A significant contribution to the development of Oriental studies was made not only by scientists from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also by orientalists from research centers of the former Soviet republics. One of these centers was the Luhansk Pedagogical Institute (now the Luhansk State Pedagogical University named after V. I. Abramovich). Taras Shevchenko University), opened in 1923.

This is the oldest pedagogical university in Donbass. It was hardly possible to foresee that in time it could become one of the Soviet, and later Ukrainian, centers of Oriental studies. Indeed, we have no information that until the 60s of the last century, any of the teachers of the Faculty of History established in 1934 (from 1951 to 1969 - History and Philology) showed an interest in the East. Among them are authoritative experts on the history and ethnography of Ukraine (N. Y. Mirza-Avakyants, S. G. Hrushevsky, etc.). The exception, perhaps, is the famous archaeologist and local historian, member of the Paris Academy of Sciences S. A. Loktyushev. On certain issues, he inevitably turned to materials about nomads and continuity in the process of settling the Donetsk steppes, as he studied the monuments of this region.

In the early 1960s, there was a need for specialists in world (universal) history. At that time, the leading teachers of this discipline were A. N. Milanich, V. G. Pichugin, G. S. Soroka, and others. They gave lectures on the history of the peoples of Asia and Africa, on the history of Europe and America, and prepared methodological materials. Major changes began to occur in the mid-1960s.

As a teacher of the history of the Ancient World and the history of the Middle Ages, V. M. Beilis began his activity at the Institute. He was a graduate of Kiev University, chosen by competition in 1964. In 1940-1941 and 1947-1950, he studied Arabic under the guidance of Professor T. G. Kezma, an Arabist, whose activities have recently been reflected in scientific literature and periodicals.

In 1950-1964 V. M. Beilis worked at a secondary school in Chernobyl. Later, he became known as a major orientalist and Arabist, a researcher of Arabic sources on the history of the peoples of the USSR. He was constantly supported in his work by the outstanding Ukrainian scientist A. P. Kovalevsky.

Scientific activity of the Head of the Department of World History, V. V.M. Baylis (1978-1989), who worked at the university for 36 years until the last days of his life, undoubtedly deserves a special study. Here we can only point out that in 1970 he published the Arabic text of the "Collection of Stories, Letters and Poems of Masoud ibn Namdar" with a detailed introduction and indexes (based on a unique manuscript stored in the National Library of Paris). Later, he prepared a commentary and translation of complex works of this author, written in exquisite rhymed prose, with a full study of them as a literary monument and historical source. On the basis of this work, he defended in 1975 his doctoral dissertation "The works of Masoud ibn Namdar as a source for the history of Arran and Shirvan in the early XII century and a monument of medieval Arabic literature". The topic of the dissertation is extremely relevant, because, as is known, medieval Arran and Shirvan are parts of present-day Karabakh. The work is gaining special scientific value right now, when there is a sharp controversy between Armenian and Azerbaijani scientists on the issue of "historical rights" to Nagorno-Karabakh. Simultaneously VM Baylis has published a series of articles and re --

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There are several censuses related to the study of Arabic sources on the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in the IX-XII centuries, as well as a number of articles in Soviet encyclopedic publications. He also served as editor of Arabic translations and commentaries.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, V. M. Beilis prepared a Russian translation of the final work of the Arabic encyclopedist X. V. Al-Masudi "The Book of Warning and Viewing" with a volume of 25 printed sheets of Arabic text, as well as a commentary to this work. Further preparation of the work for publication in connection with the translator's state of health was continued by Moscow Arabists at the Center "Eastern Europe in the Ancient and Medieval World" of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In addition, V. M. Beilis published three articles devoted to the news of Al-Idrisi (XII century) about South-Eastern Europe, the Black Sea ports and the connections between them, as well as a series of articles about the works of Arab poets of the XI-XII centuries. as a historical source and other materials.

On the initiative of M. M. Slonimsky, who headed the department in 1976-1977, a postgraduate school was established. The first post - graduate students (V. G. Kryukov and S. A. Markaryan) were supervised by V. M. Beylis. V. G. Kryukov studied the Arabic language and began to study the information of Arab geographers of the late IX-first half of the X century about the countries and peoples of Western, Central and South-Eastern Europe. This work is a continuation of the research of V. V. Barthold and I. Y. Krachkovsky on the journey along the Volga River by the outstanding Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan. On this topic, he prepared research articles, made presentations at all-Union conferences. In 1986 V. G. Kryukov defended his PhD thesis at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies. Over time, he, together with V. M. Beilis, began preparing the publication "Arab Sources on the history of Kievan Rus in the IX-XII centuries", which is still being developed. These materials allow us to highlight the state of the Turkic-Slavic cultural and civilizational ties in this period.

