Lev Reisner: Intellectual Portrait of an Orientalist
Немчинов Виктор МихайловичВосточная аналитика '2018, №1-2, с.107-115
The 200th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Studies in 2018, which also coincides with Lev Reisner’s 90th anniversary, provides a suitable opportunity to look back and re-evaluate the results of scholarly infatuation with the East. Against the broad background of Russian Oriental studies in the second half of the 20th century, the paper reflects upon the catalytic role of individual cases of intellectual integrity in overthrowing the doctrinaire one-sided views of the world related to the theory
of socio-economic formations and traces the roots of independent thought under an authoritarian ideology. One such factor is the strong impact of family tradition which, in the case of the Reisner family, involves at least five generations. This can be called the “lasting in-family dialogue”. Another key factor deals with the affection for the East in general and for India in particular. Furthermore, it discusses the generation of researchers that evolved under the very special hothouse conditions within the Institute of Oriental studies. Provided the researcher has the courage and stamina to follow his or
her own way in Oriental studies, a hermeneutic approach can enable one to go much further in understanding the requisite human variety than colleagues would do in other humanitarian disciplines with “monocular optics”