2025.1

The article is dedicated to the sinologist Yakov Yakovlevich Brandt (Brandt, J.J.; 1869–1946), who lived in Beijing. The orientalist graduated from the Saratov gymnasium and the oriental department of St. Petersburg University (1892). Having entered the service in the Ministry of the Imperial Household in 1894, he then worked in the Ministry of Finance. In 1901, he was appointed head of the Beijing department of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). Having developed his own methodology, Brandt spent many years teaching the Russian language to the Chinese and Chinese for the Russians. He was the first to develop the program of teaching diplomatic Chinese, having published several manuals (“Diplomatic Conversations” and “Collection of treatises between Russia and China.” Being the oldest professor at the Chinese Institute of Russian Language and Literature, he published works on Chinese studies in Russian, Chinese and English, and repeatedly advised students from the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg. He also taught at the North China Union Language School. Communication with foreign orientalists helped him publish several works in English. The Sinologist was also involved in political and social activities. The article also provides brief notes about Russian orientalists in Beijing. While preparing it, the author used the memoirs of the sinologist’s contemporaries (I.G. Baranov, I.I. Serebrennikov and A.N. Speshnev), materials from foreign collections (Archive and Library of the Hoover Institution — HILA; Russian collection of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu; Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco — MRK) including private ones (M. Drozdov, Shanghai, NN, Beijing).

Travelling is an indispensable source of information about foreign countries. Both today and in the 17th century, journeys abroad immerse travelers in local cultural and linguistic environments, providing numerous opportunities to gain new knowledge, especially when it comes to Constantinople, a city with a rich history. In the early 17th century, Pietro Della Valle (1586–1652), an Italian nobleman, musician, diplomat, and traveler, visited Constantinople during his journey through the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and India (1614–1626). He documented his experiences and observations in letters to his Neapolitan friend, Mario Scipano, a professor of medicine. What drew the young Italian’s attention in Constantinople? Whom could one meet there? How did ambassadors spend their leisure time? What languages could travelers learn, why were Turkish Jews teaching them, and why did Europeans eagerly acquire Eastern manuscripts?

Theophanes the Confessor’s statement that following Constantine the Great’s victory over Licinius (324) Roman troops defeated Persians who had seized Amida is usually considered as actually describing events which took place in mid-330-es. This, however, does not seem supported by the extant evidence. On the contrary, a study of the sources suggests that in 324 Sasanid troops, capitalizing on the struggle between Constantine and Licinius, invaded Mesopotamia and took Amida, but in the spring of the following year Roman forces under the nominal command of Caesar Constantius defeated them. Doubts as to the reliability of Theophanes’ account arise from the fact that the author of the original text erroneously described Narseh, who commanded the Sasanid troops, as a son of the Sasanid king. That Narseh is probably not identifiable with either Narseus of Rufus Festus, or Narseh, brother of Sasanid king Shāhpūhr II (307/8–379/80), mentioned by mediaeval Armenian writers. Reasons which are usually put forward against the reliability of Theophanes’ account do not appear decisive, for Constantius might have obtained the title of Persicus because of his repulse of a Sasanid offensive in 338 and his fortification of Amida was caused by the Persians’ repeated raids and is not necessarily connected to Narseh’s campaign.

The article discusses the issue of referring to people with disabilities in the contemporary Japanese language. There has been little research on the problems of labelling vulnerable population groups, in particular, concerning about people with disabilities in the Japanese language in the national and Western scientific literature. However, since Japan’s state policy is aimed at the adaptation and inclusion of people with disabilities in public life, the language policy of Japan in this field could be useful for other countries. The main data for the study was taken from the BCCWJ (Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese) corpus of National Institute of Japanese Language and Linguistics and the official websites of the organisations dealing with the problems of people with disabilities. The author examines language models of nomination formation, analyses different interpretations and uses of the most frequently used word «sho:gaisha». The author concludes that there is a certain influence of political correctness in the contemporary Japanese language. However, the model of nomination in which disability acts as a marker of the identity is prevailing.

The article contains an analysis of phonetic features of modern Korean language, the peculiarities of similar sounds’ pronunciation and its differences from Russian analogues. A significant part of the article is devoted to the research of the specifics of the Korean language’s grammatical structure with a focus on: the principle of constructing simple and complex sentences; differences in using dative and locative cases, verbs of movement’s direction, constructions of impossibility to perform an action for subjective and objective reasons, the principle of using three variants of subordinate clauses of purpose; constructing an indirect question and subordinate additional clauses, using “Korean” and “Chinese” numerals and the system of big data. The article also presents an analysis of a special orientation of politeness’ category, which has several levels and is expressed in verb endings, suffixes and polite equivalents for a number of nouns.

Feng Jicai (b. 1942) is one of the most famous contemporary Chinese writers, he is known also as an artist and calligrapher. This paper examines his novel “The Three-Inch Golden Lotus” (San cun jin lian, 1986), in particular, it looks into literary representation of trauma. The revealed stylistic features allow us to consider the story in the context of its relationship with the oral folk tale.

