Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

270 Proceedings of the International Congress on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa.Vol. I. 2020 Tursun I. Sultanov (FAAS, SPbU, St Petersburg, Russia) The Department of Central Asia and Caucasus of St Petersburg University: from its Foundation till Today Summary: The history of Central Asia (Turkestan), or Turkestan studies, is a traditional academic discipline for St Petersburg, which goes back to the first half of the XIX century. The rise of the Turkestan studies in Russia is tied to the name of Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold (1869–1930), also known as Wilhelm Barthold, who founded the school of the Turkestan studies in St Petersburg. Vasily Bartold identified Muslim sources that formed the scholarly base of the Turkestan studies. He also authored the fundamental works of the discipline. During the Soviet times, the CentralAsian studies in Leningrad focused on archeology, ethnography and linguistics, while studying the history of Turkestan (Kazakhstan and Central Asia) was considered the prerogative of the national Soviet republics. In the new geopolitical conditions emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation faced the need to train its own qualified Central Asia and Caucasus experts. Considering the interests of Russia and its scholarly tradition, in 1996 at the Oriental faculty (Faculty of Asian and African Studies) of the St Petersburg State University the department of the Central Asia and Caucasus was established. The Oriental studies and their teaching in the Faculty are based on the principles forged by Vasily Bartold. Among them, worth highlighting are the understanding of the historical and cultural unity of Turkestan (modern term — Central Asia) as opposite to the tendency to see the history of Turkestan as the sum of local and national his- tories, comprehensive study of different Muslim sources, simultaneous teaching of the Turkic and Iranian languages. The Caucausian studies at the Oriental faculty developed since the middle of the XIX century, primarily due to the efforts of Dean of the Faculty Mirza Kazembek. At the turn of the XX century Azerbaijani, Georgian and Armenian departments opened there. The academicians N. Marr (1864–1934) and J. Orbeli (1887–1961) made large contributions to the study of the Christian Caucasus. During the Soviet time a com- prehensive approach to the Caucasian Studies was developed, encompassing the full historical and cultural study of the territories stretching from the northern foothills of the North Caucasus to the southern borders of the Transcaucasian republics of the USSR. The majority of Russian Oriental studies specialists agreed that despite the