Articles

The process of studying modern Iranian literature has just begun. This article is the first attempt in Russian and foreign Iranian philology to systematize and analyze a representative block of modern women’s prose works. The scale of this phenomenon, which got a special impetus for development in the republican period, deserves to be in the focus of research, taking into consideration both the vector of development of Iranian literature and its non-literary role as an important social factor. The main features of women’s prose are the expansion of the thematic range and expressive means used by the authors. The stylistic diversity of women’s prose (social realism, fiction, magical realism) is combined with the similarity of its topic — the denial of the woman’s image in its traditional interpretation.

In this article we study gestures and facial gestures as cultural-specific elements of a foreign culture in translation. When translating kinetic idioms, which are verbal description of gestures, facial gestures or postures and simultaneously emotions and feelings they express, a translator chooses the most adequate strategy which depends on existence of full or partial equivalents, absence of equivalents or existence of gaps in target language and culture. Ways and techniques used in every separate case, in the whole coincide with those described in the theory of translation.

The article examines the peripheral actants in Japanese utterance on the degree of expression of their prototypical agentive characteristics: volition, affectedness, ability to control, individuality, etc. The research was based on the material of author’s parallel Russian-Japanese fiction corpus. While analyzing cases of permutative voice in Japanese it is revealed that cases of anthropo-oriented impact of an inanimate subject are characterized by a focus shift from a human as a causation object and bringing him to the syntactic periphery with the raising of a means/instruments or somatics to an object position. A specific type of syntactic transformation is revealed: the movement of the possessor from the original dative to the attributive non-agentive position in possessive constructions, which contributes to the proof of the theoretical thesis about the restriction of the dative coding of the external possessor in Japanese. As a result of a complex study of the agentive potential of peripheral actants it is confirmed that the processes of actant-predicate interaction are largely determined by the semantic features of not only the core, but also of the peripheral syntactic and semantic participants.

After gaining independence from Great Britain in 1947, the territory of Hindustan still encompassed small colonial enclaves — French and Portuguese. The issue of their joining India was a matter of time. French possessions included Chandernagore in Bengal; Pondicherry, Yanaon and Karikal on the east coast; and Mahe on the west coast. Population of the French-owned territories was basically represented by Bengalis, Tamils and Malayalis; their ethnic identity played a decisive role in the integration of the former French possessions into the Republic of India. This article examines the stages and ethnocultural nuances of the integration process.

The article examines the peripheral actants in Japanese utterance on the degree of expression of their prototypical agentive characteristics: volition, affectedness, ability to control, individuality, etc. The research was based on the material of author’s parallel Russian-Japanese fiction corpus. While analyzing cases of permutative voice in Japanese it is revealed that cases of anthropo-oriented impact of an inanimate subject are characterized by a focus shift from a human as a causation object and bringing him to the syntactic periphery with the raising of a means/instruments or somatics to an object position. A specific type of syntactic transformation is revealed: the movement of the possessor from the original dative to the attributive non-agentive position in possessive constructions, which contributes to the proof of the theoretical thesis about the restriction of the dative coding of the external possessor in Japanese. Special attention is paid to case variation of peripheral actants because case alternation in the design of high-agent and low-agent actants also demonstrate the importance of the propositional level of utterance and prototypical agential features. As a result of a complex study of the agential potential of peripheral actants it is confirmed that the processes of actant-predicate interaction are largely determined by the semantic features of not only the core, but also of the peripheral syntactic and semantic participants.

