THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSION OF BUROV’S RUSSIAN TRANSLATION OF THE INNER CANON

Abstract

In contemporary studies devoted to the history of the Russian-language translation and reception of the Huangdi Neijing, the key figure of the sinologist V.G. Burov is often only mentioned in passing or even directly ignored. Drawing on the systematization and analysis of relevant historical materials and employing the method of comparative textual analysis, this article seeks–on several levels, including the structure of the translation, terminological correspondences, translation strategies, and scholarly influence–to present in a systematic and comprehensive way the overall picture of the Neijing translation produced by V.G. Burov. The study shows that Burov’s translation and interpretation of the Huangdi Neijing for the first time shaped a Russian-language interpretive trajectory within which the theory of traditional Chinese medicine is articulated through a philosophical conceptual framework, thereby opening up an approach of “explaining medicine by means of philosophy.” His achievements in translation and interpretation not only created, in the Russian-speaking world, an important framework for understanding this classical text of traditional Chinese medicine, but also became an indispensable key historical source and scholarly point of reference for subsequent research.