Virtual Reading Room of the Russian State Library

New Lectures of the RSL Centre of Oriental Literature — "Shanghai. Urban Building" and "Borrowed Words in Translations from Turkish and Azerbaijani"

The Centre of Oriental Literature of the Russian State Library proceeds digitizing and publishing its materials devoted to diverse aspects of culture and social life of African and Asian states.

Elena Korotkova, candidate of economics and lecturer of Higher School of Economics and Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, spoke on the peculiarities of establishment of the urban economy of China in the second half of the twentieth century. Why did she choose Shanghai, and how could one trace certain traditions of urban spacial structure arrangement which had originally been introduced in the Celestial Empire within vast Russian territories — you will learn all that and much more having watched the lecture of the RSL invited expert possessing great knowledge and lots of special skills in realization of most modern concepts of the development of urban areas.

Lecture "Shanghai. Urban Building — from the 1950s and up to the present days" is available over here. It's been co-organized with the Chinese Club of Chinasium of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University.

Still our second lecture is likely to be appreciated by professional translators and everyone interested in the matters of development and mutual influence of languages in the historical perspective and at the present stage of cultural and political inter-relation milieu. Alexander Sarkissyan, teacher of the Department of oriental languages of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of Moscow State Linguistic University, and Alevtina Loginova, a master's degree first-year student of the MSLU Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, spoke on the general issues of work with Turkish and Azerbaijani texts. From their lecture, you are going to get to know about the role and volumes of Arabic and Persian words in the contemporary languages spoken and written, as well as about international general-lexics words which had managed to penetrate even in those languages being so far from Europe and its avant-garde ideas both phisically and ideologically. Then, the speakers would certainly focus on the basic background skills translators and interpreters have to obtain if they wish their work with the Oguz languages to be a success, and on the main trends in the preservation activities the "two states of the common nation" realize in order to support and promote their state languages and unique culture.

Lecture "Borrowed Words in Translations from Turkish and Azerbaijani" can be accessed on the link.

You are welcome to watch any of the videos which regularly come on the YouTube channel of the Russian State Library at https://www.youtube.com/@RussianStateLibrary.