The humanities in general and Oriental studies in particular are experiencing a crisis today. The statement of this crisis has already become a hackneyed truth. It is systematic and comprehensive. Its origins lie both in the fundamental changes in the modern world-system, starting with the commercialization of knowledge and science, the internetization of the intellectual space and the dehumanization of public relations, and in the peculiarities of the development of domestic science in the last decade. Already ten years ago, it was possible to state a "growing shortage of specialists" [Naumkin, 2005, p. 6]. Today, the problem of personnel is much more acute: many leading Orientalists have passed away, and attracting young people is extremely difficult because of the second global problem of the humanities - the problem of funding. Funding for the humanities is declining both in Russia and in other countries of the world. Oriental studies, which is based on history and philology, experiences in addition to the inconvenience of historical truth for the authorities and the difficulties of practical application of the conclusions of philology - difficulties in justifying its existence. The complex nature of Oriental studies makes it difficult to assign it to any particular humanitarian science. The breadth of an interdisciplinary approach-an integral attribute of Oriental studies-becomes an obstacle to its nomenclatural "registration". The combination of history, philology, cultural studies, economics, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, political science, ethnology, and anthropology in Oriental studies leads to the loss of Oriental studies ' own specificity in the eyes of not only individual thinkers, but also, more importantly, decision-making officials. A certain confirmation of such doubts is the negative attitude to the term "Oriental studies" (Orientalism) in the foreign English-language intellectual tradition, where it is considered a legacy of the colonia ... Read more