Статья посвящена изучению биографии Ван Даюаня 汪大淵 (первая половина XIV в. - 1350 г. или позднее) - автора историко-географического описания заморских земель эпохи Юань (1279-1368) Дао и чжи люэ 島夷誌略 («Краткое описание островных варваров», далее - ДИЧЛ; 1349/1350 гг.). В ходе исследования паратекстов к источнику (предисловий и послесловия), а также привлечения дополнительной информации об их авторах и других лицах, упоминающихся в трактате Ван Даюаня, удалось пролить свет на происхождение и биографию автора ДИЧЛ, круг его социальных связей и факторы, повлиявшие на содержание ДИЧЛ. В частности, была дана новая интерпретация одного из фрагментов текста, согласно которой Ван Даюань совершил два плавания до достижения им 19 лет, а не после. Этот и другие результаты исследования позволяют говорить о том, что автор ДИЧЛ был родовитым торговцем, получившим хорошее образование и уже в юные годы бывавшим за морем. В качестве приложения к статье даны комментированные переводы предисловий и послесловия к ДИЧЛ на русский язык.

The fall of Angkor in the 15th century marked a turning point in the Cambodian history leading to the downfall of the Khmer civilization and the start of the so-called “post-Angkor period” which is also often referred to as the “Dark Age of Cambodia”. Local epigraphical sources almost completely disappear from the 13th up to the 16th centuries while the Royal Chronicles dealing with this timeframe were compiled much later, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Therefore, primary sources of this era are very scarce. While it is commonly accepted among the modern researchers that the fall of Angkor was a continuous process and was not a result of a single Siamese attack or a natural calamity (moreover, various reasons for this gradual downfall have been outlined), the perception of this process by other political powers in the region, especially China, has been significantly understudied. In this work the author made an attempt to trace the transformation of depiction of Cambodia in the Chinese sources of the Yuan and early Ming dynasties (both official and private).

The present work is a continuation of two previously published articles in which the biography of Zhao Rugua 趙汝适 (1170-1231), the author of Zhufan zhi 諸蕃志 (Records of Foreign Peoples; 1225) an important historical geographical source about the foreign lands during the Song dynasty (960-1279), was studied through the usage of the text of his funeral epitaph as well as other historical sources. They also included the translation of the text of inscription into Russian and English [1; 2]. The goal of this article is to deepen the study of Zhao Ruguas funeral epitaph by researching the material features of the source, analyzing the structure of the text and comparing it with other similar sources of Medieval China. In contrast with the previous works the inscription in this article is analyzed both as a textual source and as an object of material culture which enables to understand the context of the creation of the source as well as the extent of detalization of the deceaseds biography.

Min shu 閩書 (The Book of Min; finished in 1620) written by He Qiaoyuan 何喬遠 (1558–1632), a native of Quanzhou, is a relatively well-known source among researchers studying the local history of Fujian province. However, apart from the information on the administrative division of the province, its customs and various aspects of local history it does also contain a section entirely dedicated to the description of the foreign island nations entitled Daoyi zhi 島夷志 (“A Description of Island Barbarians”). The present article analyzes the structure and the contents of this section, provides translations of several passages from it connected with the polities of Southeast Asia. Apart from that, a comparison of borrowings from the first edition of a Yuan dynasty treatise Daoyi zhilüe 島夷誌略 (A Brief Description of the Island Barbarians; 1349/1350) which was at the disposal of He Qiaoyuan and by which the name of the section was probably inspired has been carried out. Most importantly, drawing on the data from the text this paper shows how the outside maritime world to the east and south of China was perceived from the perspective of a South China resident who dealt with and gathered information about the foreign both as an official and as a common person. All in all, the present study is meant to build a basis for the future studies of Min shu and its contents in relation to the foreign countries and people as well as other understudied late Ming – early Qing geographical works.

This article is the first in the series of planned publications with translations of separate chapters from a Chinese historical-geographical description of foreign lands Daoyi zhilüe (“A Brief Description of Island Barbarians”, 1349/1350) written during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). The first four chapters of the treatise which describe policies on the eastern sea route from China are included in this work. The article offers the first translation of these chapters into Russian, accompanied by detailed historical commentary. Apart from that, in the research part of the article the author has briefly analyzed the order of the chapters in the treatise and compared it with the previous sources of similar nature. The translations are an important source for studying various aspects of the history of the Penghu islands, Taiwan and the Philippines in the 14th century AD.