The fifth Conference of the European Association for South - East Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) was organized by the University of Naples "L'Orientale" under the leadership of the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Conference P. Masina and the Board of the Association headed by P.-I. Man-

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Geng, Chairman of EuroSEAS from 2004 to 2007. The conference was held from 11 to 15 September 2007 in Naples. It was attended by more than 400 scientists from European countries, as well as from Southeast Asian countries, Japan, India, China, Australia, the United States and Brazil.

The conference was divided into 38 sections with a wide variety of topics: "Spiritualized modernity: religions of prosperity and the politics of cultural identity in modern Asia"; "Political economy of new regionalism in East Asia"; "Tradition and innovation: disputes about the South-East Asian representation"; "Demonstrating desire in public spaces"; "South-East Asian collections in European museums"; "The concept of the "East" in law and Justice administration"; "Public networks and the transition to Southeast Asia: empirical, methodological and theoretical issues"; "National identity, local medicine and the appropriation of the therapeutic field"; "The State and lawlessness in Indonesia"; "Interethnic Activism in Southeast Asia"; "AIDS in Southeast Asia and China: Recent Achievements and New Changes"; "Public Views on Natural Disasters in Southeast Asia"; "Normalization of Religion in Southeast Asia"; "Ten Years after the Asia-Pacific Financial Crisis"; "Politeness and Public Relations in Southeast Asia"; " Literature - cinema and visual arts: visibility and transition of genres"; "round table ""Teaching Southeast Asian languages at European universities: state of affairs, prospects and prospects". ways for bilateral / multilateral cooperation"; "Nations and Imagination"; "Living in Memory: Homes, History, and the Social / Natural Environment in Southeast Asia"; "Slaves in the Inscriptions of Ancient Cambodia"; "First Encounters at Sea: A Maritime SOUTHEAST between West and East"; "The Cold War in Asia". Southeast 1945-1990: New Sources and Interpretations"; "Cultural Policy in the ASEAN Region"; "Women's Movements in Southeast Asia"; " East Timor: how to Create a New Nation in Southeast Asia in the 21st century"; "Memory: Social Consciousness and Transference"; "Locality at a Price: Ambiguous Strategies for Access to Land and Natural resources in Southeast Asia"; "Post-conflict Ace Policies: a Comprehensive analysis and Comparative perspectives"; " Why process? Understanding Past and Present Choices, a Return to agriculture in Southeast Asia"; "Long-term Conflicts - opposition to Autocratic centers and Sustainability of ethnic minority Communities in Southeast Asia"; "Pre-Modern Settlement Processes in Southeast Asia"; "Transforming Islam and Politics: about Pluralism and Religiosity in Southeast Asia"; " Democracy in Southeast Asia: Internal and External Dynamics"'Tender and Islam in Southeast Asia' " Taksin-ok pai! Political crisis in Thailand 2006"Redefined Borders: Reasserting Nation States in Modern Southeast Asia"; "Women Writers and Southeast Asia"; "Traditional Education and Apprenticeship Systems in Southeast Asia".

In addition to scientific sections, the conference included a business seminar on "Economic Cooperation with Southeast Asia".

At the opening of the conference, the Rector of Naples Oriental University P. Sirielo, the Chairman of the Board of EuroSEAS P.-I. Mangan, the Mayor of Naples Russo Gervolino, the Ambassadors of Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam to Italy addressed the forum participants with greetings. P.-I. Mangan considered, in particular, the further development of the Association, noting its fundamental contribution to the study of Southeast Asia and relations with other countries.

Speakers at the conference included F. Mazzei, Dean of the Faculty of Asia at the University of Naples Orientale, J.-L. Morer, President of the European Association of Research and Training Institutes (EADI), T. Incarnacien Tadem, Director of the Center for Third World Studies at the University of the Philippines, and F.-M. Greco, former Italian Ambassador to Indonesia and lecturer at the University of Naples Orientale.

F. Mazzei expressed the idea of revising world history and reorienting it to the East. From his point of view, the West had nothing to offer the East before the beginning of the nineteenth century, and therefore the East was the center of world development. The West has been dominant for almost two centuries, but now everything is back to normal. The speaker's argument was based on well-known facts and did not contain anything fundamentally new in comparison with the material collected by our colleague A. M. Petrov in his brilliant works on economic relations between the East and the West. F. Mazzei was based theoretically on the works of E. Said and did not pay attention to the reasons for the rise of the West at the beginning of the XIX century.

The topic of J.-L. Morer's speech is the history of EuroSEAS. He especially emphasized the contribution to its creation and development of the late D. Lombard, one of the most prominent historians and social scientists of France in the second half of the 20th century, a major organizer of international conferences and a deep expert on Javanese history.

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T. I. Tadem touched upon the issues of economic relations between Southeast Asia and China: is Southeast Asia an independent player, a center in the international arena, or is it a subordinate link in the Asia-Pacific region, where China dominates? If we expand the subject of consideration, we can even talk about "Chindia" - "China + India" as the dominants of world development.

