Articles

The article surveys Japanese, Western and Russian research on the life and writing of Gensai Murai (1863–1927), a Japanese writer and journalist who authored the culinary novel “Kuido:raku” (The Pleasure of Eating, 1903). Despite his extensive literary legacy and the early success of the novel, Murai is rarely counted among the best-known writers and educators of the Meiji era (1868–1912). A detailed biography published in 2004 renewed interest in his work. Western studies usually mention Murai and his novel only in discussions of everyday life in Meiji Japan. The article reviews the main studies and examines why he has received little attention in Russian historiography.

This article examines the main features of business Chinese in comparison with colloquial Chinese. The emergence of modern business Chinese is linked to the economic reforms begun in 1978. Stylistic features of business Chinese are analysed at the lexical and syntactic levels. A study of the Peking University CCL online corpus allows the stylistic markedness of business Chinese vocabulary to be assessed quantitatively. After classifying the genres of business writing by subject matter, the author identifies expressions characteristic of each genre that convey the intentions of the sender. Knowing these expressions supports effective use of business Chinese in negotiations and correspondence. Business Chinese combines contrasting tendencies: colloquial elements, rational and emotional approaches, traditions and innovations.

In recent decades, the Japanese economy is in the low speed segment of the global economy, while partially losing its international competitiveness in those markets where it previously had a distinct advantage, namely high-tech markets of the manufacturing industry. For the period of 5 years (2011–2015) Japan had a negative trade balance. Low economic growth in the context of continuing deflation leads to stagnation of demand in the domestic market. In these circumstances, the country’s government and Japanese businesses are looking for new areas of capital investment and new export opportunities. The article analyzes the direction and results of the Japanese strategy aimed at overseas promotion of creative industries where intellectual property constitutes the core of the product. The government of S. Abe sees these industries as one of the drivers for economic growth and expansion of export potential of the country.

This article focuses on China’s policy, cooperation and disagreements with Washington and Moscow on the DPRK’s nuclear issue. Sections 1 and 2 give an analysis of the background of developments surrounding the DPRK’s nuclear issue and the Chinese position in detail. Section 3 covers China’s cooperation and disagreements with the US on this issue. From China’s perspective, “no problems in the region will eliminate US interference in regional affairs.” Section 4 covers China-Russia cooperation regarding the DPRK’s nuclear issue. The arguments are the following: Moscow and Beijing maintain pressure on the DPRK but only to the extent that its political system does not collapse. One reason for the joint Russian-Chinese resistance to the DPRK’s nuclear tests is that, after its tests and missile launches, the US increased its military involvement in the Far East. In conclusion, the author gives a recommendation on a possible way to solve the DPRK’s nuclear issue, which poses a threat to international security.

The issue of predestination of human’s fate has triggered plenty of discussions in Islam during many centuries. A number of roots are used in description of this topic in the Quran. The author pointed out three prominent roots and analysed their usage relying on commentary to the Quran written by one of the most prominent Muslim scholars – Ibn Kathir. The study resulted in finding out the most frequent root used in description of predestination, the author also gives statistics on reflection of the topic in different periods of Quran’s revelation. The author attempts to find out the reasons why not the most frequent roots were used in the name of the theme in the Islamic doctrine.

The paper deals with the patterns of quotations in a Jewish-Italian Divination Book. The manuscript of the book belongs to the Russian State Library and derives from the Italian town of Ancona. In the 16th century, Ancona flourished as an important Mediterranean port bringing together merchants from the Ottoman Empire, Italian cities, etc. The Jewish community played a crucial role in Ancona’s commercial success due to its connections with the Jewish Sephardic communities of the Eastern Mediterranean. No wonder, the Divination book mostly bothers about commerce and money matters. However, it also expresses religious and cultural affiliation of the community. The author of the Divination Book needed Biblical and Talmudic quotations to support his forecasts by the authority of the classical texts. At the same time, these same texts put the life of Jewish merchants into the context of sacred history of Israel making the daily existence of the Ancona merchants sacred and meaningful.

