2026.1

A new interpretation is proposed for a passage from the Mushi (The Oath on the Field of Mu) chapter of the Zhou Shu (Zhou Scriptures) section of the ancient Chinese Shangshu (Esteemed Book), or Shujing (Canon of Scriptures). The passage contains a speech by the Zhou king Wu-wang before the decisive battle with the Shang army, calling on the Zhou army to advance a few steps and then halt, to strike several times and then halt. In its literal form, this passage seems logically inconsistent. Liu Qiyu has provided criticism of the traditional interpretations of the passage and proposed to read this passage as a description of a war dance, performed immediately before the battle. The author, drawing on Zhouli (The Rites of Zhou) and other sources, corroborates the traditional explanation as a description of the rhythmic movement of troops, suggests the figurative nature of the passage, attributing this to the stylistic features of the text and proposing an analogy in the description of the actions of the Zhou troops with the process of writing the character wu (militantness), consisting of elements zhi (foot, stop) and ge (axe). The number of steps and strikes corresponds to the number of seven strokes in the character wu in its ancient writing in zhuan (seal) script. This proposal is based on the discussion by Zhuang-wang, the ruler of the Chu kingdom, on the composition of the character wu and the concept of militantness, consisting of seven virtues, presented in Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Chronicle (Chunqiu Zuo zhuan). The need to interpret the passage under consideration with the assumption of its euphemistic nature supports the opinion that the text of Mushi was recorded relatively late in the Eastern Zhou period.

The article analyzes Armenian travel notes of the 17th–19th centuries that reflect the routes, travel conditions and trade practices of Armenian merchants and clergy in India. The study is based on three key sources: the trade journal-diary of Hovhannes Ter-Davtyan from New Julfa, The History of Tahmaz Guli by Kuchuk Harutin and the travel notes of the priest Avetik Karbetsi Tsagikyan. For each source, the author has compiled a route map. Ter-Davtyan’s journal presents one of the routes followed by Armenians to India in the 17th century: from Shiraz via Bandar Abbas to Surat, while a later delegation from Echmiadzin, travelling in the first half of the 19th century, went from Shiraz to the port of Bushehr and then to Bombay. Karbetsi describes towns and villages, terrain, climate, dangers of the road and everyday hardships, including shortages of water, poisonous insects and bandits, among them guides who ultimately robbed the travellers. Kuchuk Harutin’s notes reflect the realities of military campaigns: difficult crossings through forests and deserts, and sweltering heat that dried up water within minutes. A separate section examines the postal system of the Armenian trading diaspora. The article documents both maritime and overland routes for the delivery of correspondence between New Julfa, Bengal, Madras, Surat and other trading centers. The study demonstrates the importance of Armenian sources for the history of transregional trade and routes, and highlights the role of Armenian travellers as intermediaries between East and West.

The Korean War was a multifaceted conflict in which the interests of the Korean states became intricately intertwined with those of the era’s major powers — the USSR, the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The involvement of these powers in the war, in various forms, diminished the roles of both the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) during the hostilities and in shaping the post-war armistice regime. From this perspective, the diplomacy and propaganda of the USSR, the PRC and the USA had greater significance for the course of the conflict than those of the DPRK and the ROK. This article analyzes the interrelationship between diplomacy and propaganda during the early months of the Korean War, focusing on the cases of the USSR and the PRC (June–July 1950). It examines the diplomatic measures undertaken by the Soviet Union and China at the war’s outset and the accompanying propaganda campaigns. The diplomatic efforts of the USSR and the PRC were aimed at justifying the DPRK’s military actions as defensive in the context of the war that had erupted on the Korean Peninsula, while officially adhering to a policy of non-interference in internal affairs. Concurrently, the Soviet and Chinese press published articles presenting evidence of the South Korean government’s preparations for aggressive war with US assistance. In both countries, mass campaigns were launched in support of the DPRK, which was portrayed as “resisting American imperialism and the Syngman Rhee clique”.

The article examines the impact of World War II and the first post-war years on the activities of Russian spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Far East, in China, Japan, and Korea. It is shown that by the mid-20th century these missions already had a long history and performed not only religious, but also cultural translation, diplomatic, and communicative functions. In conditions of war, occupation regimes, changes in political authority, and the growing confrontation between the USSR and the United States, issues of support for Russian compatriots, the jurisdictional affiliation of church structures, and the property rights of the missions came to the fore. Based on Chinese material, the article analyzes post-war repatriation, the formation of the East Asian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the conflict over missionary property. The Japanese section considers changes in church administration, the impact of Japanese wartime legislation, and subsequent intervention by the American occupation authorities. The Korean section shows the consequences of the division of the peninsula, the conflict between supporters of different church jurisdictions, and the struggle for mission property. The article concludes that the post-war fate of the missions was determined by a combination of the geopolitical consequences of the war, the anti-religious policy of the Soviet state, local national interests, and the aspirations of Orthodox communities for independence.

