Soviet Oriental Studies Research Articles

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)

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.

Oriental studies education in Russia. Training of Mongolists at the beginning of the 20th century to 1920

The article is devoted one of the most difficult periods in the history of Russian and Soviet Oriental studies, including Mongolian studies - the transition from the science of the Russian Empire to the Soviet one. At this time there was a change in the entire system of scientific knowledge. The Orientalist institutions of the scientific and educational plan were faced with tasks radically different from the prerevolutionary ones. It was necessary to take a step away from the study of sources, language issues, ancient periods of the peoples of the East. In exchange for this refusal, a transition was made to the study of living Oriental languages and issues of socio-economic importance in line with the new Soviet methodology. The article, in contrast to Soviet historiography, argues for the point of view on the development of practical Mongolian studies in pre–revolutionary Russia, which had considerable experience in the program and institutions for the training of Mongolian practitioners. The main inspirer of practical Oriental studies was the Mongol scholar A.M. Pozdneev. He was the first director of the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok, and rector of the Practical Academy at the Society of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg - educational institutions. There he trained future specialists in the modern East. Soviet Oriental institutes adopted this experience, adapting it to new conditions. In this regard, there was a reorganization of the Lazarev Institute in Moscow. On its basis, with a significant expansion of the curriculum programs, the Central Institute of Living Oriental Languages was established. And in St. Petersburg, using the experience of the Academy at the Society of Oriental Studies, the work of the Petrograd (Leningrad) organized the Institute of Living Oriental Languages.

Listy akademika Aleksandra Nikołajewicza Samojłowicza do profesora Tadeusza Kowalskiego

Professor Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948) corresponded with scholars from practically all over the world. He was interested in the developments of Oriental studies in the Soviet Union. He valued the publications he received from the USSR, as well as all contacts he had with Russian researchers. He sought to cooperate with Alexander Samoylovich (1880–1938) – one of the most eminent Turkologists in the Soviet Union. This goal had been partially achieved. The archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków now hold, catalogued under ref. No. KII-4, j. 174, just three letters from the Russian Turkologist. Despite their small number, these materials are an engrossing source of knowledge on the state of Soviet Turkish studies in the mid 1920s and the Soviet Oriental studies community. These letters are all the more precious – as the author managed to determine – as the branch of the archives at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, where the legacy of professor Samoylovich is kept, has no copies. It is interesting that there are no surviving copies of the letters from professor Kowalski to the Russian Turkologist. The article’s purpose is the edition of the letters of Alexander Nikolaevich Samojłowicz – a Soviet turkologist – to Professor Tadeusz Kowalski, including their translation into Polish. These documents constitute a certificate of international academic relations development between scientists from Poland and the Soviet Union in the interwar period.

In memoriam: Izzaddin Mustafa Rasul (1934-2019), Iraqi Kurdish man of letters and Soviet-trained scholar

The literary scholar Izzaddin Mustafa Rasul (1934-2019) was one of the greatest Iraqi Kurdish scholars trained in the Soviet Union. He was one of a cohort of Iraqi students who received scholarships for study in the USSR in the wake of the 1958 coup that overthrew the Iraqi monarchy, and his time in the USSR coincided with the period of flourishing of Kurdish studies there. Rasul’s PhD dissertation analyzed the development of Kurdish literature within a schematic Marxist-Leninist developmental framework. In his major work, however, which focused on Ahmed Khani and his Mem û Zîn, he went well beyond the standard Soviet treatment of literary works and focused especially on the dimensions of Sufi theosophy and other Islamic content in the work. In this respect, Rasul’s work stands out as a rare exception in Soviet Oriental studies. It remains one of the most ambitious studies of the early modern Kurdish poet Khani.