Matteo Ripa (1682–1746) was an Italian missionary priest whose stay in China allowed him to witness the death of Emperor Kangxi and the Chinese rites controversy, a conflict within the Catholic Church over the meaning of traditional Chinese rituals. The conflict had severe consequences for its participants, including the Jesuit order. On returning to Italy, Ripa founded a college in Naples, the first European institution to study and teach subjects concerning the East at an academic level; it later became the Oriental University. He also wrote the memoir “Giornale”. A century after his death, Jesuit editors substantially revised the text, distorting the author’s meaning. Their widely distributed version created a lasting misconception about Ripa’s life and character. Publication of the original text now makes it possible to recover his story.

The article examines how to distinguish basic and augmented elements of the Arabic word. The phenomenon of az-ziyāda (addition of a segment) is studied through the thirteenth-century Arab grammarian Ibn Ya‘īš’s treatise “Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal”. The identification of augmented ḥurūf is illustrated by hamza. The main criteria are derivation, evidence from words of the same pattern, and the frequency with which a ḥarf is basic or augmented in a given position. The article also examines the hierarchy of nouns according to their ability to change morphological structure: triradical nouns rank highest, followed by quadriradical and quinqueradical nouns. Special attention is paid to initial hamza. Three types of structural defectiveness in nonverbal nouns with an initial prothetic hamza are identified: elision of the third radical; assimilation of the vowel of the second radical to that of the third; and an atypical pattern whose use is restricted to a particular context.

The article focuses on one of the most important features of Turkey’s economic development in recent decades: periodic crises of growth arising from a similar set of causes. During globalization, the sources of these crises changed. Whereas they previously had mainly external origins, domestic financial tensions and consequent macroeconomic instability also became sources. The author regards this change as a result of Turkey’s growing agency in international financial relations under conditions of financial openness, one of the main attributes of globalization.

The article is devoted to little-known aspects of the Christian-Muslim relations in the Mamluk state dealing with suppression of the Christian wine-production and wine-trade. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Muslim world affected by serious historical challenges (the Crusades and the Mongol invasion) went through a certain moral revolution. It stimulated the spirit of religious fundamentalism, implementation of the norms of the Islamic piety and the oppression of the religious minorities. During the “century of persecutions” (1260s–1360s) campaigns of religious repressions against Dhimmis repeated several times being motivated by a certain irrational rhythm of social aggression of the lower classes of the Muslim society. However in the late 14th and 15th centuries another factor of the persecutions became obvious. The “Black Death” pandemic and following waves of the epidemics of plague, natural disasters and famine caused an atmosphere of apocalyptic expectations and penitence. These sentiments led to campaigns against social vices as wine-drinking, drugs consumption and prostitution, which were supposed to be the reasons of the Divine punishment. The article analyses coincidences between the years of plague and famine and the religious persecutions of the Dhimmis, first of all suppression of the wine-trade which was strongly associated with the Christians.

This paper, which is based on a series of author’s calculations and models, analyzes current situation, trends, factors and major determinants of Least Developed Countries’ (LDCs’) economic development during the last three to four decades. It is argued that despite many acute problems that they do not cease to face, several dozens of LDCs have recently started to progress on the path of rather fast and more or less sustained economic growth. Although LDCs are still grappling with severe forms of multidimensional poverty, substantial dearth of human capital and modern infrastructure, adequate economic, social, political and legal institutions, and encounter considerable foreign economic and climatic shocks, they on average during the last decade and a half managed to have markedly increased their rates of growth of per capita GDP and human development index. It should be underscored that LDCs having benefitted from significant improvement of barter terms of foreign trade, some upgrade in government effectiveness and implementation of a series of pragmatic economic reforms, have succeeded in expanding rates of growth of agricultural and manufacturing production and exports. The level of their gross capital formation has by and large considerably risen due to significant enlargement of the share of domestic savings related to GDP, FDI inflows and workers’ remittances. It would be incorrect to overemphasize the progress achieved by approximately three dozen LDCs (as the basis of their growth remains shaky), but, nevertheless, they have demonstrated noticeable improvement in dynamics of their investment efficiency and productivity growth.