West and East: the Power of (Non)Acquaintance and the Right “To Speak for Alien”

Abstract. The editorial article is devoted to the history of the genesis and evolution of concepts based on the East-West dichotomy. The attention of the authors is focused on the legacy of European intellectuals, who contributed to the construction of the images of the East as the Other. A special emphasis is laid on the creative work of I.W. Goethe and, first of all, on his poetic cycle “West-East Divan”, which can be viewed both as a consequence of the Europeans’ increased knowledge of the East, and as one of the reasons for the growing interest in it, which, in turn, influenced the genesis of Romanticism . The new European cultural self-identification gave rise to the need to be correlated with the Other, and the East was eminently suitable for the role. The article examines the cultural experience of German intellectuals, including orientalists, which significantly influenced Goethe’s oeuvre and his attitude towards the East. We consider Goethe’s “West-East Divan” not only as a way of orientalization of the East, but also as an outcome of value-based attitude toward a foreign culture, a desire to comprehend and acquire its achievements. The article also analyzes other Western interpretations of the West-East dichotomy, including the theoretical patterns by O. Spengler, A.J. Toynbee and S. Huntington. The article also explored some other concepts of the East, including the ideas based on the E.W. Said’s works, first – his book “Orientalism”. In addition, authors analyze contemporary heuristic potential of this concept, as well as today’s academic discussion on the relationship of Orientalism and Oriental studies.

Keywords: the East-West dichotomy, Goethe, Oriental studies, Orientalism, westernization, Other.