¹ I am greatly indebted to members of the Institute of Sinology for their cordial hospitality when I visited the Institute in Moscow on July 15, 1958, and for presenting me then with a copy of this journal. To my wife, Galia S. Bodde, I am likewise indebted for the linguistic assistance which made the writing of this notice possible.

² The Institute was created late in 1956 by detaching and expanding what had been the Chinese Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, in Moscow. See translation of the Russian announcement by Spector, Ivar in JAS, XVI (1957), 677–678CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Swearingen, Rodger, “Asian Studies in the Soviet Union,” JAS, XVII (1958), 524–525Google Scholar.

³ See Spector, loc. cit.

⁴ A notice on its final page states that its materials were ready for typesetting on January 3, 1958, and were approved for final printing on May 26, 1958. Hence Swearingen's statement (p. 536) that the first issue was published in January 1958 should be corrected.

⁵ The article, which covers primarily the period of 1054–57 among other works, such books as Belden's China Shak.es the World, Fitzgerald's Revolution in China, Walker's China under Communism, Rostow's Prospects for Communist China, Juan-li Wu's Economic Survey of Communist China, and Ping-chia Kuo's China: New Age and New Outlook., as well as periodicals like the JAS, PA, New Republic, Time, Fortune, World Politics, Economist, Christian Science Monitor, Manchester Guardian, Le Monde, Gazette de Lausanne, and others.

⁶ Those in English are Solomon Adler, The Chinese Economy, and Allen S. Whiting, Soviet Policies in China, 1917-1924. The French titles are Economic de la Chine sodaliste, by Lavalée, Noiret, and Dominique, and the first issue of Revue bibliographique de la sinologie (actually, despite its title, published both in English and French). That in German is a linguistic study by Romportl, Milan on the tones in Kuo-yü, published in Archiv Orientalni, XXI (Prague, 1953), 276–352Google Scholar.

⁷ These should not be confused with dissertations for the degree of Doctor of Sciences, i.e., Ph.D. They represent a lower level of accomplishment, usually based on three years of graduate study.

⁸ About 60 per cent of these 136 dissertations originated from institutions in Moscow and Leningrad; about 80 per cent were written during 1952–56 (showing the rapid rise of China interest during these years). Their classification according to disciplines is: history, 72; economics, 22; philosophy, 9; philology, 18; literature, 7; geography and law, 3 each; education and art, 1 each. Grouped by topics, most of them fall into one of three general categories: (1) foreign colonial expansion in China, (2) the Chinese people's struggle for national liberation, (3) China's economic development. Parfionovitch criticizes them on three main counts: (1) too many of the economic dissertations fail to make adequate analysis of their data; (2) there are too many duplications of topic among different dissertations (indicating insufficient co-ordination among the institutions concerned); (3) far too many deal only with the twentieth century, whereas earlier periods of China are neglected. In conclusion, he recommends that persons writing dissertations on China should be equipped to use original sources through a knowledge of the language, and that such dissertations should be confined to institutions having genuine competence on China.

⁹ The Institute has a staff of about 120 (including both research scholars and other personnel). Some 40 per cent of its energies will be devoted to research on China from 1919 to the present time. Other main fields of research may be summarized as struggle of the Chinese people against feudalism and colonialism prior to 1919, development of slave and feudal relationships in China, history of social and political thought, study of languages and dialects, study of literature and other cultural achievements, translation of major Chinese written works, and study of the history of sinology in the USSR and abroad. Among the specific projects listed-some collaborative, others individual- are a large group work on aspects of Chinese history from 1919 to 1956; a long-term group project for the translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi {Historical Records]; a study by N. T. Fedorenko, to appear shortly, on the Shih ching [Book of Songs]; a four-volume Great Chinese-Russian Dictionary, to include over 250,000 words and phrases; a large compendium of documents on Russo-Chinese relations (two collections to appear in 1958); and an updating to the present time of P. E. Skachkov's well-known Bibliografiya Kitaya [Bibliography on China], originally published in 1932.

¹⁰ I do not summarize this here, since an account is to be found in Swearingen, pp. 523–524.

¹¹ These are the Chinese Communist Party, with 6; Chinese People's Republic, 3; socialist reforms and development of the national economy, 19; law, 13; literature and art, 51; philology, 8; the Soviet Union and China, 20; philosophy and ideology, 3; history, 33; geography, 8. The great majority of these publications are popular in nature, and a surprising number appear in languages of the USSR other than Russian. Many are translations of modern Chinese literature, while not a few are books for children. Dissertations (of the sort described above) also appear in fair numbers, and their extreme brevity (rarely more than twenty pages), as well as subject matter, lend weight to the strictures there made. In short, it seems unlikely that more than ten per cent of these 164 publications, at most, can be considered as substantial works of scholarly importance.

¹² For persons wishing to subscribe to Soviet Sinology or to communicate with its editors, it should be added that its address is Institute of Sinology, Room 152, Kitaiski Proyezd 7, Moscow, and that its editorial board consists of E. F. Kovalev (chief editor), G. V. Astafyev, L. I. Duman, N. I. Konrad, A. G. Krymov, A. A. Martynov, V. N. Nikiforov, I. M. Oshanin, A. S. Perevertaylo, N. T. Fedorenko, V. M. Shteyn, and M. F. Yuryev.