S. A. Markaryan is a part-time postgraduate student who has studied Farsi and prepared a study on the problems of Seljuk Iran. He successfully defended his PhD thesis. In 1991, he published the monograph "Seljuks in Iran of the XI century", which filled a certain gap in Iranian studies; he made scientific reports in Russia and Sweden. S. A. Markaryan's interest in the problems of Western-Eastern relations in the early Middle Ages was also reflected in the report "The campaigns of the Varangian Vikings to the Caucasus during the 40s of the XI century in search of the "Great Silk Road"", which he delivered in 1997 at the 35th Congress of Asian and North African Studies in Budapest.

The research topic of senior lecturer of the department Z. A. Saidov is "Arabic biographical dictionaries as a source on the history of Islam". This is a huge collection of materials, published only partially. The search for Z. A. Saidov was aimed at identifying detailed biographies, short essays, obituaries, and detailed research of materials about clerics (alims) and educated people (adibs) who came from Southern and Eastern Transcaucasia (Arran, Shirvan, and Dagestan). Thus, he not only continues his work on Arabic sources related to the history of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was started by V. M. Beilis, but also enriches science with fruitful research on the culture and history of Dagestan.

In the 1970s, the staff of the Department of World History and the Academic Council of the Institute came to the conclusion that it was necessary to expand the areas of research conducted at the department.

In 1976, a graduate of Odessa University, Candidate of Historical Sciences I. M. Shklyazh, one of the few specialists in the modern history of South Africa, began his research at the Department of World History. He continued his earlier work on the study of rare sources stored in the Vorontsov Foundation, memoir literature, and materials of the English press concerning the history of South Africa in the XIX century. In the 1980s, he published two monographs, which were biographical essays on public figures who opposed racism in South Africa (Thomas Pringle-the South African Democrat, Moscow, 1985; Johannes van der Kemp: At the Origins of the Struggle against Racism in South Africa, Moscow, 1991), and about two dozen articles on this topic. In 1988, he defended his doctoral dissertation " The emergence of the liberal-democratic opposition in South Africa at the end of the XVIII - first half of the XIX century "in Moscow (scientific consultant-A.M. Khazanov).

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The history of Polish-Turkish relations in the 15th and 16th centuries was studied by V. A. Krot, who worked at the department for many years as an assistant and then as a senior lecturer. She published several articles concerning the Black Sea trade of the Ottoman Empire and Poland.

One of the areas of work of the department is original research at the intersection of the history of Ukraine and the history of Eastern countries. This area is headed by a well-known archaeologist, Associate Professor K. I. Krasilnikov, who specializes in the study of ethnohistorical processes and population migration that took place in the era of early metals and medieval cultures of the steppe region of the Seversky Donets basin. He constantly maintains scientific contacts with Arabists who study the texts of Arabic sources on the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. In particular, K. I. Krasilnikov's research interests include such issues as stone-cutting art of nomadic peoples, the origin, semantics and classification of stone sculptures left by Polovtsians on the territory of Southern Ukraine, including in the Luhansk region.

The source base of his research was the materials collected in the park-museum of ancient Turkic sculptures created by him on the territory of the university and in the University Archaeological Museum, which now has an exposition of more than 3,500 units. In 1999, K. I. Krasilnikov published the monograph "Monuments of stone-cutting art of Luhansk region". If we take into account the work of the Lugansk archaeologist on the study of the history of Prabulgar, which is reflected in his dissertation and more than 40 scientific articles, it becomes clear to what extent these studies are related to the problems of classical Oriental studies. Of particular importance for solving the issues of ethno-cultural and historical relations between Europe and Asia are the results of his archaeological excavations of early Medieval burial grounds, which revealed anthropological and material materials that clarify written evidence of the chronology of the presence of an Asian ethnic group in the steppe south-eastern region of Eastern Europe.

In the 1980s, special attention was paid to the problem of studying the colonial policy of Western countries in the Near and Middle East, in the Mediterranean and Black Sea basin. Over the next 20 years, M. S. Buryan, a graduate of the Institute, currently a Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor, and head of the Department, was associated with this topic.

Scientific relations of the Department with the Department of Complex Problems of International Relations of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (heads-MoscowL. Bondarevsky, later-A.M. Khazanov) allowed us to identify those problems within which it would be possible to introduce new sources into scientific circulation. On the advice of A. M. Khazanov, M. S. Buryan drew attention to the filmcopies of Foreign Office documents made by G. L. Bondarevsky in the National Archives of India back in the 1960s (the total number of microfilms exceeded 70 thousand frames). These valuable materials were stored in the Archive of Foreign Policy of Russia (currently the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire) and were not actually in demand. The study of the rich collection of these official, informational and analytical materials, as well as the study of other archival documents, transcripts, parliamentary debates, and press materials, formed the basis for covering a number of problems of the foreign and colonial policy of Great Britain in the first decades of the XX century. As a result, a series of studies by M. S. Buryan appeared on the colonial policy of Great Britain in Egypt and Sudan, and his PhD thesis "The colonial policy of Great Britain in Egypt in 1918-1924" was defended at the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences."(scientific supervisor-V. M. Beilis; scientific consultant-A.M. Khazanov).

