The article deals with the cycle “Chinese True Story” by I.G. Baranov, which was published in the Harbin journal “Monitor of Asia”. This study continues the series of works by the authors investigating practical Oriental studies in Russian-speaking Harbin in the first half of the twentieth century. The authors address the issue of the reflection of Chinese syncretic beliefs in bijia xiaoshuo – “stories about the extraordinary”. The text of the article provides the most representative examples of Chinese three faiths (Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism), which were an integral part of Chinese folk culture. Today, materials that constitute the heritage of orientalists who lived and worked in the region, which today we call the border or frontier zone, published with forewords and comments by the authors, are an invaluable, unique resource that has no analogues. The results of the work of ethnographers-sinologists, published in Harbin journals, constitute a whole layer of research, little known to modern Russian science, not all of them were analyzed considering the latest data collected in archival collections and combined into a single system of knowledge. For researchers who find themselves surrounded by an ethnocultural reality alien to them, turning to the study of a foreign culture becomes, in fact, an attempt to resolve the conflict between “us” and “them” – and, paradoxically, through the knowledge of “them” it makes it possible to preserve “us”. From this point of view, the oriental studies of the Harbin residents can be considered as a strategy for preserving ethnocultural identity.
Key words: frontier, Harbin, Oriental studies, ethno-culture, ethnography, identity, China, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, religious syncretism
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2023_4_59
About the authors
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Olga E. Tsmykal – Candidate of Philological Sciences, leading researcher of the Laboratory of Frontier Studies, Associate Professor at the Department of Literature and World Artistic Culture; Amur State University; bldg. 7, 21 Ignatievskoe highway, Blagoveshchensk, 675000, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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Yana V. Zinenko – Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, research fellow of the Laboratory of Frontier Studies, Associate Professor at the Department of Literature and World Artistic Culture; Amur State University; bldg. 7, 21 Ignatievskoe highway, Blagoveshchensk, 675000, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |