Domestic Studies of Taoism in the First Half of the 20th Century

Introduction. The article deals with the development of daological research in Russia in the first half of the XX century. The purpose of the article is to consider what tasks faced the nascent Russian daology at the beginning of the XX century and which of them were / were not solved in the first half of the XX century. Content. By the beginning of the 20th century, Russian daology faced a number of unresolved problems, many of which scientists approached only at the very end of the XX beginning of the XXI century. However, the first half of the 20th century was not barren. With regard to daology, this period is characterized primarily by the accumulation of materials and the emergence of new areas of research. We are talking about the works of such sinologists as academician V. M. Alekseev (1881-1951) and his students J. K. Shchutsky (1897-1938) and K. K. Flug (1893-1942). Alekseev wrote a number of articles related to Taoism in one way or another, some of which were published (posthumously) as part of the famous book "Chinese folk painting" (1966). Shchutsky, in addition to his main work - the translation and source and philological research of the "I Ching", also wrote a number of articles on Taoism. K. K. Flug turned to the study of the Taoist collection of canonical texts ("Tao Tsang"). The works of representatives of Harbin Chinese studies of the first half of the XX century made a certain contribution to daology. The article briefly examines the relevant works of P. V. Shkurkin (1868-1943) and I. G. Baranov (1886-1972). Conclusions. In the first half of the 20th century, daology in Russia took the following steps: 1) a systematic study of the collection of canonical texts ("Tao Tsang") (K. K. Flug) was initiated; 2) studies clarifying the relationship between Taoism and Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion (V. M. Alekseev, Yu. K. Shchutsky) appeared; 3) new types of sources were introduced into scientific circulation (Chinese folk painting of nianhua, Taoist Talismans-fu (V. M. Alekseev); 4) translations of folklore texts with a Taoist component appeared (P. V. Shkurkin); 5) the first descriptive works on local forms of Taoism appeared (I. G. Baranov).