S U M M A R I E S O F M A J O R A R T I C L E S

S.V. Lapteff. The Prehistory of the Viet (Yue) Peoples in South-Eastern China (As Seen from the Archeological Data)

This paper deals with the prehistory of the distinct peoples called in the ancient time as “Bach Viet” (“Bai Yue”) who lived in the territory of the present South-Eastern China. Archaeological excavations in this region, which became active since 1970-s brought a couple of remarkable discoveries, which changed our notions on the development of the society and the state in this region and in the Far East in general by opening of a new center of human civilization’s development. In this paper the main stages of the development of “Bach Viet” culture are seen from the point of the emergence, development and decline of the archaeological cultures from the early Neolithic till the Iron Age, when in the III century BC these territories were conquered by the Chinese Western Han Empire. The analysis of the archaeological material makes the author think of the ethnic continuity of the archaeological cultures in this region during almost all this long period and of the very late beginning of the assimilation of these peoples by the Chinese (“Han”).

A.S. Desnitsky. Allegory and Typology in the Bible and with the Ancient Exegetics

It has become a common place in modern Bible studies that the medieval allegorical and typological methods of interpretation, such as the famous vision of the Samaritan parable by Augustine, has little in common with the original meaning of the text. Nevertheless, it can be proven that these methods are not completely absent from the Bible itself. Prophetic quotations from the Old Testament used in the New Testament typically imply some serious re-interpretation of the original text, putting it in an entirely different context. Sometimes, this re-interpretation can be classified as allegorical or typological, although these two methods are certainly not the most popular ones with the Biblical authors. The article demonstrates this on a number of concrete examples.

E.B. Smagina. Problems of Manichaean Christology

In the Manichaean doctrine, developed on the basis of an early Gnostic-Christian doctrine, there are two figures named “Jesus”. 1) A deity, the so-called Jesus the Radiant (or Splendour). 2) The historical or terrestrial Jesus, which is an element of the line of “Apostles”, i.e. founders and restorers of the true world religion. He may belong to the short line of Apostles, together with other religious leaders, such as Buddha, Zarathushtra and Mani himself, or to the longer another one, including the Biblical or historical persons traditionally known as authors of apocalyptic books. Such a dichotomy is a development of the well-known principle of Gnostic teachings, dividing Jesus Christ of the New Testament into a heavenly Christ and an earthly Jesus. There are some Docetic passages in the Manichaean sources, affirming that the material body and, consequently, the passion and crucifixion of the earthly Jesus were but a fiction. Through such Docetic sentences that occur also in early sources, they do not conform to some principle of the Manichaean teaching. We can conclude that the Manichaean Docetism is secondary by its nature, perhaps a later development of Mani himself, trying to conform his teaching to the principles of different Christian schools. This may also mean merely that the heavenly emanation, which makes the “Apostle” out of an earthly man (it is another principle of the Manichaean teaching), was already departed from Jesus to the moment of crucifixion, that is the crucified man was not an “Apostle”.

A.O. Zakharov. The Inscription Canggal Dated from 732 C.E. and Some Remarks on Early Javanese History

The paper contains the first translation of the oldest dated inscription from Central Java from Sanskrit into Russian. This inscription was found near the village of Canggal and is dated from 732 C.E. It was issued by the king Sanjaya. New Russian translation differs from earlier versions by Kern, Chatterji, and Sarkar, in some points. The main difference is that the inscription seems not to mention the Hindu gods Brahma and Vishnu. The Canggal inscription shows the significance of warfare for the state formation as Sanjaya and his predecessor Sanna were the victors of many neighbouring kings. The common view on Sanjaya as the founder of the dynasty of Mataram appears to be unconvincing. In fact, he was considered by the rulers of the early tenth century as no more than a protector of the kingdom of Mataram.

B.S. Dugarov. The Image of Esegeh Malan Tengrih in the Context of the Buryats’ Religious and Mythological Tradition

Esegeh Malan Tengrih – personifying the supreme power in the Uranic pantheon. In the Buryats mythology it is identified with the original god of heaven. Both the cult and folklore epic texts containing the versatile description of this sign character speak about this. The priority of Esegeh Malan in the cult system of the Buryat tengrism is determined historically, and this speaks about its centralizing and structure-forming principle in the hierarchical system of the Buryat shamanism of the whole.

V.V. Penskoy. The Military Potential of the Crimean Khanate at the End of the XV – the Beginning of the XVII Centuries

The article is an attempt to study the peculiarities of the development of the art of war in the Crimean Khanate from the end of the XV to the beginning of the XVII centuries. The author has focused his attention on the analysis of the main aspects of the Khanate’s military potential; contrary to the traditional ideas about the Tatar army as being primitive and of little fi ghting effi ciency, the author shows that the Tatar military machine was perfect enough and highly efficient. To a considerable degree this phenomenon can be explained by the fact that, on the one hand, the Tatars had inherited many strong sides of the Golden Horde’s military organization, and, on the other hand, tried in a flexible way and in good time to react to the changes in the art of war taking place around the Crimea in the period considered here. Together with the high degree of militarization inherent in nomadic societies and typical of the “barbarian” ethos all this contributed to the fact that during more than two centuries the Crimea was a grave threat for its neighbors.

