H-AFRICA Africa Forum

The history of African Studies in Russia goes back to the 19th century. Traditionally two fields were most developed - Egyptology and Ethiopian Studies. Several Russian explorers travelled to East Africa and the Horn of Africa at the end of that century. After the 1917 revolution, more attention was paid to the anticolonial struggle of the African peoples and the workers' movement.

The first centres of African Studies were created in the early 1930s in Moscow as an African cabinet in the short-lived Scientific Research Association of Study of National and Colonial Problems and the African Section of the so called Communist University of the Toiling Peoples of the East. In 1945 the Department of African Languages was founded at the Leningrad (St Petersburg) State University, followed by the African Section in the Institute of Ethnography and the African Department in the Institute for Oriental Studies.

The process of rapid development of African Studies in the then USSR in the 1950s when the African continent was coming to the forefront of international politics culminated in the creation of the Institute for African Studies (a more exact translation of its name from Russian would be the Africa Institute) in 1959 within the system of the USSR/Russian Academy of Sciences. It was prompted by the meeting between William Du Bois and Nikita Khrushchev.

In spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the hard times that followed it, the IAS, headed from 1992 by Prof. Alexei Vassiliev remains apparently the biggest centre of African Studies in the world with the staff of 160 including about 120 researchers, most of whom have Ph D degrees. The IAS's academic structure consists of the following centres:

• Centre for Transition Economic Studies, headed by Dr Valery Morozov.
• Centre for Russian-African Relations, headed by Dr Tatiana Deich.
• Centre for Strategic and Global Studies, headed by Prof. Leonid Fituni.
• Centre for Political and Sociological Studies, headed by Dr Yuri Potyomkin.
• Centre for History, Ethnic and Cultural Studies, headed by Dr Artem Letnev.
• Centre for North African and African Horn Studies, headed by Dr Alexander Tkachenko.
• Centre for Sub-Sahara African Studies, headed by Dr Yuri Vinokurov.
• Centre for Southern African Studies, headed by Dr Andrei Pritvorov.
• Centre Encyclopedia Africana, headed by Prof Roza Ismagilova Information unit.
• Laboratory of Geoeconomic Analysis and Social Development Problems, headed by Alexander Neklessa
• Department of Doctoral Studies, headed by Tamara Bulatova

The IAS houses also the Centre for Civilisation and Regional Studies headed by Prof. Igor Sledzevski, which is attached to the International Relations Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This Centre works both on African problems and problems of Central Asia and Caucasus, as well as regions of the Russian Federation.

Apart from the IAS, African research is conducted at the African Studies Centre of the Institute of Universal History, Institute for Oriental Studies (mostly on Northern Africa), Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Institute of World Literature, Institute of Linguistics, Institute of State and Law (all in Moscow) as well as the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (in St. Petersburg). The peculiarity of the Soviet/Russian system is that all these institutions and most others are attached to the Academy of Sciences and training of Africanists there is limited to Doctoral studies.

As to the training at the graduate level, it is conducted at several universities, such as the Institute of Asian and African Countries of the Moscow State University; Peoples Friendship University of Russia, Moscow State Institute of International Relations; and St. Petersburg State University. Course in African and Asian History are taught in all other Russian Universities and Pedagogical Institutes. Naturally, the staffs of the aforementioned training establishments are also involved in Research; thus, there is a Centre for African History in the Institute of Asian and African Countries.

Although a concentration of African Studies in the capital is another distinct feature, there are African scholars in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Kazan, Kirov and several other Russian cities.

African Studies in post-Soviet Russia are conducted under rather difficult conditions. As other fields of humanities and sciences, they suffered from several budget cuts during nine years of the IMF-inspired 'reforms'. The funding from the state budget to the Academy institutes is a meagre 15% of the 1990 allocation. If in general the standard of life in Russia dropped by 50%, it dropped three or four times for academics. The allocations for international travel and field studies are extremely limited. Nevertheless, Russian Africanists continue their activities and even expand in some fields.

In 40 years of its existence, the IAS has published over 800 books and brochures. The scope of African Studies in Russia can be illustrated by some titles of 42 books and brochures published by the IAS scholars in 2000:

• Global Community. New System of Coordinates
• Russia and Africa: Looking into the Future
• AIDS in Africa: Russia's Future?
• Africa: New Tendencies in Economic Policy
• Islamic Banks in the Contemporary World
• Africa: Reforms and Development
• Leaders of Modern Africa: Political Portraits
• Countries of the Arab East: Islam and Reforms
• Africa: Ecological Crisis and Problems of Survival
• Builders of Empires. Portraits of Colonial Figures
• Civilisational Models of Politogenesis
• Alternative Ways to Civilisation