As you know, in 2004 the 200th anniversary of Kazan University was celebrated, which is famous for many names of scientists, but currently bears the name of V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin. On July 3-5, 2007, Kazan hosted the international symposium "Oriental Studies in Russia and the CIS countries at the Turn of the Century", dedicated to the same anniversary of the Department of Oriental Literature of Kazan University. It was organized by the Institute of Oriental Studies of Kazan University, founded in 2000, as well as the Institute of Social and Humanitarian Knowledge. The initiator of the symposium and its specific organizer was Professor of the Institute of Oriental Studies R. M. Valeev, Head of the Department of Higher and Secondary Professional Education and Science of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan.

The symposium was attended by about 35 scientists from Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, Kiev, Ufa, Ulan-Ude, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Baghdad (Iraq), Turkey and others. Thus, the symposium became another evidence that Kazan claims to be one of the main centers of Oriental studies in Russia. The meeting participants were welcomed by the Vice-rector of KSU R. G. Minzaripov, First Secretary, Consul-Attache for Education of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Russia Shin Moon-gyu and Adviser-Director of the Cultural Bureau of the Embassy of Egypt in Russia Ali Ghaleb Ahmad Ghaleb. J. G. Zainullin, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, took an active part in the conference.

The reports were grouped around several topics. In accordance with the stated general theme, several reports were devoted to reviewing the stages of development of Oriental studies in various centers of Russia in the past, as well as analyzing the "pain points" of the current state of teaching and studying Oriental studies.

The first group includes reports by V. G. Datsyshen (Krasnoyarsk) on attempts to start studying Oriental languages in Siberia in the XVIII - early XIX centuries; G. I. Kurnykina (Barnaul) - on regional Oriental studies centers in Western Siberia of the XIX century; S. A. Kirillina and M. S. Meyer (both in Moscow) on the traditions of studying the Koran in Russia and the current stage of these studies; S. F. Oreshkova (Moscow) - on the problems of Ottoman studies; V. E. Radnaeva (Moscow) - on the development of Mongolian studies in Russia in the first half of the XIX century.V. L. Uspensky (St. Petersburg) focused on the scientific activities of the Kazan Theological Academy.

The topic of R. M. Valeev's speech is the development of Oriental studies at Kazan University in the XIX-XX centuries. The report of V. Y. Zhukov and I. V. Kulganek (both from St. Petersburg) analyzed the activities of P. K. Kozlov (1863-1935), a member of the expeditions, and S. A. Kondratiev (1896-1970), a Mongol scholar, based on his diaries from different years. T. I. Yusupova (St. Petersburg) spoke about the activities of the Mongolian Commission established under the USSR Academy of Sciences in the 1920s. A.V. Psyanchin (Ufa) presented interesting materials that resulted from the activities of the Commission for the Study of the tribal composition of the population of Russia, the work of which began in 1917O.N. Polyanskaya (Ulan-Ude) turned to creativity D. E. Martynov (Kazan) offered an interesting perspective on Russian sinology through the attitude of such prominent Sinologists as O. Iakinf [N. Ya. Bichurin], V. P. Vasiliev, and N. I. Sommer to neo-Confucianism.

The second group of reports was devoted to the current state of teaching and studying Oriental studies. Among them, we should mention the reports of E. E. Voitishek and S. A. Komissarov (both from Novosibirsk) about the Novosibirsk Scientific Center and G. Yu. Yakovlev (Moscow) on the work of the Department of Far Eastern Languages of the Military University. V. A. Kurdyumov (Moscow) spoke about the peculiarities of studying and teaching Chinese. Kuak Boo Mo (Seoul) focused on the problem of teaching Korean to foreigners. Teaching Mongolian literature at St. Petersburg University was the topic of M. P. Petrova's speech (St. Petersburg).

The reports of participants from Belarus (I. A. Zakharenko) and Ukraine (I. N. Driga) had some common features, although they differed significantly in content. I. A. Zakharenko calculated the number of Orientalists who worked during the Soviet period in various regions of the Soviet Union and even beyond its borders. However, the numbers given by him differ. The text says that there were "more than five thousand Soviet Orientalists", and the attached table lists only 3,047 th-

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lovek. The main thing is that it is not known on what data its calculations are based and what conclusions can be drawn from the conducted studies. I. N. Driga spoke about the Oriental studies institutions in Kiev, focusing on the ongoing work on compiling a Dictionary of Ukrainian Orientalists.

A number of reports highlighted cultural ties and contacts between representatives of different countries and civilizations. Thus, N. N. Dyakov's report (St. Petersburg), full of facts, was devoted to how Iraq was perceived by travelers from al-Andalus in the XI-XII centuries. Hassan Dia-Eldin Nafi (Baghdad) touched, in particular, on the title of A. S. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit". In his opinion, it was inspired by one of the works of al-Mutanabbi (IX century).

I. Turkoglu (Istanbul) shared information about the life and works of Olga Lebedeva-Gulnar Khanum, which she discovered in the Turkish archives. This woman was born in 1854 in Kazan, and had six children from two marriages. The second husband was the mayor of Kazan. It is possible that she did not receive a formal education, but became interested in the Tatar language and Turkology, and mastered eight languages: Russian, German, English, French, Italian, Arabic, Persian and Turkish. She became famous for publishing a translation of the Qaboos-nameh into Russian from Persian. In 1889, she participated in the International Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm. In 1890, having become close to the famous Turkish writer Ahmed Midhat Efendi, she went with him to Turkey, where she translated Russian writers into Turkish. She also devoted herself to scientific work, as evidenced by her participation in international congresses of Orientalists in Paris (1897), Rome (1899), Hamburg (1902), and Algeria (1905). In 1905. she returned to Russia, to St. Petersburg. The speaker does not know about the further fate of O. Lebedeva. Maybe someone will search for information about this extraordinary woman in the Russian archives.