Al-hanin ila-l-awtan (“longing for the native places”) is a group of motives in classical Arabic literature which emerged in the pre-Islamic era and gained popularity in the I/VIII-II/IX cc., whereby the expansion of the caliphate, the concentration of literary activity at courts, and a number of other reasons made poets leave their homelands. They expressed their homesickness in different literary forms, including poetic improvisations, prose sayings, and separate motifs in polythematic works. The II/IX century marked the appearance of the first al-hanin ila-l-awtan anthologies, the earliest of which is attributed to al-Jahiz. This collection, of a relatively moderate volume, contains examples of al-hanin ila-l-awtan poetry and prose of various periods. It was frequently quoted later on. Nevertheless, the anthology has been little studied; although mentioned in a number of review articles, it has not yet been subject to a separate research. This article considers the issues related to the source attribution, structure, and content, as well as its role in the literary tradition.

The article examines the external aspects of the implementation of the digital yuan, namely: what practical steps the Chinese government is taking to expand the use of the digital yuan in foreign trade transactions, and how such measures are substantiated by the legislation. In addition, the scientific discourse regarding the potential of the digital yuan to reshape the global financial system is being analyzed. Currently, scholars both in and outside China are discussing how the development of the digital yuan will affect the transformation of the international trade. Do the actual steps taken by the Chinese government match their vision? How systematically and consistently are changes being implemented? Which tools are being used to promote the digital yuan in bilateral and multilateral formats? To answer these and other research questions, the article analyzes the most important policy document on the digital yuan — the White Paper ‘Progress of Research & Development of E-CNY in China’, and identifies the main directions for the development of the digital yuan in accordance with this document. In addition, references to the use of the digital yuan in the scientific literature and media were studied and summarized. The relevance of this article is due to the fact that in the context of growing sanctions pressure, the failure of Western-centric payment systems in terms of maintaining the normal functioning of global trade, the study of the use of digital currencies of central banks in foreign trade transactions in general, and the digital yuan — as the most advanced central bank digital currency — in particular, is extremely in demand.

The Japanese economy entered the third decade of the 21st century with low and unstable growth rates, some vestiges of catch-up development, the legacy of the “lost” decade of the 1990s in the form of huge accumulated public debt, and demographic problems. From the position of the second largest economy in the world, which it occupied in the 1990s, it dropped to 3rd place (GDP at the current exchange rate) and to 4th place in PPP. The country’s share in world GDP decreased from 7.6 % to 3.7 % (PPP) between 1990 and 2023. What is Japan’s real place in the global and Asian economies? Does the country have growth potential in modern conditions? What are the internal quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the Japanese economic model? Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the state and prospects of the Japanese economy according to the parameters “outside” — “inside” — “forward”, which is figuratively reflected in the title of the work as “3D measurement”. The paper analyzes internal and external problems and factors of development of the Japanese economy in the context of global uncertainty, the main trends in the country’s economic development in the 21st century and the directions of modernization of the country’s socio-economic model.

The author considers the specifics of the confrontation between Russia and the United States in Syria against the background of the change of power in Damascus and the Russian armed forces’ special military operation in Ukraine. In the context of Russian military planning, the author points out the peculiarities of Moscow’s maintenance of the military and political balance of power in the Black Sea and Mediterranean theaters of military operations as a single operational area under the jurisdiction of the Southern Military District. The author shows the details of Russia’s geostrategic planning with reliance on military facilities in Tartus and Hmeimim, their place in the defense of Russian territories. The relevance of the study of this issue is due to the fact that Moscow is negotiating to maintain a military presence in Syria after the opposition comes to power, which increases the relevance of understanding the possible format of interaction — both in terms of delivery of humanitarian aid to the country to continue to provide assistance to the Syrian people, and to maintain the ability to conduct operations to deter the US and maintain logistics in the framework of counterterrorism cooperation between Moscow and African countries.

The new book by the well-known Russian Africanist R.N. Ismagilova, Ethiopia: History and Modernity, published in 2025, is a collection of articles written over the past two decades. These articles examine both significant historical events and contemporary issues in Ethiopia. Domestic politics, the establishment of a federal system of governance, and complexities in the relationships among the diverse peoples of this multiethnic country are analyzed in close connection with their traditions. In her approach, the author combines the perspectives of a historian, political scientist, and anthropologist. The book will be of interest not only to specialists in African studies but also to anyone interacting and communicating with Africans.

The article reviews the First International Conference on Philippine Studies, held by the Department of Southeast Asian, Korean, and Mongolian Philology of IAAS MSU on October 25-26, 2024. It outlines key topics and presentations related to Philippine history, language, literature, and socio-political development, highlighting the conference’s role in fostering international scholarly collaboration.