Department of China
The China Department (formerly the Chinese History Department) of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences is traditionally one of the leading centers of Russian sinology.
The Department consists of three sectors:
- ancient and medieval history,
- modern and modern history,
- ideology and culture.
The staff of the Department is engaged in the study of the history of China from ancient times to the present
The research topics of the China Department include a wide range of topical issues of Chinese history and culture from ancient times to the present day. At the same time, more than half of the staff, in accordance with the specialization of the Department, explore ancient and medieval China. Since the end of 2010, a study of China's demographic problems has been conducted again, and since 2011, as part of a general program to restore the main directions of classical sinology, a new direction has appeared – Tangut studies. The translation and commentary of fundamental historical, philosophical and literary monuments continues.
The most important direction is the translation and commentary of written monuments, special attention is paid to the translation and commentary of fundamental historical monuments. A major achievement along this path was the world's first complete translation into a Western language of a fundamental work for Chinese historiography, Shi Ji. In 2014, the academic series "Classical Chinese Canons in Russian Translation" published a two–volume book "Canons of Confucianism and the School of Names: The Great Doctrine and the Sage Deng Xi," containing a translation of the first treatise of the classical Confucian "Four Books" - "Da Xue" ("The Great Doctrine") with comments by the greatest philosophers of antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the most complex logical and epistemological work "Deng Xi-tzu", which is being published in Russian for the first time. Two volumes of a 5-volume complete and academically commented translation of one of the five great novels of traditional China, Jin, Ping, Mei, or Plum Blossoms in a Golden Vase, have been prepared for publication. The translation and commentary of the classical canon "Zhou Li" ("The Establishment of the Zhou Dynasty", volume II), as well as the "Laws of the Great Ming Dynasty" with a summary commentary and an appendix of rulings, continues, the translation is being clarified and the comments on the 9-volume edition of "Shi Ji" ("Historical Notes") are being enriched Sima Qian. A collective monograph "New studies of the "Canon of Change" ("I Ching") is being prepared. ("Historical notes"). Paleographic court documents of the Han era, recently discovered by Chinese archaeologists, are being put into scientific use; the laws of the Yuan Dynasty, which were strongly influenced by Mongolia, are being studied; the legislation of the Ming dynasty is being translated" with a consolidated commentary and an appendix of rulings.