The concept of “ki” (気), denoting energy, air, breath, pneuma, spirit and much more, is one of the fundamental and most distinctive categories of Chinese and, more broadly, Far Eastern philosophical thought. In Japan, the adoption of this concept began with the penetration of Chinese religious and philosophical thought. The article analyzes the meanings of the lexeme “ki” / 気 as it appears in Japanese lexical units and idioms. Set expressions are divided into six groups according to the meanings they convey. A large number of idioms are identified that reflect human feelings and emotions, as well as the perception of reality. The article also examines the growing role of the concept of “ki” in military affairs and martial arts. Based on Issai Chozan’s 1729 treatise “Tengu’s Discourses on the Art [of the Sword]”, the study shows that the state and fullness of “ki” directly influence changes occurring not only in the human body but also in the heart, mind and soul, and therefore in the psycho-emotional state. The article concludes that the idea of a primordial energy permeating and shaping the surrounding world is found in different layers of vocabulary. Idioms, as one of the most stable parts of language and culture, clearly demonstrate the preservation of the original meanings of the Chinese concept qi, which was borrowed and adapted by the Japanese tradition. The material for interpreting and representing the concept of “ki” consists primarily of phraseological units, set expressions and individual lexical items that verbalize basic concepts of national tradition and reflect the worldview of Japanese culture.

This article examines the figure of the leak sorcerer in Balinese culture and traces the dynamics of its representation across folklore, traditional literature, cinema and contemporary digital lore. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach that integrates folklore studies, literary criticism and cultural anthropology. The analysis centers on ethnographic data regarding beliefs in leaks, the folk-performative cycle “Calon Arang”, the poem “I Gede Basur”, and the 1981 feature film “Mystics in Bali”. As a figure of folk belief, the leak serves as a personification of hidden threats within the community and a mechanism for explaining misfortune. In literary tradition, by contrast, its image is integrated into Hindu cosmology and systems of sacred knowledge, including literacy and the mastery of mantras. The cinematic interpretation, aimed at a mass audience, intensifies elements of monstrosity and the exoticization of the “Asian monster”, while simultaneously introducing new motifs absent from earlier tradition. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of “reverse involution”, whereby cinematic imagery returns to the oral tradition and begins to be perceived as part of authentic folklore. The resilience of beliefs in leaks is sustained by the image’s capacity to adapt to various medial forms and social contexts. This Balinese case study demonstrates that mass culture not only reflects tradition but also actively participates in its production and reinterpretation.

The article examines the short stories of Xiao Hong (萧红), a Chinese writer little known in Russia but widely known in her homeland. Reviewing publications on Xiao Hong, the authors note that most critical responses focus primarily on the content of her works, while the formal features of Xiao Hong’s prose have received less attention. Turning to the analysis of her stylistic originality, the authors trace the poetic evolution of Xiao Hong’s artistic language and clarify the criteria of periodization: the degree of external conflict, the nature of social problematics, the type of imagery and the way psychological states are conveyed. The early stories of 1933 are considered as socially oriented realist prose with naturalistic detail and heightened expressiveness. The works of the second half of the 1930s are characterized by a weakening of direct accusatory rhetoric, an increasing role of subtext and a more objective psychological manner. In the stories of 1940–1941, impressionistic imagery and lyrical organization of the narrative come to the fore. The authors show that Xiao Hong’s later works, if one may speak of early and late periods in the career of a writer who lived only thirty years, are marked by a more complex artistic structure. Some of Xiao Hong’s short stories have been translated into Russian by the authors of the article for the first time.

The article examines the United Arab Emirates’ role in Iraq’s post-conflict reconstruction in 2018–2024. It analyzes key political, humanitarian and economic aspects of interaction between the two countries, including the development of energy cooperation, infrastructure investment projects and UNESCO-supported reconstruction programs. Particular attention is given to the Development Road Project, a transport and logistics initiative linking Iraq’s southern regions with Turkey’s Mediterranean coast and potentially strengthening the Iraqi economy. The study explores foreign policy differences and points of convergence between the UAE and Iraq, particularly regarding the normalization of relations with Israel and regional security amid the Arab-Israeli conflict. The relevance of the topic stems from the search for effective ways to restore post-conflict states and from the growing role of regional actors in this process. The article analyzes the doctrinal principles of both countries’ foreign policies and introduces Arabic-language sources into Russian scholarly discourse.

The article continues the study of the political biography of Nosaka Sanzo, one of the most prominent leaders of the Japanese Communist Party in the twentieth century. Drawing on documents from Soviet party and foreign-policy archives, materials of the US occupation authorities, CIA reports and publications of the Japanese party press, it examines Nosaka’s return to Japan after the war, his contacts with American and Soviet representatives, his role in shaping the line of “peaceful revolution”, the subsequent subordination of the JCP to Soviet and Chinese directives, and the circumstances of Nosaka’s late party condemnation in 1992. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between Nosaka’s personal political strategy, intra-party conflicts, external influence from Moscow and Beijing, and the logic of the Cold War. The author argues that Nosaka’s figure cannot be reduced either to the image of the “face of the party” or to the later party version of “betrayal”. He appears simultaneously as a communist theorist, a mediator between the JCP and external centers of the communist movement, a cautious politician inclined to compromise, and a participant in a system dependent on foreign support. The case of Nosaka illustrates how party organizations construct and revise their own past, and how the political assessment of the same action may change radically depending on the historical context.