Sleeping Beauty Awakes: Russia’s Orientalists Get A New Life
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The revival and increased public-facing activity of Russia’s Institute of Oriental Studies, alongside new projects aimed at promoting Russian scholarship and engagement with Asia, reflects a broader shift in Russia’s geopolitical and cultural focus eastward.
My old and esteemed friends called me up and invited to participate in their new project. These friends are Vladimir Morozov, formerly Russia’s ambassador to Malaysia, and Vladimir Sautov, who served several terms as the Chairman of Russia-Malaysia Business Council, though originally he was trained as an Arabist, with deep knowledge about Syria. What they wanted me to do was to write express commentaries about events in Asia on their brand-new website, called The Eastern Tribune.
And when I rushed in, happy to see these good people again after a considerable intermission, a lot of surprises were in store for me. To put it short, I have discovered the Sleeping Beauty, that is the Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, awake after years of slumber.
These were long years, especially in the 1990-s, when it took a lot of enthusiasm, if not self-denial, to work in that institution. Simply speaking, there was no money in that profession, and you had to really love the East to be there. The corridors of the famous mansion on Rozhdestvenka Street in Central Moscow smelled of decay.
A lot of reservations are appropriate here. Researchers at that time had to learn the art of getting a grant or two from various Russian or foreign foundations, but, still, if you were in research of something medieval and obscure like civilizations of ancient India, Rozhdestvenka was your place to be.
That was especially true for Indologists (and my fellow-brothers in love with South East Asia). People researching the Arabs or the Chinese had a better chance to find a parallel position in places like the Russian Council, tackling all the foreign relations at once. Or it could be the prestigious Foreign Relations and Global Economy Center. And, of course, one could always try to get a teaching position somewhere. But the folks who were seriously and hopelessly into medieval history or culture knew in advance that they probably will spend most of their life in Rozhdestvenka.
I know now these people were real heroes, and happy heroes, too. It’s enough to remember a formidable lady, that is, Dr. Irina Glushkova with her books about Indian culture in different states of the country. Her every visit to The Independent of Moscow, where I worked at the time, was a show of grace, if not a hoop of fire – and, yes, she is very much alive now. We all knew such people could not be rich, but they were respected even more for their dedication to their research.
So, I visited my old friends in their new and plush office, and discovered that they were supplementing the Institute’s effort with several additional projects, claiming money and attention of the big wigs. Essentially, I was talking to members of a kind of a Board of Trustees, infusing money and ideas into all kind of studies of the same good old IOS and the great people working there. And I was really impressed by these ideas.
First, my friends are publishing and promoting their newly-founded The Eastern Tribune, an internet portal in addition to the modest and rather official website of IOS. The IOS website was, and is, meant for the charmed circle of researchers themselves, while the portal’s idea is to let the public know what our Orientalists are doing and why their work is important.
And so we see, on that portal, a long publication by venerable Dr. Evgenia Vanina, called India’s Muslims In Search Of Identity. Or a relatively short commentary about Iraq’s new government, authored by Ahmed Al Janabi, who happens to write his doctoral paper in another Moscow research institute. My take, this week, was dedicated to South East Asia nations’ reaction to the recent US-China summit in Beijing.
Second, the Board of Trustees is sponsoring publication of very specialized books with small circulation. I have been shown two of these, both on Indonesia and originally written in Jakarta. One is about the cordial relations of the Russian Prime Minister Nikita Khruschev with Sukarno, the founder of the independent nation. The other has been written by the current President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, who is telling us what it means to be a soldier and a general. First, one had to translate them from Bahasa Indonesia, and second, to edit the Russian version and supplement it with footnotes and other explanations. But it was worth it, since both books, in my not very humble opinion, are brilliant. And both are, theoretically, needed for our intellectual public.
Then there is yet another project of the Board, that is, a publication of a colored catalogue of all kind of Oriental items in the museums of St. Petersburg, starting from The Hermitage, the world-famous collection of Imperial treasures. That city, formerly the Northern Capital of the land, boasts a separate school of researchers of the East, always ready to challenge and outshine the Moscow colleagues.
And that’s not all, by far.
That activity around the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies have been evolving for quite a while, it was I who did not know it. But then, not too many people did.
Anybody knew, until recently, that specialized Orientalist research, be it a book or a publication in a journal with minimal circulation, could or might be obtained by a very narrow circle of those interested, and nobody else. You had to go to the institution’s tiny bookstore to get it. In fact, only that narrow circle was willing to get these materials, or at least had a chance to learn about their existence. So, again, most of our Orientalists were real heroes, sitting in their glorious seclusion and modestly building a base for the nation’s future Eastern policy.
What has changed now? The Eastern policy did, of course. Tribulations like yet another war, started against Russia mostly by Europe, has naturally diminished the public interest in basic studies of European culture. And, again naturally, the public is listing the nations of the East among Russia’s best friends, according to the polls. Finally, the same turbulent events have shifted the tourist flow from the West to the East (and South, etc.). All kind of public is beginning to take interest not just in the tourist facilities, but in the people and nations of these mysterious lands.
There are two ways to tackle that kind of interest. One is just to sit and wait for public demand for books, articles or movies to manifest itself. The other way is to forestall that interest and get ready for it, but also maybe prod the public a little bit by displaying your intellectual product. My dear friends proved to be risky enough to try the second approach.
One phrase by Mr. Vladimir Sautov stuck in my mind. He said: the people who are studying the East have to know they are in vogue now, and our task is simply to create that trend for them and for the nation.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