This article is based on existing research and published archives and, by systematizing this information, seeks to reflect as fully as possible the process of decision-making on the restoration of diplomatic relations between China and the USSR in 1932. The main focus is on the analysis from the perspective of the Nanking government: the conceptual development and choice of interests of the Chinese and Soviet sides in the issues of Sino-Soviet relations and interaction with Japan during this period are examined. Soviet-Chinese diplomatic relations after 1931 underwent a relatively difficult process of reconstruction. Much of the Chinese and Russian literature provides limited analysis of this topic with simplistic conclusions. Due to widespread contradictions between China and the USSR, the Nanjing government was mistrustful of developing relations with the Soviet Union. At the same time, faced with unrest beyond the Far Eastern border, the USSR, out of caution and “distrust of the Nanking government,” also took a series of actions that were seen as “developing Japan-Soviet relations.” Under increasing pressure, China finally decided to start negotiations with the USSR to unconditionally restore diplomatic relations to prevent the Soviet Union from getting too close to Japan. The fact that the USSR gradually began to view Japan as a factor of instability also created conditions for the restoration of Soviet-Chinese diplomatic relations and their further development.

The article analyzes the actual problem of gender relations in Uzbekistan at the end of the XX — beginning of the XXI century, as well as the impact of gender relations on the economy of the state. There is a significant gender imbalance in the country, manifested in domestic violence, an impressive wage gap between men and women, forced marriages and so on — all this slows down the economic development of the state. The paper examines statistical data reflecting the employment of men and women of Uzbekistan in the labor market, the legislative framework governing the employment of the population. The role of mentality and religion in shaping the structure of gender relations in the economic sphere is determined. The stability of Muslim traditions in society is noted, which complicates the search for methods to achieve equality between men and women that do not contradict the foundations of religion. The segregation of the Uzbek labor market is considered and the main areas of employment of men and women are highlighted. The causes of the gender imbalance are determined, as well as attempts to correct it in politics are being studied. The paper examines the specifics of women’s employment, ways to encourage women’s participation in political and social activities, as well as the effectiveness of the methods used.

The paper discusses issues in the contemporary historiography of the West Punjab region, which now forms the Punjab province of Pakistan. The ethnic specificity of this area has been fully recognized by researchers; however, it is interpreted indifferent ways. To this end, the basic criterion has been the algorithm of “fixing” West Punjab within the general South Asian context. A detailed study of works on Punjabi ethnocultural identity allows us to distinguish two main research approaches: 1) consideration of West Punjab’s peculiarities in view of its ages-old cultural legacy; 2) analysis of its historical path and contemporary place based on the political realities of mid-ХХ–ХХI cc. While the first line of thinking is based on the assumption that West Punjabi culture has been inseparable from that of South Asia, the second one suggests that West Punjab should be considered exclusively as a Muslim-majority area, whose incorporation into Pakistan has been a natural outcome.

The article analyses the scientific and pedagogical activities of the teaching staff of the Department of the Near and Middle East History on the threshold of the 270th anniversary of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The main goal of the authors was to make an objective assessment of the current state of the Department and its contribution to the development of Russian humanitarian knowledge, to determine its place in the structure of university science and education. Such a study makes it possible to characterize the specific nature of the training of Russian specialists in the Middle East and North Africa, the history and culture of Islam at Moscow University. At the same time, it allows us to get an adequate idea of the scientific schools formed in the Department, the level of academic research conducted by it, in order to assess the multifaceted work of the Department’s team within the framework of all-Russian and international Orientalist research projects. In the course of the work it was convincingly demonstrated that the Department of the Near and Middle East History has now firmly occupied its niche in the structure of Russian Oriental studies, becoming an important part of the Russian humanitarian community, a recognized center of education and training of qualified Orientalists for the needs of the country.

The article explores the main periods and trends in the development of studies in History and Politics in the Institute of Asian and African Studies and depicts the activities of certain departments. It reveals unity and diversity in the historical and contemporary social and political development of various parts of Asia and Africa regions.

The article is devoted to the analysis of modal constructions with infinitives in -(i)tuṃ in Pali, which is a representative of the early-middle stage of Indo-Aryan. Pali is predominantly known as the classical language of the religious and philosophical canon of «Theravada» Buddhism. As the most frequent suffix in Pali, -(i)tuṃ (historically, an indicator of a verbal noun frozen in the accusative) was also the most productive way of generating infinitives in classical Sanskrit (but the least productive in Vedic). Upon analyzing the Pali jatakas (fables about the Buddha’s earthly reincarnations) the author has identified a limited set of stable semo-syntactic contexts in which infinitives in -(i)tum occurred most frequently. The constructions discovered were analyzed and systematized throughout the prism of the functional-semantic field of modality.

The paper attempts to analyze the ways of typological evolution of four Western New Indo-Aryan (NIA) languages: Hindi-Urdu, Rajasthani, Punjabi and Gujarati. In the majority of Western NIA languages the consistent ergative strategy typical for the beginning of its development later gave way to the neutral, then — to the contrastive one, which was replaced in some paradigms by the accusative system of case marking. Multidirectional processes of morphosyntactic evolution were observed at the beginning of the New Indian period. Later the changes in coding strategies as well as the changes in rules of verbal agreement became predominantly unidirectional. In certain languages, the ergative construction maintained the gendernumber agreement with the marked direct object, in others the marked direct object blocked verbal agreement. Split ergativity, characteristic of the initial period of Indo- Aryan syntactic structure, has been preserved in most Western New Indo-Aryan languages (NIA). The only exception is Dakhini where the ergative case marking got initially extended to the entire system of aspectual and tense forms, later the system returned to the nominative-accusative type. Typical for ergative systems free elision of the ergative agent got established in Apabhramsha in the beginning of the NIA period (14–15 centuries), but practically does not appear in modern languages. Co-referential omissions of ergative type were observed in Middle Indo-Aryan and in Early NIA periods, in modern NIA languages they are ungrammatical. So, with the exception of minor deviations, the evolution of the morphosyntactic systems of Western NIA languages shows a unidirectional movement towards decrease in the ergative morphology and syntax.

The article, based on Palestinian and British sources, reconstructs the journey of the ideologist and propagandist of Palestine’s national movement’s radicalization — shaykh ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam (1882–1935), one of the inspirers of the Great Arab revolt of 1936–1939. ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam was the person behind the formation of underground cells of political organizations that became the mainstay of the Great Arab revolt, the most famous of which was the paramilitary group “Black Hand” created in 1930. Despite active confrontation with the British military administration and Jewish settlers, ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam and the “Black Hand” failed to achieve the independence of Palestine, but al-Qassam’s person and his activities served as a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people in their struggle for independence, and the very name of shaykh al-Qassam has become a household name for modern paramilitary structures of the Palestinian resistance.

The article considers the reign of the first emperor of the Western Han — Liu Bang, better known as Han Gao-tzu (202–195 BC). Based on the results of the study of the chronicle of the reign, preserved in the main source on the history of the period — Han shu (“History of Han” I century.) we considered the activities of the bearer of supreme power in the sphere of state administration as part of the 1 Автор благодарит своего научного руководителя к.и.н. М.Ю. Ульянова за помощь и поддержку в подготовке данной статьи. political process on the basis of the fact that the chronicle of the reign preserves all the most important actions of the emperor.

This article is a continuation of the study initiated in the article ‘The Persian Story of Shīr Farrokhzādān and the Forced Migration of the Arabs from Misikhē (al-Anbār) under Sasanid King Shapur I (240–271)’. A close examination of the story of Shīr Farrokhzādān within the historical context allows to make the following observations and conclusions. The migration of the Arabs from the region of Misikhē was the result of their struggle against the Sasanids, who won and built a fortress at Misikhē. King Shapur I considered those Arabs to be dangerous, and so, he parted them and settled them in different places under the power of his governors or, perhaps, Arabic ruler Djadhīma who is described in some sources as a vassal of the Sasanids. Those events took place before the enthronement of Shapur I, during the Sasanids’ initial expansion in the Euphrates region (225 to 240). The Sasanids’ strategic aim appears to have initially consisted in ensuring the security of their new capital, Wēh-Ardashīr, against attacks of hostile Arabic tribes rather than in establishing a barrier on the Romans’ way. However, after firmly setting foot in the Euphrates region the Sasanids used the way up the Euphrates’ course, to attack Roman possessions, in particular in campaigns involving the taking of Dura-Europos (239) and Antioch (241).