V.O. Bobrovnikov. Caucasus Emigrants (Muhajirun) in Demographic Warfare between Russia and Turkey

The paper is an attempt to rethink the frontier population exchange happened between the Russian and Ottoman empires in the last third of the nineteenth century, and labeled “demographic warfare” by the modern American historian Marc Pinson. Tsarist Russia encouraged emigration of Russia’s Muslims from recently conquered Caucasus while accepting Ottoman Christian immigrants, mostly Armenians and Orthodox minorities, and settling them on imperial borderlands. It their turn, the Ottomans installed Caucasus Muslims coming from Russia on their vulnerable borders in the Balkans and later in the Arab Middle East. To date this process remains poorly studied so in Russia as abroad. As a rule, scholars did not compare synchronic Russian and Ottoman archival files. Focusing on the fate of so-called Circassian emigrants the paper draws on Ottoman documents housed in the Cyrill and Methodius National Library in Sofia (Bulgaria) containing the third largest collection of the Ottoman documents in the world, over 500,000 archival files in Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. In addition, it is based on archival documents from the Caucasus and Moscow. The author argues that so Muslim immigrants from Russia in Ottoman Turkey as Russian colonists settled on their lands in the Caucasus contributed in making modern societies and political mapping ex-imperial frontier areas of both polities. Archival sources witness they often got in similar social situations and fulfilled the same political functions of irregular police forces. Immigration was fraught with a psychological trauma that struck a number of generations of Circassians in Diaspora.

A.A. Kutsenkov. Many-Faced Hindutva

Hindutva is a phenomenon of the spiritual and social and political life typical of India. In spite of all its contradictions the hintutva remains the opposite to secularism, to democracy, a variety of the Hindu religious and communal chauvinism. Having formed ideologically and organizationally in the 20-s of the last century as a narrow and limited current of the land-owner and caste elite it turned into a mass social and political movement claming political power in the country. The influence of the hindutva in the masses is determined by many circumstances and by the fact that it has deep historical, social and cultural roots, and also by its call not only to reason, but to people’s feelings, has experienced personnel and a ramified organizational infrastructure.

S.Y. Seregichev. Islamo-Fundamentalism in Sudan: Myths and Problems

Islamic fundamentalistic movement in Sudan arose in end of the 1940 years as branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers. But only in 1989, when army and National Islamic front had come into power, this movement attracts the intent attention of the researchers of the Sudanese Islamo-fundamentalism. This article is dedicate to study of some principal moments of the modern political history of Sudan in 1989-2009: army-Islamism partnership, construction of the Islamic Republic of Sudan, classification of the Islamo-fundamentalistics groups and organizations and others.

Discussion “The Long-Term Prognosis of the Number of Population and the Prospect of the Interaction of Civilizations”. The Participants: Yu.G. Aleksandrov, W.A. Melyantzev, A.O. Filonik, A.I. Yakovlev

Organizing the discussion of A.V. Akimov’s article (Vostok/Oriens, 2009, No. 4) written by him of the basis of his book “The year 2300: the global problems and Russia” (M., 2008) the editorial board has been led by the scientifi c significance of the problems raised by the author of the article (and the book). The subject concerns the probable consequences for the character and forms of the interaction of existing civilizations as a result of thegrowth of the number of the “third world’s” population with the decrease of the people in the developed world in the near and distant future. The scientific analysis of the mentioned problems has also a politically practical aspect, for its results cannot be but considered in the attempts of the international community to overcome the dissent and distrust on different levels which exist between the civilizations and cultures and, thus, to lower the international, interreligious and interethnic tension on the ways to the creation of the mutual understanding and agreement between them.

A.I. Kobzew. A Dangerous Similarity, or the Problem of Kinship of “Two Ancestors” – Lao-Tzy and Buddha

In a generalized way the article gives all the main scientifi c data about Lao-tzy (Teacer Lao, Venerable Sage/ philosopher, An Old Child) identified with Lao Dan, Lih Her, Lih Boyan, Lao Lay-tzy, Lao-tzun (Sovereign Lao), the most enigmatic ancient Chinese philosopher, mythologized and deified founder of Daocism supposed author of “Dao deh tzin” (“The Canon of Road and Good”), or “Lao-tzy” (“treatise of Teachen Lao”). They are connected with the discussion of the three main problems: 1) Is Lao-tzy a real or fictitious person; 2) When he lived or his his character was formed; 3) Who created “Dao deh tzin”. The author gives the evidence of the amazing similarity between the images of Lao-tzy and Buddha corresponding to the historical circumstances of the penetration of Buddhism into China that he has obtained on the basis of a textological and iconographic analysis. It in its turned has made it possible to solve the enigmas not only in the descriptions of Lao-tzy, but also in the depiction of Confucius.

F.M. Khamrayev. V.V. Radlov and the Uigur Folklore

The outstanding Russian orientalist of the second half of the XIX c. – the beginning of the XX c., ethnographer, archaeologist, historian and teacher of German origin Vasily Vasilyevich Radlov (the genuine name was Wilgelm Fridrikh) made a great contribution to the development of this country’s Turkic studies. The article concerns the scientist’s services in the field of the study of the Uigur language and oral literature which had allowed him to become not only the founder of the studies of the Uigur writing monuments, but also the first collector, publisher of and expert of the Uigur folklore.

E.O. Kasaev. The Prospect of the Evolution of the Arab Countries’ Internal and Regional Policy

The collapse of the socialist system has broken the balance of power which existed in the world previously. Thus having remained in front of the West powerful from the economic, military and technological points of view that carries out the policy of force toward the developing countries the latter are more and more feeling the need of modernization. In this connection it is topical to analyze the tendencies that exist to-day in the internal and regional policy of the Arab states.

The distinctive feature of the last decades has become the perceptible strengthening of the Islamic factor in the social and political life of many Arab countries: actually the whole Moslem world is in some degrees experiencing its influence now, it is felt in many regions neighboring to this world.