Observing Iran from Baku: Iranian Studies in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani national identity emerged in post-Persian Russian-ruled East Caucasia at the end of the nineteenth century, and was finally forged during the early Soviet period. After the fiasco of the short-lived independence period of 1918–20, Azerbaijan became Soviet. Soviet power then instrumentalized Azerbaijan for political and ideological penetration into Iran by galvanizing local separatist movements. Azerbaijani Iranology was shaped within Soviet oriental studies and put into service of Azerbaijani nation-building. Exiled Iranian communists found asylum in Baku, joined local research institutions, wrote the first Persian academic and school textbooks, and contributed to the translation of classic Persian poetry into Azerbaijani. Soviet Azerbaijani Iranologists were sent as translators to the Soviet missions to Iran and Afghanistan. After Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991, its Iranological infrastructure was represented by several departments at the National Academy of Sciences and the Iranian Studies Program at Baku State University. While the number of Persian classes at schools during the last three decades diminished, a new generation of post-Soviet Iranologists—those who studied in Iran—emerged. While Soviet Azerbaijani Iranologists never created a solid bilingual dictionary of Persian, several Persian–Azerbaijani and Azerbaijani–Persian dictionaries were published in the 2010s. Post-Soviet Azerbaijani Iranology is still trying to find its place within humanities in the transitional nation.

“He Created the Institute in a New Capacity, It Was His Brainchild”: On Bobodzhan G. Gafurov, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1956–1977)

The article focuses on the memoir of the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Bobodzhan G. Gafurov (1956–1977), his work, and the activities of the Institute of Oriental Studies in 1969–1970s. The author shares his memories of Bobodzhan Gafurov and the orientalists’ team of those years, thereby recreating the atmosphere of the Institute’s everyday life at the end of the 60s. The article reveals not only the professionalism of the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies and his contribution to the development of Soviet Oriental studies but also the personality of B. G. Gafurov: an influential and at the same time not indifferent man with an excellent sense of humor. Bobodzhan Gafurov, Doctor of Historical Sciences and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Tajikistan in 1946–1956, was appointed to the post of director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences given the sharply increased importance of the East for the Party and his interest in scientific research. A party leader and scientist, Gafurov possessed diplomatic skills and a deep understanding of the specifics of the East. Having made an invaluable contribution to the preservation of oriental studies as a scientific discipline, Gafurov supported the freedom of scientific discussion among orientalists, as far as possible in his time.

“May Allah Help Me!”. Letters by Anna Tveretinova to Vladimir Gordlevsky (1939—1951)

The article publishes 11 letters of the Soviet historian-turkologist Anna Tveritinova addressed to the outstanding Russian historian of the Ottoman Empire, academician Vladimir Gordlevsky. The letters from 1939 to 1951 are preserved in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These documents are an important source on the history of Soviet Oriental studies, in particular the history of the study of Ottoman Turkey in the USSR. They described in detail the history of A. S. Tveritinova PhD thesis defending about Kara Yazici (Deli Hasan) uprising. This dissertation (on the basis of which in 1946 the book was published) was an important approach in studying of Medieval Turkey in the USSR. The mentions of unknown writings of A. S. Tveritinova in the letters are very important as well.

З історії радянського сходознавства: нові архівні джерела з розвитку єгиптології в 1940–1960-ті рр.

З історії радянського сходознавства: нові архівні джерела з розвитку єгиптології в 1940–1960-ті рр.

Коммунистический университет трудящихся Востока: создание и этапы становления в системе Коминтерна в 1920-1930-е гг.

The article reviews major milestones in the history of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) and its role in formation of the Soviet-centric political avant-garde in some countries of the East. The creation of this educational institution was connected with the resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) оf January 21, 1921 On Organization of the Eastern Courses under the People's Commissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats), later enshrined in the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (April 21, 1921). The university firmly established itself within the vast network of international institutions of the Comintern. Although it had never been quantitatively dominant in the institute, the Sector ‘A’ (or the Special Sector, or the Inosektor, as this department for international students was known in different periods) was crucial for the development of its complex system, as the policy of the 3rd International formed the core of its activities. The modest historiography on the history of the university in the Soviet period describes its development as overcoming difficulties in on-going forward movement. A more comprehensive picture emerges in the documents from the KUTV archival fond stored in the RGASPI (fond 532). 12,000 files of the fond include about 10,000 personal files of students and teachers. They show the sinuosities of the KUTV history from its organization to high noon of its activities and to its end in consequence of the restructuring of the party education system in the USSR in 1938. The university accumulated unique experience of training almost illiterate people to become middle-ranking executives in a very short time. A considerable part of the future leaders of colonial countries passed through the university. This Comintern coordinated process secured Soviet national interests. The university also laid the basis for Soviet Oriental studies. All this does not allow to call the university a purely propagandistic institution for ‘export’ of the world revolution and prompts to look behind utilitarian ideological clich?s. The article studies its unique experience in forming the national elites of the Oriental countries, which were to become communist champions of world revolution, and thus provides a professional-level picture of the university organization and management that recognized special nature of the multiethnic student body. It introduces statistical and personal data on the graduates that prove the efficiency of the university. The study may be of interest to political technologists, who determine mode of modern universities’ interaction with the Oriental countries.

