Zelnitskiy Alexander D.

Languages:

• Russian (native)
• Classical Chinese (reading)
• English (reading)
• French (reading)

Education:

• 2001–2004 PhD Programme in Religion Studies, State Museum of the History of Religions. PhD thesis “Forms of “Religious Syncretism” in China” (defended in 2006 at SPbSU, supervisor Prof. Marina Kravtsova)
• 1998–2001 Undergraduate Programme in Religious Studies, Magister Diploma, Saint-Petersburg State University.
• 1995–2001 Undergraduate Programme in Religious Studies, Bachelor Diploma, Saint-Petersburg State University. 

Professional Positions: 

• Since 2024: Senior Lecturer, Department for Theory and Methods of Training in Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, SPbSU
• 2012–2024: Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy and Culture of the Orient, SPbSU
• 2008–2012: Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Studies and Philosophy, SPbSUSE
• 2006–2008: Junior Researcher, State Museum of the History of Religions

Professional and social activities:

• Convener, All-Russian conference Way of the East (1998–2017)
• Convener, All-Russian conference Torchinov readings (2004–2017, 2019, 2023)

Research interests:

• Chinese Religions (Buddhism, Daoism, Popular Religion),
• Chinese Culture,
• Anthropology of Religion

Teaching:

• Introduction to Chinese Studies
• History and Culture of Ancient China
• History and Culture of China in the 3rd to the 19th Centuries
• History of Culture of Countries and Peoples of the East
• Basic Components of East Asian Cultures
• History of Russian Sinology
• Ancient Chinese World-View Concepts and Mythology
• Introduction to the Analysis of Ancient Chinese Philosophical
• Texts
• Classical Indian Buddhism
• Introduction to Chinese Buddhism
• Introduction to History of Daoism
• Chinese Popular Beliefs and Religion in Contemporary China
• Chinese Philosophy of the End of the 19^th-20^th Centuries
• Indian and Chinese Philosophy
• Indian Religious Teachings in Russia Indian Religious Teachings in Russia of the 19^th–21^st Centuries

Publications: all 64, monographs – 1, collective monographs’ chapters – 4, reviews – 1, articles – 58

• Chinese “religious syncretism”. Saint-Petersburg: SPbUSE Pub, 2008. 139 p (in Russian)
• A brief outline of the state policy in the field of beliefs and rituals of the Tang dynasty in China (618–907), Vestnik of St. Petersburg State University, part 17, issue 1, march 2014, Saint-Petersburg: SPbSU Pub., pp. 65–75 (in Russian)
• Literary fantasy and “popular religion” in Imperial China // Asiatica: Works on philosophy and cultures of the East, issue 8, Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Philosophical Society Pub., 2014, pp. 70–75 (in Russian).
• On the problems of the historical reconstructing of Chinese popular cults // Asiatica: Works on philosophy and cultures of the East, issue 10, Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Philosophical Society Pub., 2016, pp. 69–79 (in Russian).
• The state policy in the field of the religious beliefs and rituals in the Song 宋 (960–1279) // Asiatica: Works on philosophy and cultures of the East, issue 12-2, Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Philosophical Society Pub., 2018, pp. 69–79. (in Russian), pp. 175–204 (in Russian).
• Imperial veneration of Lao-zi 老子 as the founder of Taoism and the ancestor of the dynasty in the text of the early Tang inscription (based on the “Record of the Monastery of the Ancestral Sage of the Grate Tang” Da tang zong sheng guan ji 大唐宗聖觀記) of 626” // State and Society in China, V. L., P. 2, Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, 2020, pp. 319–330 (in Russian).
• Imperial mith of Early Tang in the work of Ouyang Xun // Asiatica: Works on philosophy and cultures of the East, Issue 15-2, Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Philosophical Society Pub., 2021, pp. 66–89 (in Russian).
• The image of Taoism in the official early Tang dynasty’s inscription. On the material of the “Record of the Monastery of the Grate Tang Ancestral Sage” (Da tang zongsheng guan ji 大唐宗聖觀記) // Asiatica: Works on philosophy and cultures of the East, Issue 16-1, Saint-Petersburg: Saint-Petersburg Philosophical Society Pub., 2022 pp. 68–100 (in Russian)