F. - M. Greco considered the development trends of the region, suggesting avoiding both excessive pessimism and overly joyful optimism about the prospects of Southeast Asia on the world stage. While he does not share the gloomy forecasts for the final subordination of Southeast Asia to China, he believes that this can be avoided only by developing common solutions to a whole range of problems at the ASEAN level. Only on the path of further integration does Southeast Asia have an independent future.

Further work of the conference was carried out in sections. The author of this review managed to visit only a few of them. The section "Slaves in the inscriptions of ancient Cambodia" was organized by E. Bourdonet from the French School of the Far East (Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient-EFEO) and G. Gersheimer from the Practical School of Higher Studies, France (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-EPHE).

E. Bourdonet's report "Slavery in the recent historiography of ancient Cambodia" opened the session of the section. Bourdonet noted that while the term knum was clearly interpreted as "slave" in early works on the history of ancient and medieval Cambodia, now historians and epigraphists are asking themselves: what is slave and slavery as a form of dependence in the proper sense of the word? Based on ethnographic data, it can be concluded that many forms of dependence existed in Southeast Asia, so solving the issue of slavery requires the formulation of a minimalist definition of the concept of "slavery" as such. Although the use of comparative data from other societies that knew the institution of slavery continues to be mandatory for scholars, it is desirable to explain the accepted assumptions about what would be called slavery in relation to the documents on ancient Cambodia under study.

S. Sahai (Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla) argued that the Western concept of "slave" cannot be applied to all cases of mentioning Sanskrit and Ancient Khmer terms, usually translated as "slave". These terms (dasa and knum in the first place) do not mean "slave" in the Western sense. It is necessary to study the various forms of attracting labor resources (labor force) in ancient Cambodia.

G. Gersheimer drew attention to " foreign slaves "(exogenous slavery), which are given to the deity, i.e. it means the transfer of wealth to the deity by the giver/donor. This, according to G. Gersheimer, indicates the transfer of ownership (svatva) (this theory was developed in India). The researcher believes that attention to this procedure helps clarify the status of a slave and the essence of slavery in ancient Cambodia.

D. Soutif (Paris-III, France) in his report "Counting the slaves" drew attention to the lists of temple servants classified as "God's possession". These servants, according to data from the Lolei temple complex (late 11th century), were equated with the rest of the property. D. Godal (EFEO, France) devoted a report to the study of Shaivite onomastics in the inscriptions of ancient Cambodia. J. Estev (ERNE, France) emphasized the role of Buddhist terms in identifying various forms of dependence, finding in one of the inscriptions the term aramika ("gardener").

E. Bourdonet made another report on the evolution of the meanings of the terms lon and ten. Up to the end of the eleventh century, they referred to high-ranking officials who were descendants of the ruling dynasty, whereas during the so-called Mahidharapura dynasty, which began with Jayavarman VI in 1080, they were used to indicate the dependent status of the population assigned to temples, primarily connecting with the term knum. According to the researcher, this is evidence of a "deep political and social revolution", which led to the loss of their position by a significant part of the old aristocrats.

The section "Pre-modern settlement processes in Southeast Asia" was organized by P.-I. Mangan (EFEO and Centre Asie du Sud-Est, CNRS-EHESS) and M. Charras (Centre Asie du Sud-Est, CNRS-EHESS).

Maciar Falarti (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), in his report "Pre-modern Malay control of sea routes of communication: the case of Kedah", concluded that the power of the ruler and the sea nomad communities (orang laut) are closely linked. Kedah was located on the Malacca Peninsula. It is the joint actions of the ruler of Kedah and vo-

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the sea nomad camps provided the first of them with control over the sea routes. The significant role of laksamana, the chief of the fleet of Kedah, who is often referred to in the sources as panglima laut or raja di - laut ("king of the seas"), as an intermediary between the ruler and the leaders of the sea nomads, was established. Kedah of the 17th and 19th centuries has many similarities with other maritime polities of Southeast Asia: the Sultanate of Johor and the earlier Malacca Sultanate. The peculiarity of Kedah lies in its connections with the marine communities of various regions of Southeast Asia: with the Bugas of Sulawesi and people from Siak in East Sumatra or from the Southern Philippines. To ensure the loyalty of the sea nomads, the rulers of Kedah resorted to magical means, most notably the minum sumpah oath, which resembles the well-known Srivijaya custom.

A. O. Zakharov (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) made a presentation on "The theory of the city-state and Srivijaya". A comparative analysis of the theoretical model of the city-state developed by M. Hansen and empirical data on the ancient Malay polity of Srivijaya was proposed. According to the researcher, the considered theoretical model cannot be applied to Srivijaya. While it is possible to speak with certain assumptions about the "capital city" of Srivijaya in Palembang, it is extremely difficult to talk about the "state" of Srivijaya: there is no evidence of the existence of an administrative apparatus, personal connections clearly prevailed over any kind of formal ones (at least a significant part of the population was mobile, judging by written sources). To describe the political structure of the ancient Malay kingdom, the concept of "city-polity"is formulated. A. O. Zakharov also noted the general weakness of the city-state theory, which is based on an excessive interest in the ideal-typical way of categorizing phenomena.