Marxism, early Soviet oriental studies and the problem of ‘power/knowledge’

The inadequacies of studying early Soviet oriental studies under the rubric of Foucault’s ideas about discourse and power/knowledge are discussed, showing how the field was constituted by interventions in a complex and shifting institutional and ideological environment. The dialogue between pre-revolutionary philologists and historians and young Marxist thinkers is considered, showing how key conceptions about the ‘East’ were subjected to criticism and reformulated. This open and dynamic field was closed down in the Stalin period as the distinction between scientific and statutory authority collapsed, reducing competing paradigms to mere articulations of drives for power. This collapse of power and knowledge into a single category anticipated some key aspects of the Foucauldian paradigm. The work of the philologist N.Ia. Marr, whose treatment of Indo-European philology and the hybridization of languages and cultures, is shown to anticipate important aspects of postcolonial theory in its Foucauldian form.

Лазаревский институт восточных языков в контексте истории востоковедения

The article analyses the history of the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, which was foundedin Moscow in 1815 and flourished for an entire century until 1917. The Lazarev Institute is recognized as oneof the most important institutional foundations of the Moscow School of Oriental Studies. The author goesinto the specifics of this educational establishment which initially was a private institution, a characteristic which explained its vitality and the emphasis it placed on seeking to meet the daily needs of the state apparatus, particularly of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The impact of the history of the Lazarev Instituteas deeply intertwined with the evolution of the Eastern (formerly Oriental) Studies as a discipline in Russiaat large. Political upheavals in Europe at the end of the XVIII – first half of the XIX century revived theinterest of the Russian educated society in all non-European, and especially Eastern affairs, which exerteda favorable influence on the development of the Russian school of Oriental Studies. Furthermore, at theturn of the XX century, the focus shifted substantially to the Middle East, to Caucasian, Central Asian Far Eastern matters. The Lazarev Institute, and the traditions it established, have left a profound footprint onRussian and Soviet Oriental Studies. These traditions were inherited in its turn by MGIMO University following its merger with the Institute of Oriental Studies – the successor of the Lazarev Institute. Oneof the current challenges for contemporary Eastern Studies as an academic discipline is that scientificknowledge is becoming increasingly complex qualitatively as the structure of scientific knowledge, with itsformer conceptual integrity, is clearly falling apart. The author argues that the notion of “Non-West” isfar broader and more complex than that of “the East”. Yet, Russian Oriental Studies, as an united systemof knowledge and understanding, has broken up and the focus is being diverted to dealing with specific,mainly pragmatic or purely local issues rather than considering this part of the world in its entirety. RussianOrientalists seem to have lost sight of the integrated problem field that united them a century ago, and have retreated to their respective “national corners”. The article advocates the need for an academic discussion onthe status, problems and prospects of Russian oriental studies, as well as the opportunities for cooperation with colleagues in the East and the West.

Rupture or Continuity? The Organizational Set-up of Russian and Soviet Oriental Studies before and after 1917

The article presents a systematic appraisal of the essential Russian- and English-language scholarship on Russian Oriental studies and particularly on Russia's Iranology. However, the main target of this article is to trace the discursive continuities and epistemological shifts which have existed in late imperial, Soviet and, partially, post-Soviet Russia's Oriental studies since the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on the sources of the main Russian political, military and academic archives, the article offers an assessment of the question of rupture or continuity, which is based on a synthesis of the above-mentioned scholarship from an entirely new angle. Dealing with the seemingly overwhelming watershed of 1917, an analysis is provided that transcends the unhelpful continuity/change dichotomy, putting forward a new interpretation, which is informed by the Foucauldian conceptualization of the productive nature of the power/knowledge nexus.