In the mid-1990s, M. S. Buryan, as a doctoral student at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (on - the-job teaching in Lugansk), prepared a monograph "Egypt in the foreign and colonial policy of Great Britain", edited by G. L. Bondarevsky, a scientific adviser to the doctoral student, as well as a number of articles devoted to the problem under study.

A deep source study and historiographical analysis, as well as the use of the funds of five archives, provided the evidence base and reliability of the conclusions of M. S. Buryan's doctoral dissertation " The crisis of British colonial policy in Egypt and Sudan in the first third XX century" (1996). In 1997, he was also awarded the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences by the Higher Attestation Commission of Ukraine.

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Within the framework of the direction chosen in the 1980s in the research work of the department (the study of the colonial policy of European states, mainly in the late XIX-first half V. M. Shelyuto, now an associate professor of the Department of Political Science and Law, prepared and defended his PhD thesis (scientific supervisor-M. S. Buryan). The work is devoted to the colonial policy of Spain in the 30-40s of the XX century. It is based on published documents from Spanish archives, as well as on press materials, memoirs and other sources. V. M. Shelyuto's articles are almost the only publications on this topic in the scientific press of Ukraine.

The research of the staff and postgraduates of the Department of World History of Luhansk Pedagogical University demonstrates the stable scientific interests of the team. Of course, the changes that have taken place in the life of Ukraine since 1991 have contributed to an increased interest in the problems of the present or the relatively recent past. Today, graduate students of the department study the history of international, including regional, conflicts, explore the features of inter-civilizational relations along the West-East line, master new approaches to the study of history. The initiator and head of this scientific direction is M. S. Buryan. Currently, his graduate students have submitted three PhD theses on the policy pursued by Great Britain in the late XIX - first third of the XIX century in relation to the Black Sea Straits, Palestine, as well as the construction of the Suez Canal.

Learning foreign languages is of great importance in the preparation of postgraduate students of the department. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Faculty of History had a dual specialty "History and English", which helped future graduate students and undergraduates in research work already in their student years. Despite the fact that such a specialty no longer exists, the Department of World History continues to train students in foreign languages who are interested in scientific work.

Especially great difficulties existed in the organization of language learning. For many years, the Department's Arabists have been teaching Arabic as an optional or even individual course. Of course, the capabilities of the department (also historical, not linguistic) are limited, but they allow the future researcher to read Arabic texts, laying the foundations for further improvement. That is why the teachers-Arabists V. G. Kryukov and Z. A. Saidov devote a certain amount of time to teaching an introductory course of Arabic for a small group of students.

Led by V. M. Beilis, and later by V. G. Kryukov and M. S. Buryan, the Department of World History of LSPU has maintained and maintains constant relations with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the A. E. Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. V. M. Beilis has been a member of its academic council since its foundation in 1991. He was also a member of the editorial board of the journal "Skhidny Svit" (created at the same time), which still publishes articles by Arabists of the department, supervised the work of PhD student D. Radivilov (now Candidate of Historical Sciences, Secretary of the Academic Council). M. S. Buryan has been a member of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission of Ukraine on Historical sciences for more than four years. In 1999-2001, he worked as a member of the specialized academic councils of the Institute of Journalism of the Kyiv National University. Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Currently, M. S. Buryan is invited to conduct similar work at the Institute of International Relations of Ukraine.

Arabists of the Department actively participate in scientific conferences and symposia at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In particular, in the annual "Barthold Readings" dedicated to the memorial dates of the life of Academician A. E. Krymsky and Honored Scientist of Ukraine A. P. Kovalevsky, in the "Readings in Memory of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. T. Pashuto" - an authoritative annual meeting of specialists in the history and source studies of Eastern Europe.

All these publications and reports, as well as the active work of the department's staff in training orientalists (speaking as opponents, reviewing, consulting work) gave the basis to a well-known American scientist, founder of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Academician E. I. Pritsak, to characterize the activities of Lugansk scientists

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like a real "Bayliss School", named after its founder ¹ . Of course, this assessment is a recognition of many years of research work in a relatively small scientific center.

The study of the problems of the East has recently acquired not only great scientific, but also political and strategic importance. This opens up new prospects for expanding the field of research of Ukrainian Orientalists. With this in mind, the V. M. Beilis Research Center "East-West: Theory and History of Intercivilizational Relations"was established at Luhansk State Pedagogical University in 2001. As Ukraine increasingly expands its economic and political relations with the countries of the Black Sea region and Central Asia, the task of the center is to study mainly the problems of international relations in this region, as well as to identify the historical roots and mechanisms of complex geopolitical processes taking place in the vast expanses of Eurasia.

note

¹ See for more information: East (Oriens). 1991. N 4. P. 130; Skhidny svit. 1993. N 1. P. 7.

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