In his report "Peneplen settlements of South Sumatra in the prehistoric and Srivijayan era", P.-I. Mangan introduced the audience to the materials of his long-term archaeological research. Numerous structures and statues dating from both the first centuries of the New Era and the time of the emergence of ancient Malay polity - VI-VII centuries were found. From the first half of the 1st millennium AD, tile graves, megalithic structures and ceramics have come down. Buddha statues have been discovered in Sarawak. Interestingly, the coast of Sumatra looks empty: archaeologists have not been able to find any evidence of this time. According to Mangan, the political structures of the time were chiefdoms. Turning to the era of Srivijaya's origin and development, the researcher noted that many ceramic products of Chinese origin testify to the important role of trade in the life of Srivijaya. Palembang was undoubtedly the center of polity in its early days. Numerous "places" (sites) on a narrow section in the Musi River valley with a length of 12 km are archaeologically attested. In Karang Brahi, one of the places where Srivijaya inscriptions were discovered, settlements, monuments, and ceramics were excavated. The Buddhist religion really prevailed in Srivijaya: statues of Buddha and Avalokiteshvara were found (although a VI-century Vishnu temple was found in Kota Kapoor on Banka Island). Quite numerous chandis were also found. VIII and the beginning of the IX century looks rather mysterious: no evidence of this time has been found, whereas in the IX-XII centuries. The settlement system is developing again, and in the 11th century its center moved to the Batang Hari Valley, where the ancient Melayu/Jambi center was located.

M. Sharras spoke about Hinterland (district) Palembang and its significance for the emergence and development of Srivijaya. In her opinion, the presence of gold and benzoin, as well as aromatic resins, may have contributed to the rise of Palembang as the center of polity, while sago and rice, beginning in the 13th century, provided the population of Srivijaya with a stable food supply. Sago was used to make bread in the form of puddings and unleavened tortillas. However, the report of M. Sharras did not mention the coconut palm, which also served as food for the inhabitants of Srivijaya.

The report of S. Sahai, who already spoke at the Angkor section (see above), was officially devoted to the settlement system of Angkor Cambodia, but in reality was a story about the whole of Southeast Asia in the presentation of the speaker. An important point of his message: the foundation of the city always began with the foundation and construction of a temple / temple complex. Another observation also looks promising: in the inscriptions of the Angkor Empire, examples of buying and selling temples are known, which is subject to further research. Discussing the report, P.-I. Mangan noted that the ancient Malay settlement systems led him to the conclusion that there were "cities on the water", in which, however, the center was a temple or sanctuary on a mountain, as exemplified by the sacred Bukit Shoguntang hill in Palembang.

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F. N. Krovolsky and Nguyen Tung (Centre Asie du Sud-Est, CNRS-EHESS, France) presented a report on the history of the Vietnamese province of Quang Nam and especially its role in the history of the Vietnamese " campaign to the south "(nam tiet). A. -B. Schweyer (Centre Asie du Sud-Est, CNRS-EHESS, France) turned to the inscriptions of ancient Champa to answer the question about the expression of the territorial expansion of the state in them. But her report was more concerned with the characteristics of the body of inscriptions itself. E. Burley (Centre Asie du Sud-Est, CNRS-EHESS, France) presented a report on the ancient kingdom of the Mao Kausambi people, focusing on archaeological excavations in Upper Burma. Based on these data, we can speak of a high degree of urbanization of Mao society in comparison with the modern Pagan Kingdom (XI-XIII centuries): the first capital of Mao, Selan, covers an area of 125 hectares, while Pagan cities on average had an area of 25-30 hectares.

In the section "Literature-Cinema-Visual arts: visibility and the transition of genres", we will mention three presentations. V. I. Braginsky (School of Asian and African Studies, London) drew the attention of the audience to the Sufi concept of visibility and "illuminating effects" in Malay narratives. S. S. Kuznetsova (London) showed the transition and interpenetration of genres in different languages. E. S. Kukushkina (ISAA at Moscow State University, Russia) has researched visualization models in contemporary Malay drama, primarily in the works of Samad Said and Nordin Hasan, based on the famous chronicle "The History of Java" (Babad Tanah Jawi) and films based on the plot of this Javanese text made by Indonesian directors.

The EuroSEAS General Assembly was held as part of the conference. A new board was formed and the Chairman and Secretary of the association were elected. They were the organizer of the conference in Naples P. Masina and his assistant M. Serimele. Russia is represented on the Board of EuroSEAS by V. V. Sumsky (IMEMO) and V. N. Kolotov (Faculty of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg State University). The author of this review joined the Association at a conference in Naples. The next EuroSEAS conference will be held in 2010, presumably in Germany.

Summing up, it can be argued that participation in the Fifth EuroSEAS Conference was extremely useful for the scientific growth of all speakers and the development of scientific ties with colleagues.

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