Olga Chekhovich: Two Facets of a Soviet Academic

The essay focuses on the personality and work of Olga Dmitrievna Chekhovich (1912–1982), an eminent Soviet and Uzbekistani scholar of mediaeval history whose entire academic career was spent in Tashkent. Based upon on the documents of her personal archive I try to reconstruct Chekhovich’s two facets - a Communist Party propagandist and a scholar. In doing so, I argue that the two facets of Olga Chekhovich are not oppositional but rather complementary; insofar as, taken together, they constitute a holistic image of a Soviet Oriental Studies scholar in the particular social and political space. What we see as duplicity was in fact a consistent form of the scholar’s self-presentation both within the academic community and in the social milieu beyond it. It let the scholar safely stay within the confines of the social and political system, becoming an integral part of it; and at the same time shape her or his own social and intellectual space within which she or he could advance and defend her or his positions, opinions, and views. In the larger scheme of things, this case study lets us address the question of whether one can view the Soviet school of Oriental studies as ideologically uniform, isolationist, and conforming solely to the directives of the ‘center’. The overall picture appears even more complicated if we pay more attention to the contradictory nature of Oriental studies—the various currents and struggles, the movement of scholars between center and periphery, their familiarity with scholarly works produced in the West, as well as a certain degree of autonomy from ideology.

The Heritage of Soviet Oriental studies

Michael Kemper and Stephan Conermann, eds. The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies. Routledge Contemporary Russia and Europe Series, 25. London: Routledge, 2011. 352 pp. Index. $150.00, cloth.The present volume brings together twenty scholars from the West and the post-Soviet space with the goal of providing an integrating view on Soviet Oriental (p. 1). The latter is understood in the double sense of presenting these studies as a single discipline and relating them to the on-going discussion of Orientalism. Against the prevailing perception of Soviet Orientology as hopelessly isolated and ideologized, the editors and contributors to the volume argue that it fits rather well Edward Said's view of Western Orientalism as peculiar nexus of knowledge and power. At the same time, Soviet Oriental studies had a number of important peculiarities and legacies that make them a subject worthy of investigation. The volume is divided into two parts, of which the first, including nine articles, traces the evolution of Oriental and Islamic studies in Moscow and Leningrad/St. Petersburg. The seven articles of the second part of the volume examine Oriental studies in the republics of the former Soviet Union and two provincial centres of the Russian Federation.The objective set by the editors is quite timely: after Kritika broke new ground by organizing a discussion on pre-revolutionary Russian Orientalism ten years ago, it was only logical to ask similar questions about its Soviet successor. Although the volume focuses on the Soviet period, several articles briefly discuss pre- 1917 developments, while David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye' s piece is devoted entirely to the peculiarities of imperial Orientology. These included, among other things, the division of labour between the more academically oriented Oriental studies of St. Petersburg versus the more practical profile of the Kazan and the Moscow schools, the desire of the government to impose advisory functions upon Orientalist scholars and their resistance to this pressure in the name of scientific objectivity.The most important pre-revolutionary legacy was of course the Orientalists themselves. Similar to other bourgeois experts during the early Soviet decades, prerevolutionary Orientalist scholars went through hardships and travails, which are discussed by Mikhail Rodionov and several other contributors. Still, Soviet terror was mixed with opportunity, as Michael Kemper notes in the introductory chapter. In the context of Soviet policy, Orientalists were supposed to produce the ideologically correct historical narratives for the titular nationalities of the republics of the USSR. This phenomenon is discussed in detail in Aifa-Alua Auezova's chapter on Kazakh historiography of the 1 920 s and 1 930 s and receives some attention from other contributors to the second part of the volume.While Orientology had a special role in the Soviet nationality policy, the latter in rum influenced the Oriental scholars in a number of ways. First, there occurred a significant nativization of Oriental studies in comparison with the pre-1917 period. The number of indigenous scholars from the borderlands (traditionally high in Imperial Russia) became even higher under the Soviets. Second, nativization policies determined the distribution of centres of Oriental studies. Alongside Moscow and St. Petersburg/Leningrad, these were created in Tashkent, Baku, Tbilisi, Dushanbe, and Yerevan (which were all the capitals of Eastern union republics), but not in Kazan or Makhachkala (which were and continue to be the capitals of the autonomous Tatar and Dagestan republics within the RSFSR/Russian Federation), despite important prerevolutionary traditions and/or strong local initiative.The Soviet encounter with Islam was another major conditioning factor for the development of Soviet Oriental studies. In a highly interesting contribution, Vladimir Bobrovnikov addresses the relations between Soviet Orientology and anti-religious propaganda. …

