Valery E. Smirnov

The article considers the milestones of evolution of the Department of Near and Middle East History since its establishment within the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University and up to the collapse of the USSR. The research is based on the analysis of scientific and pedagogical activities of prominent Soviet professors and scientists who worked at the department and considerably influenced the development of Russian Oriental Studies within the walls of the Moscow University. During the existence of the Soviet state the teaching staff of the Department worked actively and effectively on creation of new quality curricula and training programs for oriental studies, development of innovative lecture courses and corresponding textbooks taking into account the latest trends and tendencies in teaching. This helped to provide the Soviet generation of students with a sufficiently complete understanding of the historical development and current state of the socioeconomic and cultural life of the countries and regions under study. The scientific life of the Department during the Soviet period was characterized by a gradual shift in the focus of research interests of its staff from topics describing the national liberation struggle of the peoples of the Near and Middle East against colonial oppression, the history of the labor movement, the activities of communist parties and trade union organizations, towards the issues of civilizational development of the East, the ways of development of the nations in the context of the bipolar world, etc. The most significant polemical subjects were reflected in the capital scientific works of the Department, which over time acquired a more diverse and analytically profound character.

The article describes the Department of Middle Eastern History at Moscow State University and its place in the development of Russian Oriental studies.

The present article is a further extension of the authors’ previous publication dealing with the main milestones in the development of the Department of Near and Middle East History during the years of Soviet power. This part of the study covers the range of issues relating to the functioning of the staff of the department from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present day. The challenges faced by domestic higher education and Oriental studies in the post-perestroika period are described, as well as the characteristics of the departmental leaders who were able to ensure the consistent development of the department in the new realities of a rapidly changing world. A considerable part of the article is devoted to the analysis of academic and pedagogical activities of the Department’s teaching staff at the present stage. The members of the Department actively and fruitfully work on creation of new high-quality training programs for Orientalists specializing in the history of the Middle East, making a significant contribution to training and education of Orientalist specialists at Moscow University, and promoting Oriental studies and historical science in general.

The article analyzes the complex and tangled relationship between members of the military-political elite of Ottoman Egypt at the end of the 18th century. Based on the materials of the chronicle of the Egyptian annalist Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti the article aims to reveal the principal motives for the murder of one of the key figures in the neo-Mamluk hierarchy — Emir al-Hajj Yusuf-Bek. At the same time, the author examines the role of Islamic religious leaders, namely the Egyptian Alim corps, in this notorious affair. As a result of the case study, a finding is made about the necessity of observing the norms of behavior set in the Egyptian society by holders of secular power towards the religious spiritual authorities.

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 examines the specific administrative model that developed in Ottoman Egypt in the second half of the 18th century, and the role of the local elite in the formation of the system of power. This study focuses on the influence of the Mamluk Sultanate on the ideas of regional leaders of predominantly Mamluk origin concerning the ideal structure of the state. These leaders regarded the Mamluk Sultanate as a model of the ‘golden age’ of Egyptian statehood. This study explores the repercussions of the deviation from the conventional tenets of the Mamluk corporation, which is characterized by an escalation in the competitive dynamics among the military-administrative elite of Egyptian society. The principal conclusion of the study is that the organizational structure of Mamluk society, which took shape in Ottoman Egypt in the latter half of the 18th century and was based on meritocratic principles of elite recruitment, due to its inherent contradictions, initially laid the foundation for stable stereotypes of behavior among the ruling authorities. These contradictions gave rise to conflicts among them. Despite the crisis of the Ottoman system of provincial administration, the leaders of the ruling ‘houses’ (‘beyts’) of the neo-Mamluk type were unable to propose a new political model of development and finally break away from dependency on the Ottoman metropolis, thus failing to put their ideas about the ideal state into practice.