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Wednesday 31 October 2018

Exhibition of Genuine Archival Documents "Russian Oriental Studies in the 20th Century"

 
The Federal Archives Agency, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History and the Institute of Oriental Studies held an exhibition of archival documents within the framework of the international congress "200 Years of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences"

On October the 31st, 2018, an exhibition of unique archival documents on the history of Oriental studies "Russian Oriental Studies in the 20th Century" was held within the framework of the jubilee events dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Studies.

The exhibition was opened by Vitaliy Naumkin, the President the Institute of Oriental Studies, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Andrei Sorinkin, the Director of the Russian Academy of Music and Theater.

An excursion was conducted for the exhibition guests by the employees of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RSASPH).

The archival documents were presented on the exposition, the documents from the RSASPH funds on state policy in the fields of oriental studies, training and employment of Orientalist staff, and the organization of scientific centers for the study of the East. Of particular interest were the documents of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (b), the leaders of the Soviet state on the creation and activities of the All-Union Scientific Association of Oriental Studies, the Moscow and Leningrad Oriental Studies Institutes, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The exhibition also presented for the first time the authentic documents from the personal funds of V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, and other party figures, decisions of Politburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (b), connected with the history of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet state and the countries of the East in the first decades of Soviet power, as well as documents on economic, military and cultural cooperation.

Of particular interest were genuine materials from the Comintern archives: personal documents and photographs of the workers and communist movements of the East (M.N. Roy, M. Ali, S. Usmani (India), R. ibn Hassan Khilu (Palestine), A. Sultan-Zadeh (Iran), M. Subhi, N. Khikmetah (Turkey), Y. Salman (Iraq), and others); materials on the holding of the First Congress of the Peoples of the East, the revolutionary movement in the East, the materials of the Communist Party and the Communist University of the Working People of the East (KUTV) - the "forge" of leading personnel, the participation of volunteers from the eastern countries in the Civil War in Spain.

Natalia Romanova was the organizer and curator of the exhibition from the Institute of Oriental Studies.

Within the framework of the exhibition "Russian Oriental Studies in the 20th Century" a presentation of Vostochnyi Archive was published, which had been published by the Institute of Oriental Studies since 1998. I spoke on the magazine and presented the new issue of the "Eastern Archives" to the editor-in-chief Vladimir Belyakov. On the pages of the magazine several articles of various authors had been published, written on the basis of archival documents from RSASPH.

Natalia Charyeva was in charge of exposition organization and stands registration of the magazine "Vostochnyi Archive".