Kristie5701 at 16:11, 11 June 2025

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{{Short description|Russian Indologist (born 1957)}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Eugenia Yurevna Vanina
| native_name = Евгения Юрьевна Ванина
| native_name_lang = ru
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1957|12|24}}
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| citizenship = {{br separated entries|Soviet Union|Russia}}
| occupation = {{br separated entries|Historian|Indologist}}
| known_for = Historical processes, analysis of Indian texts
| spouse =
| relatives =
| awards =
| education = [[Doctor of Sciences|Doctor of Historical Sciences]]
| alma_mater = [[Institute of Asian and African Countries]], [[Moscow State University]]
| thesis_title = Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man (2006)
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year =
| doctoral_advisor =
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| discipline = {{br separated entries|Ethnography|History|Indology}}
| sub_discipline =
| workplaces = [[Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences]]
| main_interests =
| notable_works = Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries (1996)
}}
'''Eugenia Yurevna Vanina''' (born 24 December 1957) is a Russian Indologist, head of the History and Culture section and a researcher in the Centre for Indian Studies at the [[Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences]].<ref name=dale/> She is known for her analyses of textual material from north and central India, and her studies of historical processes.

==Life==
Eugenia Vanina studied at the [[University of Delhi]] between 1979 and 1980, training in [[Hindi]] and [[Sanskrit]].<ref name=dale>{{cite journal|journal=Journal of Islamic Studies|title=Medieval Indian Mindscapes by Eugenia Vanina|last=Dale|first=S.F.|year=2014|volume=26|number=1|page=80|doi=10.1093/jis/etu059 }}</ref> She defended her [[Candidate of Sciences]] thesis, titled ''Urban handicraft production in North India, 16th-18th centuries'' in 1984 at the [[Institute of Asian and African Countries]], [[Moscow State University]]. She obtained her higher doctoral degree of [[Doktor nauk]] in 2006 with her dissertation titled ''Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man''.

==Career==
Vanina's 1996 publication of ''Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries'' (an English language translation of her Russian volume from 1993) restricted the notion of 'medieval India' to the period between [[Akbar]] and the end of the [[Mughal Empire]], and was a comparative analysis of trends in Western Europe and India. She introduced her idea of social processes and noted that these drove society from feudalism to capitalism via new forms of authoritarianism. She compared the bhakti and Sufi tradition in India with the European reformation. The latter, she claimed, led to the abolition of feudalism, while the former, among other processes, led to the same in India only in the 19th century. These processes were, for example, the centralising worldly power of the Mughal emperor versus religious law.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=History: Reviews of New Books |volume=26|number=3|first=J.F.|last=Riddick|year=1998|title=Vanina, Eugenia, Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries}}</ref> Critics called her concept of social processes as 'nebulous', while the lack of attention to Timurid forms of governance and the concentration on Hindu traditions of rulership was also criticised.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Heitzman|first= J.| title=Eugenia Vanina, Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries | journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume=119 | issue=2 | year=1999 | issn=0003-0279 | doi=10.2307/606150 | page=360|jstor= 606150}}</ref>

In her work titled ''Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man'', Vanina stated that Marxist analyses concentrated on the socio-economic, ignoring the material and spiritual. To remedy the lacuna, Vanina applied social and cultural categories that implied that India between the 1st to the 18th centuries was feudal. Her comparison of the Indian worldview with that of the European suggested that both sets of societies underwent the same 'mental programme'. Her synthesis of the entire cultural development of medieval India as equivalent to 'feudal', however, was questioned by some critics, and her application of the Marxist notion of base and superstructure was criticised.<ref name=dale/> Meanwhile, other critics claimed that her proposed model of studying spaces as sacred places, cyclical time, hierarchical social estates, and the opposition of the individual versus society, is not coherent enough to establish her claimed similarity with Western feudalism. Vanina analysed the notion of 'feudalism' as applied to India, on the one hand rejecting it as insufficient from a historiographical perspective, while on the other, inferring from her overarching definition of 'man' and 'society' as essentially on par with feudalism. Critics nevertheless appreciated the insights drawn from her close readings from medieval texts, albeit with the caveat of their restriction to north and central India, and the lack of female voices.<ref name=sudan>{{cite journal | last=Sudan | first=M. | title=Eugenia Vanina. Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man.| journal=Itinerario | publisher=Cambridge University | volume=37 | issue=1 | year=2013 | issn=0165-1153 | doi=10.1017/s0165115313000326| s2cid=163171336 }}</ref>

==Selected works==
===Articles===
* {{cite journal | last=Vanina | first=E. | title=Urban Industries of Medieval India: Some Aspects of Development | journal=[[Studies in History]] | publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]] | volume=5 | issue=2 | year=1989 | issn=0257-6430 | doi=10.1177/025764308900500205 | pages=271–286| s2cid=161303692 }}
* {{cite journal | last=Vanina | first=E. | title=The Ardhakathanaka by Banarasi Das: a Socio-cultural Study | journal=[[Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society]] | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] (CUP) | volume=5 | issue=2 | year=1995 | issn=1356-1863 | doi=10.1017/s1356186300015352 | pages=211–224| s2cid=164014497 }}
* {{cite journal | last=Vanina | first=E. | title=India: The Whole and its Parts in Historical Perspective | journal=[[Indian Historical Review]] | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=28 | issue=1–2 | year=2001 | issn=0376-9836 | doi=10.1177/037698360102800206 | pages=84–110| s2cid=140390785 }}
* {{cite encyclopedia|title=Reforms and Modernization in the Eighteenth Century Deccan States|last=Vanina | first=E.|encyclopedia=Studies in History of the Deccan: Medieval and Modern|editor1=A.R. Kulkarni|editor2=M.A. Nayeem|editor3=A. Ray|editor4=K.S. Mathew|location=New Delhi|publisher=Pragati|year=2002|isbn= 9788173070754}}
* {{cite journal | last=Vanina | first=E. | title=Roads of (Mis)Understanding: European Travellers in India (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Century) | journal=Indian Historical Review | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=40 | issue=2 | year=2013 | issn=0376-9836 | doi=10.1177/0376983613499678 | pages=267–284| s2cid=143822799 }}
===Books===
* {{cite book|author=E. Vanina|title=Средневековое городское ремесло Индии, XIII—XVIII вв|location=Moscow|year=1991|isbn=5020168890}}
* {{cite book|author=E. Vanina|title=Идеи и общество в Индии XVI—XVIII вв.|trans-title=Ideas and Society: India Between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries|location=Moscow|publisher=[[Nauka (publisher)|Nauka]]|year=1993|isbn=5020176672}}
* {{cite book|author=E. Vanina|title=Средневековое мышление. Индийский вариант|location=Moscow|publisher=Vostochnaya Literatura|year=2007|isbn=9785020363267}}
* {{cite book|editor1=E. Vanina|editor2=D.N. Jha|title=Mind over Matter: Essays on Mentalities in Medieval India|location=Chennai|publisher=[[Tulika Books|Tulika]]|year=2009|isbn=9788189487478}}
* {{cite book|author=E. Vanina|title=Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man|location=New Delhi|publisher=Primus Books|year=2012|isbn=9789380607191}}

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanina, Eugenia}}


[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1957 births]]
[[Category:Russian Indologists]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian historians]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations]]
[[Category:21st-century Russian historians]]

Eugenia Vanina - Revision history

Kristie5701 at 16:11, 11 June 2025