Criticism and bibliography. Reviews Vassilkov, M. Yu. Sorokina, St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 2003, 496 p. (in Russian) (Social history of the national science of the East) The dictionary is essentially a dispassionate genre. However, the reviewed dictionary can not leave anyone indifferent: it causes pain for those who died without guilt, for distorted lives, robbed Oriental studies; anger against the totalitarian system that senselessly shredded the fate and psyche of people, against those who were at the head of the state machine, and those who helpfully helped them, against autogenocide (the term of the authors of the book). "Not only individuals have died out, but entire generations of Orientalists have died out," Academician V. M. Alekseev wrote bitterly to his friend, Academician I. Y. Krachkovsky, in September 1942 (St. Petersburg FAR AN, f. 820, op. 3, d. 62, l. 109). 750 biographies, 750 victims of terror. Even if the arrest was short-lived, the trace of it remained for life. Of those 750, approximately two-thirds were shot or died in custody. Among them are such great talents as N. A. Nevsky, E. D. Polivanov, Yu. K. Shchutsky, N. P. Erekhovich and others. The names mentioned in the book appeal to our conscience, to our sense of duty to the dead, to our science. The compilers of the dictionary Ya. V. Vasilkov (St. Petersburg) and M. Y. Sorokina (Moscow) honorably fulfilled this duty of memory. But they also set themselves more distant, socially significant goals: "to the extent possible, to help overcome the oppressive and embarrassing legacy of the past decades and contribute to an adequate reconstruction of the past of Russian science... It is possible to help historians explain the future of the unprecedented catastrophe that befell Russia in the XX century" (p. 5). Two scientists performed a real feat that lasted for many years of painstaking work in archives and libraries (domestic and foreign), collecting oral information and verifyi ... Читать далее