Pacific studies,

the Soviet way

During the last full week of May, Dr Stephen Uhalley and this cor respondent were guests of the Department of Pacific Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, USSR Academy of Sciences, in Moscow. Uhalley is director, Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (CAPS), University of Hawaii, and, as noted in PIM, March, I serve as director of the Pacific Islands Studies Program, which is one of several units within CAPS.

We were invited to Moscow by Dr Kim Vladimirovich Malakhovsky, the director of the Department of Pacific Studies, who had visited our campus last November. The following re cords some of our observations

about the state of Pacific studies in the Soviet Union today.

The Department of Pacific Studies was founded by Malakhovsky, and he has been its only director. In addition to

Malakhovsky, the department

consists of 10 scholars who work full-time on research related to the Pacific region. While the Pacific region is defined to in clude the three culture areas of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, as well as Australia and New Zealand, the emphasis until recently has been on the latter two.

Pacific studies is one of sever

al ‘ ‘geographical ’ ’ departments

in the Institute of Oriental Studies. Other such departments

deal with other areas such as East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, etc. There are also “functional” depart ments such as economics, orien tal languages, and linguistics. In the latter, at least one linguist is working on Pacific languages, particularly the generic relations among Polynesian languages.

In addition to the above, there is a separate Institute of Ethnog raphy within the Academy of Sciences which has a number of anthropologists specialising in the traditional cultures of the Pacific. But we had no contact with them.

Returning to Pacific studies, a wide variety of research special ties are represented in the depart ment itself: 1) social and politic al developments in the Pacific; 2) literature, art, and the reg ion’s news media; 3) France in the Pacific; 4) economics of the region; 5) mineral and energy resources; 6) international rela

tions and social and political problems; 7) education; 8) labor movements and organisations.

Malakhovsky is a director in the true sense of the word. He draws up a plan covering five or so years and assigns research projects. The operation resem bles the “think tanks” found in the U.S., rather than the univer sities, where researchers have a penchant for going off on their own respective tangents.

While there has been a quite heavy focus on Australia and New Zealand and their roles in the region, there are definite signs that a shift of interest to the island Pacific is occurring. A year or so ago, the literature specialist moved away from Australian topics to study the work of indigenous Pacific wri ters. The economist, who recent ly completed a book on Aust ralia’s economy, has now begun research on the economies of Pacific Island states. One of the

A View from Honolulu Robert C. Kiste

specialists on politics has been examining decolonisation and the formation of the new inde

pendent states.

During World War 11, Ameri can social scientists, mainly an thropologists, conducted re search on Japanese culture and behaviour through the analysis of Japanese films, literature, his tory, and other indirect and sec

ondary sources. The technique

came to be known as the “study of culture at a distance’’. It has similarities with the Soviet re search program, and there are reasons why the linguist studies historical connections between languages. Research is almost, if not entirely, done in libraries, and researchers mainly depend upon Western publications.

The list of periodicals received by the department’s library reve als some serious gaps and its subscription to PIM does not

always survive the mails between Sydney and Moscow. Not unex pectedly, periodicals received in clude a number of Leftist reviews which give some bias to the library’s holdings.

A commonly heard complaint is that Pacific countries do not allow entry to Soviet scholars.

The irony here, however, is that they have little opportunity to travel outside the USSR, and most have been limited to excur sions in East European socialist states within the Soviet bloc. As far as could be determined, only Malakhovsky and one other fair ly senior scholar (who is no longer with the department) have travelled in the Pacific, and even then, their travels were extreme ly limited and too brief to allow for any in-depth research.

Obviously, my Soviet collea-

Continued on Page 73.

Dr Kim V. Malakhovsky (right), one of the few Soviet scholars to have visited the Pacific Islands. He is from the Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow. He is shown here meeting Dr Klaus Mehnert during a visit to the University of Hawaii last year.

gues labor under serious hand icaps, and it is to their credit that they do as well as they do.

Historical topics are generally well done, especially as they relate to uncontroversial topics such as voyages of exploration and Russian activities in the Pacific and the west coast of north America during the last century. Analyses of ethnic and racial relations in the Pacific are fairly accurate. The literature specialist is producing quite good work and has a good feel and understanding of the themes em ployed by contemporary authors.

Papers on recent and current political developments are based on accurate information. Howev er, analyses are cast in the ex pected ideologies of Morgan, Engels, and Lenin, about nation al liberation movements and the incomplete struggle of the op pressed to free themselves from the shackles of Western colonial imperialism.

It is clear from some publica tions that discussions about a Pan-Pacific Community that are common today in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States are viewed as an attempt on the part of the

capitalist nations to minimise Soviet influence in the islands, and it would be difficult to argue against such an interpretation.

Uhalley and I also met some of the staff in the Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies, and the Institute of Far Eastern Studies. The former has recently added to its ranks a specialist on ocean policy who is looking at American policies in the Pacific, especially the U.S. stance on fishing rights, the Law of the Sea Treaty, etc. We met only Japan ese specialists in the Institute of Far Eastern Studies. They claim they are primarily concerned with Soviet-Japanese relations, and are not all that interested in Japan’s renewed interests and ac tivities in the islands today.

Interest in the Pacific is cer tainly not limited to the crew in Moscow. Each May, researchers from around the country gather in Moscow for an annual confer ence, and this year’s was the 14th. A total of 31 papers were presented, and reportedly ap proximately 50 participants attended.

A good many of the papers dealt with contemporary issues and reflect a continued strong interest in Australia and New Zealand, e.g., trade union activi ty in Asia, Australia and the

Pacific; the neo-colonial policies of Australia and New Zealand; internal political and economic problems in the two countries; the status of Aboriginals in Aust

ralia today; and Japan-Australia

relations in the 1980 s.

Other papers were concerned with historical issues such as Australian colonialism and the League of Nations, German- Australian relations in 1938, and the internal political history of New Zealand. Eight papers were on island topics such as Polyne sian voyaging and folklore, Rus sian experience in the last cen tury in Papua New Guinea, and shell money in Melanesia.

Our visit to the Soviet Union was my first and Uhalley’s third.

It was interesting and informa tive, yet somewhat frustrating.

Our visit was controlled in that we met and talked to individuals whom they wanted us to see.

Access to others, both in and outside the department, was either difficult or not possible.

I note that “reportedly there were about 50 participants in the annual conference. We were not among the 50, and apparently outsiders were not welcome. Our visas were issued for the week of May 22 to 27, and the conference was held on May 19 and 20.

Robert C. Kiste.