The humanities in general and Oriental studies in particular are experiencing a crisis today. The statement of this crisis has already become a hackneyed truth. It is systematic and comprehensive. Its origins lie both in the fundamental changes in the modern world-system, starting with the commercialization of knowledge and science, the internetization of the intellectual space and the dehumanization of public relations, and in the peculiarities of the development of domestic science in the last decade. Already ten years ago, it was possible to state a "growing shortage of specialists" [Naumkin, 2005, p. 6]. Today, the problem of personnel is much more acute: many leading Orientalists have passed away, and attracting young people is extremely difficult because of the second global problem of the humanities - the problem of funding.

Funding for the humanities is declining both in Russia and in other countries of the world. Oriental studies, which is based on history and philology, experiences in addition to the inconvenience of historical truth for the authorities and the difficulties of practical application of the conclusions of philology - difficulties in justifying its existence. The complex nature of Oriental studies makes it difficult to assign it to any particular humanitarian science. The breadth of an interdisciplinary approach-an integral attribute of Oriental studies-becomes an obstacle to its nomenclatural "registration". The combination of history, philology, cultural studies, economics, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, political science, ethnology, and anthropology in Oriental studies leads to the loss of Oriental studies ' own specificity in the eyes of not only individual thinkers, but also, more importantly, decision-making officials. A certain confirmation of such doubts is the negative attitude to the term "Oriental studies" (Orientalism) in the foreign English-language intellectual tradition, where it is considered a legacy of the colonial era [Said, 2006].

In fact, today Orientalists, like all other humanitarians, face the threat of the disappearance of their discipline. If Oriental studies are no longer funded by the state, Oriental studies will soon disappear.

Until ten years ago, this problem did not exist. Today, it is more relevant than the debate about the Asian mode of production in the early 1960s or the fight against the dogmatism of historical materialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The evidence for the high probability of the disappearance of Oriental studies can be reduced to a few observations. The very reduction in funding for the humanities institutes of the former Russian Academy of Sciences, now subordinate to the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, confirms the willingness of the authorities in power to donate these institutions. The circulation of our magazine has fallen 3 times since 2005 - from 770 to 240 copies. The journal is at the end of the first thousand Russian journals in the Science Index system (accessed: November 8, 2014). Of the thirty materials in each issue, which include at least 12 full - fledged research articles, at best four are cited, and more often two are cited. The last two facts point to the disintegration of ties within the Oriental community. According to the open data of the Russian Science Foundation, not a single application for Oriental studies was funded in the competitions of 2014. Closure of Oriental studies centers, in particular departments of Oriental languages

and libraries of Oriental studies institutes in the West, indicates the possibility of their disappearance in general.

Thus, when our journal reaches the age of 60, it is necessary to resolve the issue of preserving both Oriental studies and its journal. The journal is intended to publish the results of serious studies based on a comprehensive study of various sources, studies of the countries of the East-Asia, Africa and Eastern-Muslim and Buddhist-communities in Russia. These studies can and should bring benefits-not only theoretical benefits, but also practical ones.

The current geopolitical situation, which recreates the Cold War era, forces us to pay special attention to the development of domestic and Russian science. The preservation and development of Oriental studies is necessary in the context of confrontation between Russia and Western countries. The rejection of the concept of "Oriental studies" now looks like another capitulation to the English-speaking world, the cultural stereotypes inherent in English-speaking political culture and humanitarian research.

The East certainly exists. It, like the West, is historically changing, and therefore its essence, content and boundaries are mobile. Using the language of mathematics, we can say that the East is a set of societies that differ from other simultaneous societies in the state structure, economic system, religious, ideological and spiritual concepts, language, culture and way of life. These differences are fundamental and are not limited to the notorious dominance of State ownership of land.

The peculiarities of the East changed in each epoch. During the Greco-Persian wars, the polis system, the Olympian religion, and Ionian natural philosophy were opposed by the politically and culturally diverse Persian Kingdom of the Achaemenids, which was characterized by Mazdeism among the ruling people of the Persians, and various forms of polytheism, or even monotheism (Judaism and Zoroastrianism) among their subjects. At the same time, the Greek cities dependent on the Achaemenids in Western Asia Minor included Miletus, the birthplace of the first Greek natural philosopher Thales. In the same fifth century BC, Etruscan city-states existed on the Apennine Peninsula, whose religion and system of thought were significantly different from the ancient Greek ones. On the territory of China there was a struggle of "fighting kingdoms" (Zhanguo), on Hindustan there were "great kingdoms" (mahajanapadas). In 479 BC, Confucius died. In the VI-IV centuries BC, various Buddhist traditions account for the life of the Buddha.

