Professor M. F. Slinkin: philological aspects of the oriental heritage (to the 100th anniversary of the scientist)

Pashkovsky Petr Igorevich ORCID: 0000-0001-5403-3797 Doctor of Politics Professor; Department of Political Sciences and International Relations; V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University 295007, Russia, Simferopol, pr. Akademika Vernadskogo, 4 petr.pash@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Kryzhko Evgeniy Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0001-9943-819X PhD in History Associate Professor; Department of Archeology and General History; V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University 295007, Russia, republic, Simferopol, pr. Akademika Vernadskogo, 4 jeyson1030@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Mikhail Filantievich Slinkin (05.XII.1925-10.VIII.2007), an Orientalist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor at V. I. Vernadsky Tauride National University, has a number of publications, often revealing the milestones of his biography and the features of his contribution to the field of historical science as one of the prominent Russian philosophers of the second half of the XX – early XXI century. ^{[1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9]}. At the same time, the philological research of the scientist, which is of interest and applied importance, is practically overlooked, the coverage of which is situational in nature. The purpose of this article is to consider the philological component of the scientific and pedagogical heritage of M. F. Slinkin.

The research materials were military technical dictionaries ^{[10; 11; 12]}, which were the first of their kind and became classics for subsequent generations of reference translators in this field. Having paid his debt to his Homeland in the diplomatic service, Mikhail Filantievich applied his acquired knowledge in the scientific and pedagogical field of studying the Persian language in the Crimea, creating a series of educational publications. ^{[13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19]} and having acted as the editor of the handbook on the history of Persian literature ^[20], which received a high expert assessment. and they allowed us to train specialized philologists.

The synthesis of a systematic approach and source analysis predetermined an integrated approach to solving the problem, reflected in the application of a number of scientific methods. The historical and genetic method allowed us to compare historical events and their influence on the consistent development of M. F. Slinkin's philological research. The study of the source base and scientific publications on this subject became possible using the document analysis method. The biographical method contributed to the study of the life path, the formation and evolution of personal qualities, scientific research and ideological attitudes.

After returning from the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Mikhail Filantievich was trained in 1946-1948 at the two-year English language courses at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow ^{[3, p. 3]}. At the end of the course, the 23-year-old lieutenant was appointed an artillery division interpreter in the Transcaucasian Military District, but this position was reduced and he was appointed platoon commander of an artillery regiment in Yerevan. Since March 1950, M. F. Slinkin was transferred to Tbilisi, where he was engaged in journalistic activities, being the director of the printing house of the newspaper of the Political Administration of the Transcaucasian Military District. After graduating from the Tbilisi evening school, Mikhail Filantievich decided to get a higher education – his choice was turned to higher education ^{[4, pp. 81-82]}.

In 1951, having successfully passed the exams at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, he was enrolled in the third, special faculty, from which he graduated in 1956 with honors. The training was subject to serious academic performance requirements, with a three at the end of the session and a two in the current semester. It is noteworthy that the chosen direction trained intelligence specialists for possible work in unfriendly countries. The specialty in the diplomas was listed as an international journalist, and the qualification was a senior instructor-speaker in Persian and an instructor–translator in English. In addition to these languages, M. F. Slinkin fluently mastered the Dari (Farsi-Kabuli) language, which he studied as soon as possible during his first business trip to Afghanistan (from March to November 1957), given its proximity to the Persian language, but at the same time having its own syntactic, grammatical and lexical features. Mikhail Filantievich, studying Farsi-Kabuli, set himself the task of researching the most in-demand and undeveloped lexicography in the military-technical field ^{[4, pp. 82-86; 5, p. 706]}. It was from this period that the direction of "Oriental studies" became decisive for his further research interests and life path.

