In November the Centre of Oriental Literature of the Russian State Lirary published new videos devoted to the culture and art of Asian states. On the available Russian platforms, our faithful users and those ones who are only going to start discovering the enchanting world of oriental mysteries will get a chance to enjoy most interesting lectures of our invited speakers.

Sergey Sorochiyev, head of the Calam.Soul.Studio of Arabian calligraphy, drawing, ornament and design and calligraphy teacher of the Qatar Centre of Arabian, will share secrets of ornamenting old manuscript books and will speak on the general symbolism of traditional Islamic drawings and ornaments. You are going to plunge into authentic historical and cultural atmosphere and get to know Turkish, Chinese and even Byzantine patterns in book and architectural monument designs of the Arabic and Islamic world. You will also get acquainted with the rules of ornamenting and learn where one can perfectly unpredictably come across typical Islamic geometric patterns and arabesques nowadays.  

Park In Soo, the professor of the Korea National University of Arts, and Eo Su Min, the director of the Centre of the Korean Language and Arts, will tell you about the Korean arts of talchum and phunmul, while their assistants, professional musicians and dancers of original Korean bands, will perform the Lion’s Dance in its modern version and authentic Korean melodies. What legend served the ground for the talchum and why no development for that art form is officially accepted? What’s the difference between samulnori and phunmul, and which variations based on the historical rhythms can be heard nowadays performed by noted orchestras? All that is in the performance lecture of the Korean teachers, each of whom is not only a brilliantly-educated specialist but also a master of his job. 

And finally, specialist in Japanese studies, orientalist, graduate of the ISAA MSU, urbanist researcher and author of the Japan Arch Telegram channel Zarina Abacheva dedicated her first lecture from series “Code of Japanese Architecture” to the historical way of Tokyo, which turned out to be over 400 years. You will learn why can we speak about Tokyo City and Tokyo Metropolis, what are the main stages of building the city and what is Tokyo’s zoning like. Then, you’ll see unique photos of the modern metropolis as it is nowadays and discover the advantages of the matizukuri technology which used to solve the problems connected with high-speed urbanization of the aria, and which is still of use in dealing with ecology matters.   

All the videos of the Centre of Oriental Literature of the Russian State Library are available on its official VKontakte webpage.

 Follow the timetables of the RSL Centre of Oriental Literature lectures in Telegram.