a syncretic underscience, or a synthetic superscience. Similar problems have been discussed in Russian Sinology since the 19th, since of all the highly developed cultures of the East, Chinese is the most syncretic, and the science about it is the most synthetic. In traditional China, there were no divisions customary for the West into philosophy and religion / theologians, philosophy and science, humanitarian and natural disciplines, fine and applied arts, etc. Russian Sinology, created at the beginning of the 18th century, corresponded to this specificity, simultaneously with “cutting a window to Europe” to address similar government requests. In the USSR, it was divided into classical Sinology, which was concentrated in Leningrad, with an emphasis on philology and wen-yan, and Soviet Sinology, which was concentrated in Moscow, with an emphasis on history, social studies, and bai-hua. As a result, it was possible to find the most complete reflection in accordance with the standards of classical sinology of the 6-volume encyclopedia “Spiritual Culture of China” (2006-2010). The results of this convergence were also recorded by the 10-volume “History of China from Ancient Times to the Beginning of the 21st Century”, which largely inherited Soviet Sinology (2013-2017). After analyzing these historical phenomena, the article describes the main achievements and problems of Russian Sinology over the past decade and the challenges it faces in the light of the modern rethinking of the scientific status of all oriental studies.