Igor Radev/photo Sloboden Pechat/Slobodan Djuric

VIDEO INTERVIEW | Igor Radev: On the list of 10 sinologists in the world

The Sinological Center at the Linguistic University of Beijing placed our philologist Igor Radev on the list of ten sinologists in the world, who during the last year contributed the most to the development of sinological science.

- To be honest, there was no detailing about exactly where I was put on the list, so I can only assume, during this year, I primarily dealt with the relations between Byzantium and Ancient China, sometime in the early Middle Ages, during the Tang Dynasty. Here I have a comparative advantage compared to other sinologists, because I also have an education in classical philology, that is, I graduated in classical studies at the Faculty of Philology at UKIM, and only then did I start to deal with sinology. When a person has these two educational fields, it means that when it comes to such intercultural research, it gives him a great advantage, because he can cope with reading ancient Greek and Latin historical sources, and also from classical Chinese sources, so a certain topic can be lit much better. I'm planning to publish a book on this subject, which should come out late this year or early next year, which should be published by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, specifically about Sino-Byzantine relations on the Silk Road in the Early Middle Ages. century - says Radev.

Radev has an expert knowledge of the modern Chinese language, but also the ancient variants of the language.

– The ancient Chinese language refers to the non-standardized form of the ancient Chinese language, for which there are written sources. Starting somewhere from the 16th century BCE, until the third century BCE, the reason it is a non-standardized language is because then the Chinese state functioned at a decentralized level. But here somewhere in the third century BCE, you have surely heard of Qin Xin Huang, previously the king of one of the states of Qin, who took power over the entire area, he ruled briefly, after him came the Han dynasty, but then the standardization of the language in China occurred – he says.

For modern Chinese society, Radev says that the main feature is that technological inventions very quickly enter into widespread use.

- Everything is paid by phone in China, life simply works in a digital, wireless way. Traditional payment methods exist, but this is where you may run into a problem. If you take out a 100 yuan bill to pay someone, it's very likely that the seller won't have any change to give you back, because no one has paid them in cash for five years. That's not all, in China you will also notice a relatively large proportion of the use of electric vehicles in cities, which is not yet the case in our part of the world. And that contributes a lot not only to the reduction of air pollution with exhaust gases, but also to the reduction of noise pollution. In China you will find a very efficient infrastructure. Everything can be quickly brought to where it needs to be and put into use quickly - he adds.

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