Sociology of Russian Indology: how to read a conference archive

Institutions, generations, network communities, and programme visibility.

Русская версия

This page is broader than the gatekeeping case. It treats the archive as a field observatory: who appears in conference programmes, which institutions hold the visible core, where network communities emerge, and which conclusions require human review.

For editors and reviewers, the page is designed as a hybrid: a short essay plus inspectable visual evidence. Programme data show public conference activity, not a complete scholarly biography.
Observation: programme recordsMetric: network and participation yearsHypothesis: mechanism of absenceHuman review: biography and motive

1. Institutional ecology

Russian Indology is not held only by RAS institutes and classical universities. The corpus also shows museum, library, regional, independent, and inter-institutional trajectories. This matters because horizontal collaboration often appears outside a single department or laboratory.

Formal venues.
Zograf and Roerich Readings register a public face of the field: who is invited, who returns, and which themes receive programme space.
Network communities.
Informal communities are visible through repeated themes, shared sessions, cross-city ties, and external activity, but should not be reduced to the American "invisible college" model.

2. Generations and changing presence

Absence from a programme is not self-explanatory. It may reflect death, illness, age-related withdrawal from active conference life, the post-2022 political context around Russia, emigration, personal choice, or programme filtering. The page therefore separates post-2022 absence from the 2026 programme case.

Matrix of first and last observed appearances
Figure 1. The matrix shows when participants first entered the programmes and when they were last visible in the corpus. It is a map of public conference visibility, not a biography or ranking.
Timeline of frequent senior-generation participants
Figure 2. The timeline separates two questions: post-2022 absences, which may reflect the political context around Russia, emigration from Russia, or inability to participate from unfriendly countries; and 2026 absences, where age, health, and withdrawal from active conference life must be checked first for senior participants.

Frequent senior-generation participants not visible after 2022

ParticipantBornTalks before 2023Last yearExternal check
Видунас Витис1960152019external activity after 2022
Vilnius University scholar Vytis Vidunas receives the 2023 India-Lithuania Friendship Award
Огнева Елена Дмитриевна1944132022biographical profile without a death marker
Огнева Елена Дмитриевна
Кокова Юлия Георгиевна195582018active/current profile
Кокова Юлия Георгиевна | Orientalia Rossica
Невелева Светлана Леонидовна193762011biographical profile without a death marker
Невелева Светлана Леонидовна | ИВР РАН personalia PDF
Коробов Владимир Борисович195752020biographical profile without a death marker
Коробов Владимир Борисович (востоковед)
Терентьев Андрей Анатольевич194852022active/current profile
Терентьев Андрей Анатольевич | Dharma.ru

Frequent senior-generation participants absent from the 2026 programme

This table does not repeat people already listed in the post-2022 group. For the remaining senior-generation rows, health, age, and biographical withdrawal are the first explanations to check.

ParticipantBornTalks before 2026Last yearExternal check
Лысенко Виктория Георгиевна1953252025active/current profile
Лысенко Виктория Георгиевна | Институт философии РАН
Вертоградова Виктория Викторовна1933172024biographical profile without a death marker
Вертоградова Виктория Викторовна | Философский факультет МГУ
Островская Елена Петровна1950162025biographical profile without a death marker
Островская Елена Петровна
Вигасин Алексей Алексеевич194672025active/current profile
ЭС: А.А.Вигасин | Летопись Московского университета
Канаева Наталия Алексеевна195362025active/current profile
Канаева Наталия Алексеевна | НИУ ВШЭ
Стрелкова Гюзэль Владимировна195852024active/current profile
Стрелкова Гюзэль Владимировна | ИСТИНА

The machine-readable review queue is senior_absence_audit.csv; curated external biographical checks are in senior_biographical_verification.csv.

3. Network mediators

The Russian page avoids using "broker" as the main public term. The intended meaning is a network mediator: a participant through whom otherwise weakly connected groups become connected.

4. Gatekeeping as a focused case

The more charged question of programme filters and generational conflict is separated into the gatekeeping page. This keeps the sociology page as a broad field overview.

5. What the editor should check

Human review dashboard
Figure 3. The dashboard marks the boundary between computation and editorial review: 26 potential coauthorship lines, 18 senior-absence rows, 12 external biographical checks, and 8 network caveats.

Editorial choices about audience, naming, and claim strength are recorded in the meta-document.