ATU Enhances Academic Collaborations with Saint Petersburg University

On Munday, 1 June 2015, Dr. Hossein Salimi, President of Allameh Tabataba’i University (ATU), together with a group pf ATU officials, had a visit to Saint Petersburg University (SPbU) of Russia. In this meeting, an MoU for cooperation was signed and the parties discussed the possibilities of holding joint cultural conferences between Iran and Russia.

During this meeting, Dr. Alexander Zapisotsky, SPbU President and Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences pointed to the active cooperation of the two nations and expressed his willingness to strengthen cultural and scientific collaborations between ATU and SPbU, saying: “The greatest obstacle in the way of enhancing the cooperation between the two universities is our unfamiliarity with the languages of each other. Then, we should move in a way that our relations be established and developed in our native tongues.”

In response to Dr. Zapistosky’s suggestion to understand the legal structures of the two nations, Dr. Salimi offered a brief introduction to ATU and its decisive role in resolving the socio-political crises, and insisted on furthering studies in such fields saying: “Currently, our jurists are not familiar with the legal models of each other and we are willing to conduct joint studies in this field.” He added: “setting up a joint committee to hold conferences and seminars in the field of cultural commonalities of Iran and Russia will be of great help.”

In a subsequent meeting, on the same day, with Dr. Alexey Zavarzin, SPbU Press Secretary, discussed the possible grounds for enhancing academic relations of the two universities. Zavarzin, pointing to the establishment of Orientalism in SPbU, dated the study of Persian in this university to more than 200 years.

Dr. Salimi then reminded the participants of the differences in Eastern and Western Orientalism, saying: “our view is different from the Western Orientalism: in western studies, there is a looking-down-on process, while we believe that the eastern culture and civilization rejects this view.” He then maintained that the Russian academia could better collaborate with us in this regard.