Issue 1: 10 years since the "Black Tuesday" of September 2001.

Moscow: Grifon Publ., 2011, 560 p.

(East-West)

The first issue of the scientific and literary almanac with this title was published to mark the 190th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 80th anniversary of Academician L. I. Medvedko. The issue was prepared with the participation of 41 authors, including many of the most prominent Russian experts on the problems of the Middle East and Middle East settlement, world economy and politics, Eastern philosophy, as well as writers, writers, and journalists. They prepared 48 articles, essays,memoirs, and interviews for the almanac. Among the works presented are several articles by L. I. Medvedko himself , a Turkologist and Arabist, a general Orientalist, historian and writer, author of many books, translator of prose and poetry of classics of Turkish and Arabic literature.

The almanac consists of three parts: "Word", "Deed", "Meaning".

The first part opens with an essay by the world-famous writer Ch. Aitmatov "Great design and evil intent". It is reproduced in an abridged form from the previously published book by L. I. Medvedko and S. L. Medvedko "The East is near, Jerusalem is holy".

The 11 articles included in this section are mainly devoted to the complex and contradictory relations of our country with various states of the Middle East for more than half a century. Some of them contain unique and previously unpublished data and testimonies not only from eyewitnesses, but also from participants of historical events in the explosive region. Thus, in the article "My Discovery of the East" by L. I. Medvedko, Moscow's military cooperation with Baghdad and Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war is mentioned.

In the article "Culture of Peace"by V. A. Zolotarev, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, against the anti-culture of war", a peculiar result of excursions into the history of the region and relations of our country with its member states is summed up:" It is known that nothing forms public consciousness so much as true knowledge of the past. This is the best way to connect the historical connection of times" (p. 133). This provision fully applies to other articles of the almanac that fully demonstrate the true knowledge of the past, not veiled by ideology, propaganda and conjuncture.

The second part of the almanac includes 22 articles that analyze the underlying causes and origins of global and regional crises affecting the Middle East today. Moreover, the frequency of these crisis waves is not only not slowing down, but, on the contrary, is becoming more frequent and requires more rapid reactions and complex solutions from the ruling elites. Not all of them cope with these tasks, shifting the responsibility for their incompetence and slowness to the broad masses of the people.

This was clearly confirmed by the ongoing events of the "Arab Spring", sometimes called revolutions. Revolutions of various kinds are analyzed in detail in G. I. Mirsky's article "Tornado from the Ocean to the Bay". In particular, he notes: "In Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the skirmishers and vanguards of the revolution were young representatives of the non-entrepreneurial part of the middle class, that is, yesterday's students, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and clerks... They really expressed the sentiments of the advanced, educated part of society, which was sick to death of this apparently outdated, lackluster, frozen in sclerosis regime of lies, corruption, election fraud, arbitrariness and police reprisals" (p.171). In the nature of the revolution, he notes the absence of any definite ideological paradigm and therefore believes that it can be called "trans-ideological and trans-confessional" (p.173).

I would like to add that the modern "Arab Spring" is based, in my opinion, on the demographic factor. The fact is that according to the centuries-old Muslim tradition, parents in their youth should have a large number of children who will provide for them in their old age. If this principle still worked until the middle of the XX century, then in the future its effect weakened. The living conditions of the vast majority of the population are such that out of 6.5 children per mother on average in the region, only one can usually be put "on his feet". The rest form a faceless mass of misfits, lumpens, and beggars. In the event of any crisis situations and social explosions, it is the marginal youth who take to the streets, forming the bulk of the riotous and outraged. Meanwhile, the population of Arab countries combined continues to grow rapidly. If in 2000, according to the UN, it was 276.6 million, then in 2010 - 347.0 million people.

G. I. Mirsky concludes his article with a question-sentence: "And what's next? Scope for a wide variety of versions. Only one thing is clear: the stagnation is over, the Arab world has woken up, has started moving, and what the vector of this movement will be, no one can predict " (p. 174).

A significant part of the second part of the almanac is devoted to the analysis of the interface of various political, economic, and military-strategic forces of the countries of the Greater Middle East and the role of external factors in the progressive movement of the region. One of these forces, which in the past played and sometimes still plays a decisive role in the socio-political development of the countries of the region, is the army.

