Oriental Studies and Foreign Policy: Russian/Soviet ‘Iranology’ and Russo-Iranian relations in late Imperial Russia and the early USSR A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2014 Denis V. Volkov School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Table of Contents List of Contents.....................................................................................................................2 Alphabetical List of Abbreviations and Acronyms...........................................................5 List of Archives used for research (Russia and Georgia).................................................9 Abstract...............................................................................................................................10 Declaration……………………………………………….……………………………….11 Copyright Statement…………………………………………………………………….11 A Note on Transliteration……………………………………………………………….12 Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..13 About the Author………………………………………………………………………14 Introduction........................................................................................................................15 Research context and rationale...................................................................................15 Statement of method...................................................................................................20 Chapter One Theoretical framework: Foucauldian notions and their applicability to the Russian Case………………..……………………………… 26 Introduction………………………..…………….……….………………..………26 Foucauldian concepts and Russia........................................................................26 Imperial Russia...........................................................................................................29 Soviet Russia...............................................................................................................31 The Foucauldian power/knowledge............................................................................33 Organisational arrangement of science and scholarly knowledge in late Imperial Russia................................................................................................36 Organisational arrangement of science and scholarly knowledge in early Soviet Russia........................................................40 The Foucauldian épistème………………………………………………….……...45 Epistème in Russia.....................................................................................................46 The Foucauldian discourse.........................................................................................47 Discourse in Imperial Russia......................................................................................50 Discourse in Soviet Russia.........................................................................................52 The Foucauldian Intellectual......................................................................................55 The Intellectual and Resistance in Imperial Russia...................................................58 The Intellectual and Resistance in Soviet Russia.................................................60 Conclusion..................................................................................................................61 2 Chapter Two Organisational set-up of late Imperial Russian Oriental studies...........................63 Introduction................................................................................................................63 Political context of the Russian-Persian relationship at the turn of the century............................................................................................64 Russian Oriental studies academic scholarship in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century...............................................73 Russian military Oriental studies before 1917...........................................................84 Russian diplomatic service and Oriental studies before 1917..................................93 Missionary activities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.................97 Conclusion................................................................................................................100 Chapter Three Organisational set-up of early Soviet Oriental studies (1917-1941)....................106 Introduction...............................................................................................................106 Political context of Russian-Persian relationships in 1917-1921.............................107 Soviet military Oriental studies, 1917-1921............................................................112 Soviet diplomatic service and Oriental studies, 1917-1921....................................116 Soviet Oriental studies scholarship set-up in 1917-1921...............................119 Political context of the Russian-Iranian relationships in 1921-1941………………122 Soviet diplomatic and military Oriental studies, 1921-1941……………………..126 The organisational set-up of academic Oriental studies, 1921-1941…………132 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………139 Chapter Four Between Cultures and States: Russian Orientologists and Russia’s Eastern policy..141 Introduction...............................................................................................................141 “Civilian” academic scholars..................................................................................142 Officers-vostochniki.................................................................................................155 Diplomats-vostochniki..............................................................................................167 Conclusion................................................................................................................172 Chapter Five The Birth and Death of Red Orientalism (1917-1941)………………………….........174 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...........174 Academic Iranology: New vs. Old……………………………………………….178 Red Orientalism: NKID as a mill of scholarly knowledge.....................................187 3 Discontinuities and the inception of institutional practices....................................191 ‘A nation does not make mistakes, does she?’.......................................................198 Conclusion................................................................................................................200 General Conclusion........................................................................................202 Appendix One...................................................................................................................209 Bibliography.....................................................................................................................223 Published primary sources........................................................................................223 Secondary sources.....................................................................................................227 Word count: 79,981. 4 Alphabetical List of Abbreviations and Acronyms AVPRF (Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii) – The Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation; ARAN (Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk) – The Archive of Russia’s Academy of Sciences; AV (Arkhiv Vostokovedov) – The Archive of Orientologists (St.Petersburg); AVPRI (Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii) – The Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire; Cheka (Chrezvychainaia Kommissiia po Bor’be s Kontrrevoliutsiei i Sabotazhem) – The Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage; DST (La Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire) – The French Counterespionage Service; FSB (Federal’naia Sluzhba Bezopasnosti) – The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation; GARF (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii) – The State Archive of the Russian Federation; GNCM – The Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts; GPU (Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie) – The State Political Directorate; GRU (Glavnoe Razvedovatel’noe Upravlenie) – The Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Army; 5 GULAG (Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravitel’no-Trudovykh Lagerei) – The Chief-Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps and Labour Settlements of the OGPU/NKVD; INO OGPU (Inostrannyi Otdel Gosudarstvennogo Politicheskogo Upravleniia) – The Foreign Department of the United State Political Directorate; IRGO (Imperatorskoe Russkoe Geograficheskoe Obshestvo) – The Imperial Russian Geographical Society; IVRAN (Institut Vostokovedeniia Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk) – The Institute of Oriental Studies of Russia’s Academy of Sciences; KGB (Kommitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) – The State Security Commitee; KUTV (Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashikhsia Vostoka) – The Communist University of the Toilers of the Orient; MID (Ministerstvo Inostrannykh Del) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs; MIV (Moskovskii Institut Vostokovedeniia) – The Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies; Narkomnats (Narodnyi Kommissariat Natsional’nostei) – The People’s Commissatiat of Nationalities; Narkomvneshtorg (Narodnyi Kommissariat Vneshei Torgovli) – The People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade; Narkomvoendel (Narodnyi Commissariat Voennykh Del) – The People’s Commissariat of Military Affairs; 6 NEP (Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika) – The New Economic Policy; NKID (Narodnyi Kommissariat Inostrannykh Del) – The People’s Commissariat