“...Scientific institutions are now resuming their relations with the institutions of other countries”. Documents of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries about the book exchange in the 1940s of Soviet Egyptologists with their Egyptian colleagues

Abstract

On the basis of the archival materials from the Foundation of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, the author considers the process of the book exchange in 1944–1946 between Soviet Orientalists and their Egyptian colleagues. That exchange played an important part in the Soviet-Egyptian relations, the genesis of which was interrupted with the beginning of the “Cold War”. The book transaction was carried out largely due to the activities of the Soviet Egyptologist, TASS correspondent M.A. Korostovtsev, who was sent to Egypt at the very beginning of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the USSR and Egypt. The documents of the above Foundation cover the contacts between the Orientalists within the framework of the major institutions: the French Institute of Oriental Archeology in Cairo and the Permanent Archaeological Mission of France in Lebanon, on the one hand, and the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, on the other. As part of the shipment, the Soviet side sent the works on Iranian studies by V.V. Bartold, Arabic studies by I.Yu. Krachkovsky, the textbooks on the History of the Ancient East by B.A. Turaev and V.V. Struve, the works of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the copies of the Journal of Ancient History for 1937–1941, as well as the five-volume edition of works by N.Ya. Marr. The article is based on the archival documents that are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time