V. M. Akhmedov's article "The Middle East: the Army and Politics without reference points" notes, in particular, that " two new dangerous trends have emerged in the expanded Middle East. On the one hand, war ceases to be the exclusive prerogative of the national Government and its regular army. On the other hand, the army itself prefers to stay away from such "mutinous wars", without having clear guidelines" (p. 198).

V. M. Akhmedov states: "The leading Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf-Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates-spend on average about 10% of GDP on the purchase of weapons annually, which is about 25 billion US dollars in value terms..." (p. 203).

The general conclusion made by the author of the article is very relevant: "To solve the problem of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in such a difficult military-political situation in the region without taking into account the opinion of the military and relying on the army, the Arab states are unlikely to succeed without serious damage to the strengthening of their national sovereignty and the preservation of territorial integrity" (p.204). This is most clearly demonstrated, for example, by the events currently taking place in Syria.

The theme of the impact of the army on the socio-political development of the countries of the region is also traced in the article by V. V. Evseev "On the duality of the role of the army in the Greater Middle East".

To understand the whole course of events, which are deeply analyzed by the authors of not only the second part, but also the entire almanac, the conclusion made by N. B. Lebedeva in the article "Gulf of Aden: another unidentified war?" is fundamentally important: "The main breeding ground for modern conflicts, which are more inter-civilizational than they are In fact, it seems that we should consider not only the rifts between civilizations as such, but also the ever-growing inequality, the deepening gap between wealth and poverty, the fierce struggle for resources, territories, sales and investment markets, and influence in the world" (p.261).

The third part of the almanac includes 10 articles mainly on the problems of history and philosophy. The authors raise issues related to the historical processes of long-past times, as well as to the modern and contemporary history of the East and Russia.

While the general assessment of the almanac is very high, I note that due to the multi-vector nature and disequilibrium of the works presented in it, some roughness could not help but arise. Individual articles are only indirectly related to the topic of a particular section. There are, however, articles that go beyond the stated scope of the almanac and do not relate either to the hero of the day, or to Oriental studies, or to Russia.

The Almanac was signed for publication on June 28, 2011. This means that global events that occurred before this date could be reflected on its pages. But the section" Nuclear Energy "of I. I. Mazur's article" Global Energy Security "does not mention anything about the disaster at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011 as a result of the strongest earthquake in Japan and the subsequent tsunami. This disaster had grave consequences not only for Japan, but also for many other countries of the world. In Japan, 16 thousand people died due to the virus, more than 3 thousand people went missing, more than 350 thousand people lost their homes. The total damage caused by the disaster is estimated at more than $ 300 billion, and it is estimated that it will take 30 years to restore everything destroyed. After the disaster in Japan, such small countries as Germany and Switzerland decided to abandon the use of their nuclear power plants and build them in the future. Based on this, the optimistic tone of the section on nuclear energy is not always justified.

On page 11, the mentioned events of the "Arab Spring" are incorrectly called the "jasmine revolution". In fact, in Tunisia they were called the "revolution of dignity". The" Jasmine Revolution " (with all the conventionality of the term itself) occurred in Tunisia a quarter of a century earlier, on November 7, 1987, when, referring to article 57 of the Tunisian Constitution, which provides for filling the vacancy of the post of president in the event of the inability of the head of State to perform his duties, Ben Ali, then Prime Minister and Secretary General of the ruling The Socialist Dusturov Party, announced the assumption of the functions of the president.

The almanac's shortcomings include the almost complete absence of articles that thoroughly analyze social factors, which often played a decisive role in the history of the Middle East and in the history of Russia.

N. P. Shmelev's article "Russia in the East-West dichotomy in 50 years", which, in particular, refers to the impact of poverty on the socio-economic development of our country, compensates to a certain extent for this lack in relation to Russia: "...poverty, deliberately imposed for many decades in the country, has always been a problem for the country. It was and remains the main obstacle that does not allow Russia to take a place in the world civilization that corresponds to its scale, culture, natural and human resources " (p. 358).

If we summarize all the topics raised in the almanac, we can say that they reflect the painful and contradictory processes of the progressive movement of human society, despite the objective obstacles in the form of backward productive forces and numerous socio-political forces that do not want to put up with the inevitable changes.

The publication of such a voluminous and multi-faceted almanac, equal in content to a mini-encyclopedia, is an excellent precedent for future authors, compilers and publishers.

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