A. I. Avkhadieva (Kazan) spoke about the life and work of the Lebanese poet and artist Jubran Khalil Jubran (1883-1931). Since 1895, he lived in America. The main motive of his work was the desire for mutual understanding between the Western and Muslim worlds.

The civilizational specifics of some Eastern cultures were discussed in the reports of Khana Yafia Yusif Jamil (St. Petersburg) on animal images in Baghdad proverbs and sayings, N. A. Juraev (Kazan) on the history of studying Persian-Tajik phraseological units, and A. A. Mokrushina (St. Petersburg), who compared the use of temporal and spatial concepts in Arabic and Russian. The latter is based on a survey of a certain sample of students who speak both Russian and Arabic. The sample consisted of 50 Arab and 50 Russian students. Respondents were asked to specify what they mean by the words long, short, now, some time, as well as far, near, here, high, low. It turned out that these concepts are perceived differently, which can lead to mutual misunderstanding of people of different cultures. I would like this kind of research to continue.

Some of the presentations at this symposium looked random. For example, the report of K. G. Akhsanov (Kazan) "The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and Tatar socio-political thought". Although the fact of the outbreak of pro-Ottoman sentiments among the Tatar intelligentsia at that time is very interesting. The CoE report was also delivered in isolation from other speeches. Grigorieva (St. Petersburg) "Afghanistan and the XX century: results of the country's development".

There were also speeches that were difficult to accept as scientific. Thus, Z. F. Nabiev (Kazan), who was initially not included in the program, reported that in the hydronymy of the European part of Russia and in Ukraine, he found a Manchu substrate, which suggests that before the Slavs, this territory was occupied by the Manchus.

Within the framework of the symposium, a round table was held on the problems of studying the Soviet period in the development of Russian Oriental studies. During the preparation of this "round table", L. B. Alaev and S. D. Serebryany (both from Moscow) prepared discussion materials that were posted in advance on the website of the KSU Institute of Oriental Studies.

The text and speech of L. B. Alaev stated that Soviet Oriental studies is not just a part of the progressive movement of Russian science, but a special phenomenon that should be analyzed, since many of its "birthmarks" remain at the present time, although they are not recognized as outdated approaches. "Soviet Marxism", the specific themes and problems of Soviet works, the influence of non - scientific factors, the "culture of partisanship", and a significant isolation from world science-all this raises the question to what extent "Soviet science" corresponds to such a name. The current tendency to simply forget about the odious features of our scientific life at that time is dangerous for the further development of science.

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S. D. Serebryany spoke about his experience of receiving an Oriental studies education in the Soviet period and analyzed the "ideal types" of Soviet scientists, who were distinguished by their various "strategies" of adapting to the prevailing atmosphere.

Unfortunately, these materials did not become the focus of discussion during the meeting. Speakers S. F. Oreshkina, V. G. Datsyshen, Hasan Dia-Eldin Nafi expressed some interesting ideas and shared their memories of that period. B. M. Yagudin (Kazan) drew an interesting parallel between the "orientalism" of Western science, as it is presented in the famous book by Edward Said, and Soviet Oriental studies. This aspect of the European science of the East requires further careful consideration.

The topic of the round table was joined by two reports, one of which was read out and the other posted on the website. I. L. Alekseev (Moscow) titled his report "In search of 'good Islam': Islam and Islamic Studies between the dialogue of cultures and the 'clash of Civilizations'". The speaker showed the interweaving of confrontational and politically correct lines in a single "Islamic studies" - in Western science, in Soviet and post-Soviet. The study of Islam in the USSR was particularly unfavorable. Russian Islam was written about mainly in close connection with the tasks of atheistic propaganda and "fighting the remnants of the past." Scientific discussion of these problems was reliably blocked by the" foreign orientation " of Russian Oriental studies. In the West, the study of the problems of Islam in Russia developed primarily in the context of Sovietology, without a serious source base. In the post-Soviet period, it "turned out" that in Russia and other CIS countries there is an Islam that is "official", "popular", "traditional", "fundamentalist", "political", etc. The author points out an interesting dichotomy between the approach to domestic Islam of Orientalists who are primarily focused on studying abroad and are poorly acquainted with Russian realities, on the one hand, and historians, ethnographers and political scientists who are familiar with domestic problems but have little Islamic studies training, on the other. They have different language, concepts, logic, and methodology. There is a tendency to exaggerate local features and underestimate the commonality of the Islamic world. Another factor is added to this: the poor knowledge of Islam by those who have come to consider themselves Muslims. Decades of atheist propaganda have played their part. The speaker's comments on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the St. Petersburg and Kazan schools of Islamic studies were also interesting.

The text of I. M. Baulina (St. Petersburg) noted that the teaching of Israeli history and politics is included in the programs of no more than 10 departments in the Russian Federation, but even there it still does not have a solid base. They are taught either by former (and current) Arabists who have retained their previous prejudices against Israel, or by specialists on Israel who also hold politically tinged positions. Cold War-era stereotypes persist, which do not contribute to easing the confrontation. In many cases, Israel studies loses its academic character and becomes a set of purely applied disciplines.

The symposium showed that Russian Oriental studies continues its "victorious march" across the country. The new conditions of life of scientific and educational institutions allowed them to establish domestic and international relations, develop specialization and cooperation, and directly enter the international level without regard to Moscow or St. Petersburg. These kinds of meetings are becoming increasingly necessary. They contribute to the development of scientific ties between many centers of Oriental studies.

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