Oriental Collection № 4/2010
Our traditional 'Impression' section features 'Aleppo', a picture story by Aleksey Polyakov.
Letters
- Yevgeniya Vanina. Scattered Stories by Kalpana Sahni. The author presents the book by Professor Kalpana Sahni from India: Multi-Stories. Cross-cultural encounters (Delhi, 2010). The book consists of a series of miniatures that give a vivid picture of real globalisation, when various cultures interact on equal terms, and such contacts give birth to something unexpected and new. Not only for East and West, but all cardinal directions meet in these ‘multi-stories’.
- Ramil’ Valeyev. Turcologist, Traveler, Educator. The article expounds the academic and social activities of Nikolay Katanov (1862–1922), Professor at Kazan University and one of the outstanding Russian specialists in Oriental studies. Nikolay Katanov’s letters to his colleagues contain a lot of valuable information on ethnography and Turcology, as well as reveal the scholar’s extraordinary personality. This issue presents several letters by Nikolay Katanov under the collective title I Remain Your Admirer.
The Land of Orient
- Yelizaveta Malinina. Creator of Sacred Spaces. The article tells about the creative work of Mirei Shigemori (1917–1975), one of the most renowned people in the world of Japanese art. He opened a new era in the history of dry rock gardens. The author came to such conclusion after the study of numerous works by Shigemori.
- Viktor Pogadaev. A Magician’s Aprentice, or How I Mastered Silat. In Medieval times, the martial art of silat was an integral part of the education of Malay Sultans, military commanders and warriors. Now this is a kind of single combat, a dance, and a way of spiritual strengthening at the same time.
- Svetlana Ryzhakova. Kurukshetra and Surroundings. Kuru field, the place of the main events of the Mahabharata, is indeed the unique locality in Indian sacral geography. Hundreds of temples, sacred ponds, historical realities and legends, monuments and museums attract the people who aspire after purification, transformation and change in their lives.
- Andrey Strelkov. The Way of Buryat Lama to Shambhala. The story of life of Danzan Norboev (1887–1935) and commentary to the Good Way of Shambhala, his devotional treatise.
- Ol’ga Bibikova. Egypt’s Main Street. Is there was no Nile, there would be no Egyptian civilization. This old conclusion of the Egyptologists can be extended: the longest river of Africa is still playing the leading role in the lives of peoples of nine states on this continent.
- Aida Gasymova. Mysticism of Sacrifice. Already in olden times in many places of the world the people practiced visceral divination. Following this tradition, Islamic mysticism was enriched with such technique.
- Toshio Hayashi, Vladimir Kubarev. The Power of Nomads in Eurasian Steppe. For several years the Japanese-Mongolian research expedition carried out excavations of archaeological site near the Ulaan Uushig Mountain in Mongolia. The results enabled the scholars to define more exactly the period of domination of nomads in Eurasian steppe.
- Svetlana Sysoeva. Descendants of the Gods of Heaven and Earth. The inhabitants of the Boti village in Indonesian West Timor lead their own life: they grow cotton, weave clothes, breed cattle, dance, and worship ancient gods and the king.
- Sergey Smorodkin. Life on the Tip of a Pen. The story about Khudaiberdy Annaberdyev, the oldest Turkmen calligrapher, about the rarities that passed through his hands, about the profession that is almost extinct nowadays, and about the great masters, whose fame survived the centuries.
- Yelena Katasonova. Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd. The artist Takashi Murakami gave such unusual name to his corporation, where he gathered thirty young assistants and artists who work in the style of the otaku subculture. Murakami has only one requirement for his assistants: 'They must create strange, unusual, fanciful and passionate works, they must live in the things they do'.
- Nikolay Listopadov. Eternity on the Sand. The article tells about the architectural sites and objects of art in the Indian town of Mahabalipuram.
- Mark Goloviznin. Philosopher Sultans on the Throne of Sokoto. In the northern towns of Nigeria there are no multi-storey office buildings, fashionable hotels and cyclopean temples, like in Abuja, the new Nigerian capital, but there are historical quarters that resemble Medieval settlements. Besides the Governors, there are still Emirs here, and in Sokoto there is the Sultan, who is also the Caliph of all Moslems in the country.
Our traditional 'Orientnet' section is devoted to gypsies in Asia.
Please e-mail your suggestions and comments to the following address: orientnet@rsl.ru.