At the time of the formation of Christianity, the political structure of the Roman Empire (Principate) and the Parthian, then Sasanian kingdom were very close: they were monarchies. In the East, as in the West, there were similar spiritual processes-a painful search for truth and a struggle for the newfound faith in the conditions of growing world trade and imperial-type monarchical power. In the third and fourth centuries AD, both in the East and in the West, the state began to patronize one religion and fight dissent: Sasanian Iran chose Zoroastrianism, the Roman Empire chose Christianity. But Christian communities existed in the East, and Eastern cults penetrated the Roman Empire.

The Middle Ages showed a division along religious lines. But it was far from complete. Only since the eleventh century can the West be identified with the Catholic world - before that it was part of the Christian world. The East encompassed a wide variety of states, civilizations, and cultures: the Islamic Caliphate of the Middle East, the Hindu and Muslim states of Hindustan, the Confucian-Buddhist empires of China, the Buddhist-Shinto monarchy of Japan, and the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

In the sixteenth century, a religious split occurred within the West: Protestantism emerged during the Reformation. Economically, a number of Western European countries have adopted capitalism. From an economic point of view, the societies of the East were located on dokapi-

Many of them, but not all of them, gradually turned into colonies of European countries-Great Britain, France, the German Empire, Belgium, Spain, Portugal - during the XVI-XIX centuries. B. after the capture of the Philippines, the United States became a colonial power. The rapid military-industrial and political development of capitalist states, the triumph of the Enlightenment, liberal and democratic concepts, nationalist self-consciousness, and individualism in their culture led to the attitude described by E. Said to the East as a backward part of humanity that needs a "civilizing mission of the white man".

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lenin called the series of revolutions in Iran, the Ottoman and Qing Empires (in which the monarchy was overthrown and the Republic of China emerged) " the awakening of Asia." O. Spengler stated the loss of the former power of the European states. But the usual perception of the East remained. In addition, during the Cold War, the idea of the confrontation between two systems, two worlds - capitalist and socialist, and the existence of the so-called third world was added. Since many states of the East - Mongolia, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and at some point China and Cambodia - became part of the socialist world and allies of the USSR, and since Russia and its historical form - the Soviet Union - Western European public thought does not refer to Europe, i.e., to the West, the "East" has entered the set and the USSR. All the countries of the East in the XX century (with the possible exception of Singapore) were characterized to one degree or another by a model of catch-up development.

Since the 1970s, Western countries, primarily the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, as well as representatives of the "Swedish model of socialism", have moved to the post-industrial stage of development. At the same time, the PRC, abandoning the Maoist "cultural revolution", began to systematically expand the market economy and deepen the industrial multi-industry economy. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union took advantage of the oil shock of 1973 to start exporting oil, which, combined with many other factors of a political, economic, social, national, and spiritual nature, led to the transformation of the economy of its successor, the Russian Federation, into a predominantly commodity - based economy.

Today, the East unites both technologically advanced states (Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore) and lagging countries. Religious systems, once a hallmark of Eastern states, now flourish in Western countries (Buddhism and Islam in the United States). What distinguishes the countries of the East today is the rejection of interference by the United States and European countries in their internal life. In 2014, a significant event took place - the PRC became the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. Eastern states are trying to reconsider the traditional balance of power in the world, which has developed during the period of absolute predominance of Western countries.

Today, the West itself is far from homogeneous. Modernity is a time of heterogeneity. The East, regardless of the apparently scholastic question of whether to include Russia, is inherently heterogeneous. That is why modernity is the epoch of the world-historical triumph of the East. And I would like to believe, remembering the traditional multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-confessional history of Russia-the rebirth and triumph of Russia.

The editorial Board of the journal considers it its duty to develop Russian science, Russian culture, and the Russian scientific language. At the same time, the editorial board welcomes the integration of Russian scientific organizations, researchers and journals into the world scientific community and considers it desirable to attract foreign and foreign researchers.

Russian authors for publishing articles and reviews of books on Oriental studies in English and other Western European languages.

The journal aims to preserve the high potential of Russian Oriental studies in the current difficult conditions. In the next ten years, the editorial board plans to organize thematic issues and discussions on key issues of Oriental studies. We hope to expand the review of scientific monographs and revive the importance of the review as an independent type of scientific work that continues the research of a scientific problem, and not only presents the results obtained by other researchers.

list of literature

Naumkin V. V. On the 50th anniversary of the journal: continuity and renewal. 2005. N 1.

Said E. V. Orientalizm: Zapadnye kontseptsii Vostoka [Orientalism: Western Concepts of the East]. Translated from English by A. V. Govorunova, St. Petersburg: Russian World, 2006.

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