In 1960-1965, M. F. Slinkin was on a business trip to Afghanistan as a senior translator, senior assistant, and chief military adviser to the Soviet Embassy in Kabul. At that time, Mikhail Filantievich began to carry out comprehensive research in the field of military and military-technical lexicography of the Dari language, taking into account the lack of Russian-Dari dictionaries required by military translators ^{[6, p. 133]}. On weekends, he often traveled with his family and other members of the embassy district on tours of Afghanistan. During such trips, M. F. Slinkin acted as an interpreter and talked with the Afghans along the way, writing down new words and expressions. When he came home, in the evenings he transferred the acquired lexical data to the cards, the quantitative replenishment of which was proceeding rapidly. At officer courses for future Afghan artillerymen, Mikhail Filantievich taught the discipline "Ballistics" in Dari, which prompted him to collect and put military-technical terminology in this language on special cards ^{[2, p. 69; 4, p. 90-91]}.

M. F. Slinkin's extensive knowledge of languages, as well as painstaking work on lexicography, were noticed by the top officials of the USSR Embassy in Afghanistan, and he began to be actively involved as the most qualified translator in high–level negotiations with Prime Minister Muhammad Dawud, King Zahir Shah, and worked during the visit of Leonid Brezhnev. and A. N. Kosygin, who was transferred to the position of chief military adviser. The military translators were in close contact with Mikhail Filantevich, who had an extensive lexical file in the absence of Russian dictionaries ^{[4, pp. 91, 95]}.

M. F. Slinkin noted in later diary entries that the advisers had great difficulties in the process of ideological propaganda activities within the Afghan society due to their low level of language proficiency. At the same time, the staff of the Agitation, Propaganda and Training Department of the PDPA Central Committee were far from the language of the people in their work, which led to an understanding of the complexity of the situation and the need to break down the linguistic barrier and the resulting incompetence of the advisers ^{[7, p. 61]}.

In May 1965, M. F. Slinkin returned to Moscow, and as a specialist with good knowledge of English, he was invited to go to Crimea as a senior instructor in political and educational work at the military training center for foreigners, where he lectured before another trip to Afghanistan, which lasted from 1968 to 1971. G. ^{[4, pp. 96-97]}. Over the course of three years, Mikhail Filantievich prepared a significant file in the field of Dari vocabulary, which made it possible to accumulate it into a major work.

Russian Russian and Russian-Persian Military Dictionary by G. G. Aliyev was published in 1972 with a circulation of 3.5 thousand copies ^[10], in the Russian-Persian part of which, in addition to the translation of terms into Farsi, there was a translation into Farsi-Kabuli, made by M. F. Slinkin together with A. I. Arslanbekov and A. By V. Peregudov. Russian Russian Dictionary consisted of two parts (Persian-Russian and Russian-Persian), numbering about 20 thousand terms related to weapons, organization, military equipment, training and use of all types of armed forces. It is noteworthy that a special place in it was occupied by the latest military and military-technical terminology. And the Persian part of this publication, given the availability of a translation of Russian terms into Persian, contained a translation into the Farsi language, Kabuli, which is widespread in Afghanistan ^{[5, p. 706]}.

In the 1970s, Mikhail Filantievich, after leaving the reserve due to reaching the age limit for military service, continued to develop his philological studies at the Simferopol Medical Institute. Afghans studied at the postgraduate school of this educational institution, and M. F. Slinkin lectured them on the international situation, at the same time maintaining his level of Dari language in the process of conversations with its native speakers ^{[4, pp. 104-105]}. At the same time, in September 1973, he began working at Simferopol Frunze State University (from 1999 to 2014 – V. I. Vernadsky Tauride National University; currently – V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University), continuing research in the field of Oriental philology ^{[3, p. 3]}.

The April revolution of 1978 and the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979 raised the issue of creating a comprehensive Russian-Dari military-technical dictionary. The leadership of "Voenizdat" considered this issue, considering that by that time such a dictionary was almost ready in the author's edition. In 1981, after more than two decades of Mikhail Filantievich's research in the field of lexicography, a fundamental work was published – the Russian-Dari Military and Technical Dictionary ^[11]. The pages of this publication contain more than 40 thousand terms and terminological combinations related to the organization, military equipment and weapons, recruitment and service, tactics, operational art, command and control of troops and the activities of the rear services of the modern army ^{[5, p. 706]}. At the end of the dictionary were placed: "the main geographical names; commands, command words, reports; conventional abbreviations used in military and official documents and in correspondence of the armed forces of Afghanistan; table of military ranks of the armed forces of Afghanistan; the most commonly used numeratives; calendars – solar Hijri and European." MF Slinkin specified that in In the process of compiling the dictionary, "Afghan combat and field regulations and manuals, manuals and manuals on the design and operation of military equipment and weapons, as well as scientific, technical, educational and reference literature in the Dari language were used" ^{[11, p. 5]}. The circulation of the publication was 16 thousand copies.

