BOOKS by Malaysian authors are stored not only at the Centre for Oriental Literature of the Russian State Library, but also at the All-Russian State Library for Foreign Literature.
But not every library visitor knows that these books are the result of more than 13 centuries of evolution of the Malay written language.
At the end of the seventh century, the first novels of Bana and Dandin appeared in India and the Arabs had just created the canonical edition of the Quran.
Meanwhile, South Sumatran state Srivijaya's ruler, Jayanasa, ordered to carve on stones the first ancient Malay inscriptions designed to glorify his Buddhist piety and strengthen the power of Srivijaya among the surrounding tribes, especially in the adjacent waters of the Strait of Malacca, through which the great trade route passed from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the borders of the Celestial Empire.
From the beginning of the 15th century, the Malay language became the conductor of Muslim influence in insular Southeast Asia, and court scribes and local theologians began to write in Malay using the Arabic alphabet.
The quickly developing traditional Malay literature consisted of numerous theological treatises, magical adventure stories, poems and royal genealogies.
Turning to their manuscripts written in sacred Arabic scripts, Malays drew confidence in their spiritual superiority over the Dutch and the English who had taken over their lands.
Nevertheless, the transition of the Malay (or Indonesian, as it began to be called in the Netherlands India) language, initiated by the colonialists, to a convenient Latin script remained in force after the proclamation of independent Indonesia (1945), and the Federation of Malaya (1957).
Multi-ethnic Malaysia is one of the few Asian states that pays great attention to the development of its national language and literature (according to the Constitution, the national language of Malaysia is Malay).
The development of the Malay language and literature was taken over by the generously funded Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), which performs numerous organisational, educational, translational and publishing functions.
DBP's central bookshop at the entrance to the spacious modern building of this unique institution is a real paradise for scientists dealing with the Malay world.
Suffice to say that the catalogue of DBP publications includes thousands of titles of books on various branches of knowledge, dictionaries, works of art, literature for children and adolescents, and this is not counting school textbooks, encyclopaedias, and journals on Malay history and culture.
The main partner of DBP in Russia for a long time was the All-Russian State Library for Foreign Literature named after M.I. Rudomino.
Book exchange began almost half a century ago. It is not surprising, therefore, that today about half of the Malaysian library collection consists of DBP publications.
In December 1992, then DBP director-general Datuk Jumaat Mohd Nor visited the library and donated about 60 new books to the library.
These publications, as well as the DBP publications received in 1987, exhibited before that at the Moscow International Book Fair, are accessible to the readers of the library.
And on April 21, 2003, then DBP director-general Datuk Abdul Aziz Deraman visited the library to participate in the presentation of his book, The Poet's Wanderings, translated into Russian.
Malay books, images of Malay-sia, sheltered under the roof of the library of Foreign Ministry in Moscow, speak of a beautiful distant country and its culture, which is becoming more and more known to Russians.
The writer, writing from Russia, is a former lecturer of Universiti Malaya