‘South Asia’: Construction and Deconstruction of Spaces and Institutions. Part I

 
PIIS086919080024447-8-1
DOI10.31857/S086919080024447-8
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Occupation: Principal Researcher, Department of the History of East
Affiliation: Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Moscow, Russian Federation
Journal nameVostok. Afro-Aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost
EditionIssue 2
Pages223-235
Abstract

‘South Asia’ in its present meaning was coined in the late 1940s following a reinterpretation of previous approaches to the study of the (ancient) Orient, which proved to be ill-suited under the conditions of the Second World War. The author of the concept was the American Indologist W. Norman Brown (1892–1975) who thus designated almost the entire territory of British India and founded the Department of South Asia Regional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. This innovation led to the institutionalization of the modern socio-political disciplines essential for the familiarization with the area of the languages studied. Later this model spread to the educational institutions of the New World and reached the Old one. In the mid-1970s, the Chair of  History of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Ceylon of the Institute of Countries of Asia and Africa of Moscow State University was renamed the Chair of History of South Asia, and 40 years later several units under the heading of ‘South Asia’ sprang up in several Russian academia. Part I sheds light on Brown’s activities in the US Office of Strategic Services and his contacts with the Institute of Pacific Relations, as well as the US reaction to the launch of the first Soviet satellite, the passage of the US National Defense Education Act, and the ‘cold war’ contest between the US and the USSR in the field of training specialists to be engaged as an instrument of influence on the post-colonial world structure within the South Asian countries.

Keywords‘South Asia’, W. Norman Brown, Office of Strategic Services, Institute of Pacific Relations, Sputnik-1, National Defense Education Act, the 25th International Congress of Orientalists, Military Institute of Foreign Languages of the Red Army
Received18.02.2023
Publication date26.04.2023
Number of characters31593
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1 Историография оперирует множеством «Азий» и «Востоков». Реляционный «Дальний Восток» насчитывает самую длительную историю, постепенно все больше удаляясь от «Ближнего» и приобретая разные смыслы. «Средний Восток» до начала XX в. был неизвестен, но зато имеет сразу двух авторов – британского военного публициста Томаса Эдварда Гордона (1900) и американского контр-адмирала Альфреда Т. Мэхена (1902), вероятно, не знавших об изобретениях друг друга [Белокреницкий, 2021]. Биографии «Юго-Восточной Азии» около 200 лет, если вести отсчет от труда американского пастора Говарда Малкома «Путешествие по Юго-Восточной Азии: с охватом Индостана, Малайи, Сиама и Китая…» [Malcolm, 1839]. Титул указывает, что «Индостан», хотя речь идет только о береговой линии современной Восточной Индии, также был включен в Юго-Восток.
2 Словосочетание «Южная Азия» моложе вышеназванных маркеров. В виде Southern Asia оно впервые прозвучало в конце 1920-х гг. в травелоге англичанина Горация Блекли «Путешествие в Южную Азию: Индо-Китай, Малайя, Суматра и Цейлон. 1925–1926» [Bleackley, 1928], как будто увидевшего те же земли, что и Малком, но в другом географическом измерении. За исключением Цейлона, куда Блекли заглянул под конец, его рассказ также посвящен Юго-Восточной Азии.
3

У. НОРМАН БРАУН, ПЕНСИЛЬВАНСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ И УПРАВЛЕНИЕ СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКИХ СЛУЖБ

4 Как намерение и идея «Южная Азия» сформировалась на пересечении классической индологии и стратегического запроса Второй мировой войны. Вплоть до начала XX в. американский ориентализм означал не что иное, как индологию в ее первозданном виде, т. е. был нацелен на извлечение смыслов из текстового наследия и создание собственного, американского, образа древней Индии. Браун, однако, в отличие от традиционных индологов, владел живыми языками – диалектами хинди из Харды и Джабалпура, тогда небольших городов Центральных провинций, где жил в детстве с родителями-миссионерами.
5 Знаток, наряду с санскритом, пали и пракритов, греческого и арабского, автор многочисленных работ по ведийской, буддийской, джайнской и брахманистской мифологиям, индийским миниатюрам и фольклору, заведующий кафедрой санскрита, впоследствии ориентальных исследований, в Пенсильванском университете, президент Американского ориентального общества (1941–1942) и пр., к началу войны Браун был узнаваем за пределами академических кругов в немалой степени благодаря очеркам об Индии, увиденной его собственными глазами, в влиятельной газете Baltimore Sun. Этот фактор и наличие у Брауна опыта шифровальщика со времен Первой мировой войны стали причиной его приглашения в 1941 г. на пост руководителя Индийской секции в Отдел Британской империи Исследовательско-аналитического департамента Управления стратегических служб (Office of Strategic Services, OSS),1 предшественника ЦРУ США. Уильям Д. Донован, глава Управления, как раз делал ставку на привыкшую к мозговой работе университетскую элиту. Скупые подтверждения успешных достижений Брауна обнаруживаются в публикациях, посвященных деятельности Управления: «19 декабря 1941 г., вскоре после нападения на Пёрл-Харбор Донован обратился к Рузвельту по колониальным аспектам войны в Бирме. Его отчет в значительной части базировался на интервью с бирманским лидером У Со, добытым В. Норманом Брауном и Коньерсом Ридом, сотрудниками Отдела Британской империи...» [Aldrich 2000, p. 200]. 1. Концепция организации, прежде всего Исследовательского-аналитического департамента, после войны так была охарактеризована Донованом: «Мы не полагались на “соблазнительную блондинку” или “фальшивые усы”. Большая часть добытых нами данных была результатом [пролитого] старомодного интеллектуального пота» (цит. по [Katz 2002, p. 43]).

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