Being the first such publication on a global scale, this dictionary was in demand, which led to its republication in 1987 with an edition of 33 thousand copies ^[12]. Currently, it continues to retain its applied importance and popularity, becoming a classic work in the field of Oriental studies.

Being on official business trips to Afghanistan from 1982 to 1986, from 1987 to 1988 and in 1990, Mikhail Filantievich did not stop his research activities ^{[8, p. 319]}. Initially, he planned to go to Kabul for scientific purposes, but managed to get there only as a member of the group of advisers to the Central Committee of the CPSU. During this period, M. F. Slinkin was able to establish trusting relations with the head of state (until 1986) B. Karmal, his successor M. Najibullah, Vice-president A. Hatef, head of the International Department of the PDPA Central Committee M. Baryalai ^{[4, p. 107]}. A wide range of high-ranking acquaintances, as well as periodic trips around the country, allowed Mikhail Filantievich to have access to various information, which he systematizes in subsequent years.

After returning to teaching at the Frunze SSU, Mikhail Filantievich continued to work on improving the teaching methods and techniques of learning the Persian language in higher educational institutions. He taught a language elective for students of history. In addition, on the basis of the International Tauride Ecological and Political Science University (Simferopol) in 1994, it was planned to create a direction for training specialists in the field of oriental languages, and M. F. Slinkin was invited to head this (with the department of the same name), who was able to staff the educational process with specialized teachers and organize systematic training of philology students over the following years.. He paid special attention to the quality of knowledge transmitted to students, being a very strict and at the same time diplomatic teacher ^{[8, p. 320]}. Since 1998, Mikhail Filantievich has been training students at the Department of Oriental Philology of the M. V. Frunze SSU (since August 1999 – V. I. Vernadsky Tauride National University), where he received the title of professor in 2003 ^{[6, pp. 134-135]}.

Oriental philology in Crimea in the 1990s was going through a formative stage, given that this region has never been a significant center of Oriental studies. The educational process felt the need for new textbooks, as the old ones were presented in separate pages in an unsuitable state for learning ^{[4, p. 113]}. Mikhail Filantievich decides to fill this gap. So, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he published a number of educational publications. ^{[13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19]} ( the reviewers of which were the Russian Orientalists G. A. Voskanyan and K. N. Khitrik), which have received wide recognition and application. This was confirmed by his colleagues, noting that textbooks, workshops and dictionaries on Persian and Dari, authored by Mikhail Filantievich, have been relevant for many years and are fully used in the training of Orientalists in Russia, Ukraine, a number of European and Central Asian states, as well as the United States ^{[3, p. 4]}.

In addition to their theoretical and practical value, these publications, as a rule, were provided with interesting prefaces, which, due to their informative nature, deserve special attention. In particular, describing his "Book for reading. The Persian language", M. F. Slinkin wrote in 2001: "This textbook is intended for classroom and extracurricular reading in the first and fifth years of Oriental departments, where Persian is studied as the main and second Oriental language. A number of the book's materials are recorded on magnetic tape and can be used to develop listening skills in foreign speech and paragraph-phrase translation by ear." This edition included the following thematic sections: "fairy tales, parables and proverbs, anecdotes of Mullah Nasruddin, stories of classics of Persian literature, journalism and poetry." In addition, to make it easier to read the texts, as the author explained, "most of them are followed by dictionaries and comments. Brief biographical information about their authors and necessary explanations have been sent to some of the stories" ^{[15, p. 3]}. In turn, the materials presented in the book were arranged according to the degree of increasing lexico-grammatical difficulty and were taken from the latest Iranian publications and periodicals.

