The Western field of oriental studies and orientalism - criticised by Edward Said among others for encouraging the orient to be viewed in a particular way - has a counterpart in Russia and the Soviet Union. This book examines this Russian/Soviet intellectual tradition of oriental scholarship covering Islamic history and Muslim literatures of the USSR republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
This collection of articles by leading Russian Orientalists, from different universities and research institutes of Russia, covers a wide range of research fields: politics and power, history, economics and society, language, philosophy and culture. The Russian authors base their works on rare sources. They examine here ancient and medieval history and culture of Oriental societies including articles on Indian mythology, kalam in Islam, classical Indonesian concepts of monarchy, Caucasus in the Abbasid period etc. There will also be a focus on modern Asian and African societies with articles on agriculture in India, monarchy in Cambodia, kleptocracy in Africa, Chinese migration to Siberia etc.). Furthermore in this volume, cultural vocabularies and sacred texts will be analysed. The volume will be useful for all academics and students interested in Asia and Africa.
Russia's own Orient examines how intellectuals in early twentieth-century Russia offered a new and radical critique of the ways in which Oriental cultures were understood at the time. Out of the ferment of revolution and war, a group of scholars in St. Petersburg articulated fresh ideas about the relationship between power and knowledge, and about Europe and Asia as mere political and cultural constructs. Their ideas anticipated the work of Edward Said and post-colonial scholarship by half a century. The similarities between the two groups were, in fact, genealogical. Said was indebted, via Arab intellectuals of the 1960s who studied in the Soviet Union, to the revisionist ideas of Russian Orientologists of the fin de siècle. But why did this body of Russian scholarship of the early twentieth century turn out to be so innovative? Should we agree with a popular claim of the Russian elites about their country's particular affinity with the 'Orient'? There is no single answer to this question. The early twentieth century was a period when all over Europe a fascination with things 'Oriental' engendered the questioning of many nineteenth-century assumptions and prejudices. In that sense, the revisionism of Russian Orientologists was part of a pan-European trend. And yet, Tolz also argues that a set of political, social, and cultural factors, which were specific to Russia, allowed its imperial scholars to engage in an unusual dialogue with representatives of the empire's non-European minorities. It is together that they were able to articulate a powerful long-lasting critique of modern imperialism and colonialism, and to shape ethnic politics in Russia across the divide of the 1917 revolutions.
Here, the author examines Russian thinking about the Orient before the Revolution of 1917. He argues that the Russian Empire's bi-continental geography and the complicated nature of its encounter with Asia have all resulted in a variegated understanding of the East among its people.
A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is—three decades after its first publication—one of the most important books written about our divided world. "Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." —The New York Times In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding.
This Guide is produced on behalf of the European Science Foundation Asia Committee. The Guide provides a comprehensive survey of researchers, institutes, university departments, museums, organisations, and newsletters in the field of Asian Studies in Europe. The 352 page Guide is published by the International Institute for Asian Studies in co-operation with Curzon. This is the first such guide ever published, and contains highly detailed current information including specialisation by subject and region for each entry. The Guide contains an alphabetical list of 5,000 European Asianists; 1,200 institutes and university departments; 300 museums, organisations, and newsletters.
Building on long-forgotten archives and detailed case studies, Representing Russia's Orient reveals how complex representations of oriental subjects in nineteenth-century Russian art music, which often merged elements of East and West, contributed to the formation of Russia's national identity.
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year The untold story of how Russian espionage in imperial China shaped the emergence of the Russian Empire as a global power. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire made concerted efforts to collect information about China. It bribed Chinese porcelain-makers to give up trade secrets, sent Buddhist monks to Mongolia on intelligence-gathering missions, and trained students at its Orthodox mission in Beijing to spy on their hosts. From diplomatic offices to guard posts on the Chinese frontier, Russians were producing knowledge everywhere, not only at elite institutions like the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But that information was secret, not destined for wide circulation. Gregory Afinogenov distinguishes between the kinds of knowledge Russia sought over the years and argues that they changed with the shifting aims of the state and its perceived place in the world. In the seventeenth century, Russian bureaucrats were focused on China and the forbidding Siberian frontier. They relied more on spies, including Jesuit scholars stationed in China. In the early nineteenth century, the geopolitical challenge shifted to Europe: rivalry with Britain drove the Russians to stake their prestige on public-facing intellectual work, and knowledge of the East was embedded in the academy. None of these institutional configurations was especially effective in delivering strategic or commercial advantages. But various knowledge regimes did have their consequences. Knowledge filtered through Russian espionage and publication found its way to Europe, informing the encounter between China and Western empires. Based on extensive archival research in Russia and beyond, Spies and Scholars breaks down long-accepted assumptions about the connection between knowledge regimes and imperial power and excavates an intellectual legacy largely neglected by historians.
Throughout history, Russia's geo-political and cultural position between the East and West has shaped its national identity. Representing Russia's Orient tells the story of how Russia's imperial expansion and encounters with its Asian neighbors influenced the formation and development of Russian musical identity in the long nineteenth century. While Russia's ethnic minorities, or inorodtsy, were located at the geographical and cultural periphery, they loomed large in composers' perception and musical imagination and became central to the definition of Russianness itself. Drawing from a long-forgotten archive of Russian musical examples, visual art, and ethnographies, author Adalyat Issiyeva offers an in-depth study of Russian art music's engagement with oriental subjects. Within a complex matrix of politics, competing ideological currents, and social and cultural transformations, some Russian composers and writers developed multidimensional representations of oriental "others" and sometimes even embraced elements of Asian musical identity. In three detailed case studies--on the leader of the Mighty Five, Milii Balakirev, Decembrist sympathizer Alexander Aliab'ev, and the composers affiliated with the Music-Ethnography Committee--Issiyeva traces how and why these composers adopted "foreign" musical elements. In this way, she provides a fresh look at how Russians absorbed and transformed elements of Asian history and culture in forging a national identity for themselves.
