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Summary
Our traditional «Impressions» section features «The Khajuraho», a photo essay by Svetlana Ryzhakova.
JAPANESE NOTEBOOK
This collections includes four articles, which present the phenomena of modern and traditional Japanese culture.
- Darya Makhnyova. «Mobile Novel» for «Thumb Generation». The development of information technologies in Japan gave birth to a new phenomenon, which was called «mobile novel». These are simple melodramatic writings by young people, which are distributed by downloading the texts from special Web-sites to your mobile phone.
- Yelena Katasonova. J-pop, J-rock, etc. The article discusses modern Japanese music, which undergoes powerful influence of popular American and European movements, but which at the same time is an individual trend in the global rock and pop culture.
- Yelizaveta Malinina. Following the Call of Stone... Exposing the specific features of various «dry» rock gardens, which are situated on the premises of monasteries and temples, the author concludes, «Japanese garden adds a new dimension to our perception of stone, using it as the original language, which can be used for making a person embrace the essential problems of being».
- Vasiliy Molodyakov, Vladimir Rosov. The Singer of the Himalayas and the Soul of Japanese People. The authors cite new data that give convincing evidence of the fact that the art of Japanese masters had influenced the contents and style of the works by the outstanding Russian painter Nicholas Roerich. It is of interest that, after a brief visit to Japan in 1934, the artist had created two paintings depicting Fujiyama.
WRITINGS
- Gennadiy Goryachkin. From the Land of Pyramids to the Land of the Rising Sun. The author presents the notes by Muhammed Ali, Egyptian Prince who, in 1909, had travelled to Japan through Russia. His book, A Travel to Japan, published in Cairo, is full of vivid impressions of the travel along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
THE LAND OF ORIENT
- Ol’ga Al Kattan. Sweet Bitterness of Berber Tea. «The country without borders, without beginning and without ending, absolutely various, irrational, chaotic, aggressive and pushy, frightening, and enchanting», such is the author’s impression of Morocco, which is presented in her itinerary.
- Mark Goloviznin. Siberian Barocco with Buddhist Tint. The walls of many Russian Orthodox churches in Eastern Siberia are covered with exotic ornament, which is alien to the traditional Christian symbols. This is undoubtedly an influence of Buddhist architecture.
- Eleonora L’vova. Fatima alias Wu Di. The nine-million Hui people, which have been living in Southern China for centuries, practice Islam. The author acquaints us with their lifestyle, traditions and history of these people, tells about her meetings in the Yunnan Province.
- Mikhail Vol’pe. Stone Town, a Slave Market. The island of Zanzibar, which is now a part of Tanzania, for many centuries had been ruled by the dynasty of Arab Sultans, and used to be a centre of slave trade. One of the bright pages of its history is related to the activities of David Livingstone, the famous British traveller.
- Sergey Komissarov, Natal’ya Polos’mak. Black Mountains Lost in Sand. The article by archaeologists from Novosibirsk tells about the excavations of the ancient kingdom, which is located of the territory of modern Xinjian-Uighur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. The findings testify to the fact that trade and cultural contacts between East and West had been beneficial for ancient civilizations.
- Lyudmila Kireyeva. Falling Water and Pines on Mountain Slopes. According to the author of this article, Chong Song
(1676-1759), a Korean painter, is especially interesting for being the first one to realise the space of national landscape. This is the first publication of eight landscapes by Chong Song from the eightfold screen, which is kept in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Saint Petersburg.
- Ol’ga Zavyalova. A Unique Project. The author presents a six-volume publication on the spiritual culture of China, which had been prepared by Russian Sinologists, and the Oriental Literature Publishers in Moscow.
- Russian Word in the Malay World. An interview with Viktor Pogadaev, a specialist in Oriental studies, the author of Indonesian-Russian dictionary, and translator of the anthology of Russian literature into Malaysian.
- Our «Orientnet» section features the review of web-resources on the Bedouin people.
You can find the summaries of the previous issues online, by visiting our section of the Russian State Library web-site.