In 2003, in the preface to the textbook "Speech Practice of the Persian language," Mikhail Filantievich noted that it "is intended to teach students to correctly express their thoughts orally and in writing in Persian on the topic being studied, to understand the main content of the text when listening, in full accordance with the norms of the language being studied, to build their own monological and dialogical utterance on various everyday, regional and current socio-political topics, retell a listened or read text with elements of commentary and evaluation, read aloud artistic, journalistic and scientific texts of moderate difficulty in compliance with orthoepical norms after minimal preparation, maintain a conversation in the business sphere of communication on a given topic with preliminary preparation, carry out targeted study of various sources of information in Persian and Russian" ^{[17, p. 3]}.

The textbook "Practical course of the Persian language. General Translation", prepared in collaboration with V. A. Minin and N. V. Pavlenko and published in 2007. "The main purpose of this manual," the authors emphasized, "is to develop reading, listening, referencing, speaking and writing skills. At the same time, special attention is paid to developing students' skills to fluently read Persian texts on socio-political, regional and literary topics, consistently and synchronously translate from one language to another, freely conduct a conversation (discussion) on the topics studied, prepare written reports (reports) in Persian and present orally their main content with elements of polemics, highlight the main information in written and oral messages, edit translated texts taking into account linguistic norms and the accuracy of conveying the meaning of words, phrases, terms and phraseological expressions" ^{[19, p. 3]}.

It is characteristic that at the turn of the century, being an active organizer of the educational process, he and his colleagues at the Faculty of Oriental Philology of the M. V. Frunze SSU (Vernadsky TNU) promoted the establishment and development of constructive cooperation between this higher educational institution and the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result, groups of Crimean Iranian students have the opportunity to systematically undergo language and regional studies internships at Iranian scientific and educational centers ^{[9, p. 8]}.

It should be noted that M. F. Slinkin participated in 1999 as an editor in the preparation of the textbook "An Essay on the History of Persian Literature" ^[20], the author of which was his son M. M. Slinkin (later a well–known orientalist), and the reviewers were Simferopol professors A.M. Memetov and E. S. Regushevsky. This publication was intended for students of the Persian departments of Oriental studies faculties. It examined the history of Persian literature from its inception in the ancient Persian language era to the present. At the same time, special attention was paid to classical literature in Persian (X–XV centuries), which made a significant contribution to the development of the world literary process.

In addition, in the preface to this publication, the specifics of the research problems and interpretations of the term "Persian literature" were described, which, taking into account the theoretical significance, should be discussed in detail. Thus, recognizing the widespread fame of the classics and the study of certain periods of its history, it was emphasized that "there are numerous "white spots" and problems awaiting the researcher, as well as there are different approaches not only to assessing many phenomena of this literature, which is natural, but even to the actual term by which it would be understood." at certain stages of its development." Specifying the indicated situation, the textbook clarified that various authors in the process of characterizing Renaissance literature "use the terms Persian, Tajik, Persian-Tajik, Iranian-Tajik, Persian-language literature, thus recognizing that it owes its origin mainly to the ancestors of modern Tajiks and Persians. At the same time, representatives of different peoples took part in its creation, including before the period of disintegration and isolation of the national literatures of the Persians, Tajiks, Afghans and the separation of the Persian-language literature of India, which began in the XVI century. Therefore, the choice of the term “Persian literature” <...> is quite conditional. However, considering that we did not aim to consider other literature that grew out of the common heritage of the Persians and Tajiks after the 15th century, except for the literature of the Persians themselves, in our opinion, such a choice has certain grounds" ^{[20, p. 3]}.

Thus, the philological component of the scientific and pedagogical heritage of M. F. Slinkin manifested itself in the field of Oriental lexicography. In addition to preparing and publishing the world's first Russian-Dari Military and Technical Dictionary, he became the author, co-author and editor of a number of conceptual and terminological publications, workshops and textbooks aimed at improving the teaching and learning methods of Persian and Dari. These works are still in demand today, being used in the process of training specialized specialists both in the Russian Federation and in countries near and far abroad.