От: Sergei Poselski [sergei@bnc.glasnet.ru]
Отправлено: 14 августа 2000 г. 17:47
Кому: Anke Grossmann (E-mail); Elena Lazareva (E-mail); Lonya Osokin (E-mail); Olga Makarova (E-mail); Richard Hainsworth (E-mail); Shamil Fattakhov (E-mail); Svetlana Zhurakova (E-mail); Vladimir Chupin (E-mail)
Тема: FW: Counteracting Dr. Bazilenko's theses

-----Original Message-----
From: NSA Russia
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 5:47 PM
To: 'Universal House of Justice'
Cc: B. Afshin (E-mail); Elena Gruzkova (E-mail); Abbas Katirai (E-mail); Maija Pihlainen (E-mail); Larissa Tsutskova (E-mail); Sohrab Youssefian (E-mail); 'CBC Asia'; 'CBC Europe'; William Hatcher (E-mail)

Subject: Counteracting Dr. Bazilenko's theses

To: The Universal House of Justice
From: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Russia
Date: August 14, 2000
Re: Counteracting Dr. Bazilenko's theses

Dearly-loved Universal House of Justice:

The National Spiritual Assembly of Russia received your letter of 7 June 2000 that we consider counteracting Dr. Bazilenko's publications by placing the book Making the Crooked Straight into major Russian libraries. The National Assembly has already ordered some of these books from the publisher George Ronald, and now plans to give it to some individuals in the Russian Bahá'í community, including Dr. Ioannesyan, to read before we decide how and where to make use of them.

In your earlier letter of 18 February 1999, you had suggested that Dr. Ioannesyan write a rebuttal to Dr. Bazilenko's distortions, but recommended that it be published under the name of Dr. Kazemzadeh in order to protect Dr. Ioannesyan and his academic career in Russia. You asked us to inform you about further developments in this situation. Regrettably, the National Assembly has not been able to follow up on this report until now.

Recently, the Secretary of the National Assembly telephoned Dr. Ioannesyan in St. Petersburg and was told that he has already been engaged in writing a series of four essays under the common title of Essays on the Bábí and Bahá'í Faiths: a Study in the Light of Primary Sources.

The first essay addresses the old allegation, recently restated by Bazilenko that Subh-i-Azal is the Báb's successor, is in fact his true successor, and that the Azalís had a good reason to reject Bahá'u'lláh's claim. This essay, which is already completed, is mainly based on passages from the Persian Bayán, quoted in the Persian original (from the two manuscripts, possessed by the Oriental Institute of St. Petersburg) and in the author's provisional Russian translation. Another theme, also addressed in the same essay, is the alleged falsification by the Bahá'ís of Jani's History and its substitution by Hamadani's New History.

The second essay (on which work has already began) deals with the allegation that "Though Bahá'í historiography maintains that before his departure to Istanbul Bahá'u'lláh openly declared himself to be 'He Whom God will make manifest,' no convincing evidence of this fact exists." This essay is for the most part but not exclusively based on the Kitáb-i-Íqán and the earliest Epistle of Bahá'u'lláh sent from Adrianople - the Súriy-i-Mulúk.

The third essay will be dealing with the Bahá'u'lláh's alleged personal involvement in the killings of His opponents.
The fourth essay addresses the allegation that 'Abdu'l-Bahá usurped power in the community after the death of his Father. This will be based on Bahá'u'lláh's Will and Testament.

All the essays follow the same pattern: every point is illustrated by extracts from the texts in the original language and in translation. Every conclusion or observation made by the author follows the extracts from the texts, and never precedes them. Each essay covers more items than those presented in this plan.

Dr. Ioannesyan plans to write the third and the fourth essays in 2001, and have the book ready for publication by summer 2001.

He would like to publish the book under his own name rather than that of another Bahá'í scholar. He does not feel that this would endanger his academic career, since he has already established a solid enough reputation of his own within academic circles, and he feels he could count on the support of some influential scholars if this were needed. Moreover, he feels it would eventually become evident that the book had been published under someone else's name and this in the end might do even more harm to him and to the Cause than being open about it from the very beginning. Dr. Ioannesyan hopes that the book will be published by a reputable Russian academic publishing house, possibly the same one as has already accepted his academic translation of the Kitáb-i-Íqán for publication next year.

Another consideration of Dr. Ioannesyan concerns the real influence of Dr. Bazilenko's works. The latter does not have the reputation of a solid scholar who is original in his thinking. Bazilenko's works are based exclusively on secondary sources, and most of his distortions can be easily traced to Edward G. Browne. Hence, Dr. Ioannesyan does not feel it would be particularly wise to draw too much attention to the fact that Dr. Bazilenko wrote several books on the subject. However, he is intending to state in the preface of his book that it was prompted by the publication of Dr. Bazilenko's work. But nowhere further in the book will any reference be made to Dr. Bazilenko. In Dr. Ioannesyan's words, he prefers to take issue with Edward G. Browne than with Igor Bazilenko.

Finally, Dr. Ioannesyan mentioned that he is already perceived as an antagonist of Dr. Bazilenko in some academic circles. He said that he felt that the majority of scholars would naturally take his side in this academic dispute. So, it came as a surprise to him that the Dean of the Oriental faculty of one academic institution in St. Petersburg (which one is not clear) took the side of Dr. Bazilenko in the latter's attempts to gain access to the copy of the Báb's Bayán that is kept in the St. Petersburg archives. He felt that Bazilenko did not have the right to work with the manuscript, and tried to point this out to his superior and to the director of the archives. Although the Director of the institution where Dr. Ioannesyan works supported him in this view, Dr. Bazilenko still managed, with the support of some other influential figures, to get the necessary permission and worked with the copy of the manuscript.

We hope that this information will help to shed some additional light on the dynamics of this situation, and we eagerly look forward to any further guidance that you might wish to provide.

With loving Bahá'í greetings,
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Russia
Sergei Poselski, Secretary

Cc: Board of Counselors in Asia
Counselors B. Afshin, Elena Grouzkova and Abbas Katirai
Board of Counselors in Europe
Counselors Maija Pihlainen, Larissa Tsutskova and Sohrab Youssefian
Dr. William S. Hatcher