On April 7, 2021, A.A. Lukashev, research director of the Ibn Sina Foundation, delivered a speech at the plenary session of the 1st Moscow Interfaith Youth Forum “Accordance of differences: towards interreligious and intergenerational cooperation” in the conference hall of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque. He presented the Foundation’s media project called “Oral History as a Generational Bridge”.
A.A. Lukashev said that the Ibn Sina Foundation started developing this project in 2018 at the suggestion of the co-founder of the Foundation, a prominent national Islamic scholar S.M. Prozorov. Since then, the Foundation has prepared and published interviews with such renowned Russian scholars as Nina Mamedova, Marietta Stepanyants, Natalia Prigarina and Evgenia Frolova. Interviews with Matem Al-Janabi and Dmitry Mikulsky are currently being prepared for publication.
“Oral History” is a new and promising genre of historiography that emerged in the 20th century. The Ibn Sina Foundation’s project is meant to record oral historical evidence about the Islamic studies in Russia and the USSR in the format of video interviews with experts in Oriental Studies and Islamic Studies. The project is of particular relevance today, in the context of the pandemic, when we are increasingly losing outstanding scholars together with the unique knowledge of their times.