The State and Law in the Ancient East: A Round Table

Abstract It scarcely needs to be especially underscored that an adequate understanding of the history of the ancient and medieval East is impossible without a study of the genesis and early stages of development of the state and of law. Without such a study it is also difficult to interpret certain essential aspects of the present-day reality of Afro-Asian countries. But the study of the ancient oriental state and especially of law has still not achieved the required level and dimensions in Soviet oriental studies. Desirous of calling attention to this important area of oriental studies, the editors asked V. A. Iakobson (Leningrad Section, Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences of the USSR), an expert on ancient law, to write a survey article in which the principal problems in the study of the state and the law in the ancient east are described, and invited orientalists (historians, economists, legal experts, ethnographers, cultural anthropologists, and linguists) to take part in the discussion of these problems on the pages of this journal.

Current Tasks of Soviet Oriental Studies

A quarter of a century has passed since the First USSR-wide Conference of Orientalists. During this period the subject of the investigations of Soviet Orientalists, namely the non-Soviet East, has undergone drastic change. The colonial system of imperialism has been definitively abolished. The former colonies and semi-colonial countries have become sovereign states. The revolutionary process in the Orient has developed further despite the counterattack of imperialism, and objective difficulties, socialism has once again demonstrated its vital powers and its universality, and has on the whole become stronger on the Asian continent. One tremendous achievement among the peoples of the Orient, in terms of its historical significance, has been the emergence of groups of countries in the former colonial world that have opted for a socialist direction and today are in the presocialist stage of their development; the revolutionary struggle in those former colonial and dependent countries which have chosen the cap...

Soviet Indologists and the Institute of Oriental Studies: Works on Contemporary India in the Soviet Union

In this article the author studies the main trends in the evolution of modern Soviet Indology in the context of developments in Soviet Oriental studies and examines the extent to which both these were conditioned in turn by shifts in Soviet ideology. The development of Soviet Indology is further examined within the context of the organizational growth of the Institute of Oriental Studies (IVAN) and the evolving expertise of Soviet Indologists on contemporary India (along with a study of patterns in the academic training of these scholars). The author thus investigates both the intellectual and organizational bases contributing to the growth of Soviet Indology in an integrated and interconnected manner.

Some Soviet studies in semitics

(a 28‐page pamphlet, in the series Fifty Years of Soviet Oriental Studies, published in 1967 by Nauka Press for the Institute of the Peoples of Asia of the USSR Academy of Sciences). N. A. Kuznyetsova and L. M. Kulagina, and entitled Iz istorii Sovyetskogo Vostokovyedyeniya 1917–1967 (From the History of Soviet Orientalism, 1917–1967), (Moscow, Nauka Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1970, 252 pp.). Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 7, no. 3, October 1971, pp. 363–65 (see Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. VII, no. 2, May 1971, pp. 237–39). V. V. Lyebyedyev's Pozdniy sryednyearabskiy yazik (XIII‐XVIII vv.) (The Late Middle‐Arabic Language: The 13th‐18th Centuries), Moscow, Nauka Press, 1977; 92 pp. A. A. Kovalyev and G. M. Gabuchan, was published by Moscow University Press in 1968 and comprises 208 pages. V. S. Khrakovskiy's Ochyerki po obshchyemu i Arabskomu sintaksisu (Essays on General and Arabic Syntax), (Moscow, Nauka Press for the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR ...

Comparative literature in soviet oriental studies

Comparative literature in soviet oriental studies

African Studies in the Soviet Union

In many fields of Soviet oriental studies something of the earlier spirit of free inquiry persisted after the Revolution. Among Soviet Arabists, for instance, academic traditions have maintained much of their impetus, and a strong philological tradition persists.1 The Soviet Africanist is not conscious of so long a tradition of Soviet African studies. Ethiopian linguistic studies received some development both before the revolution (by V. A. Turayev at St. Petersburg University) and in the 1930s by N. V. Yushmanov at Leningrad University; he also taught Hausa. The distinguished Arabist I. Yu. Krachkovsky published a number of studies on Ethiopian history and literature, and in 1948-9 gave a course of lectures at Leningrad University entitled introduction to Ethiopian philology. Yushmanov died in 1946, and Krachkovsky in 1951. Professor D. A. Olderogge of Leningrad University is an Africanist in the same tradition. In 1927-8 he studied African languages under Professor D. Westermann in Germany, and later taught Swahili and Zulu at Leningrad