'What role for theory in historiography?' is a question historians constantly ruminate on. When I was at school in the UK, there were generally reckoned to to be four "schools" of historiography through which historians interpreted British history, namely Whig/Liberal, Marxist, Revisionist, Post-Revisionist.
For the uninitiated Whig/Liberal (as I understand it ...) meant the teleological interpretation of the passage of British history which viewed all events in the socio-political sphere after the Norman Conquest (1066) as constituting a progressive march towards multi-party democracy, the rule of law, and individual liberties.
It was initially interpreted as a slow reaction/revolution against the so-called "Norman Yoke", the imposition of which had traduced Anglo-Saxon monarchical traditions and the concept of Common Law. Consequently, the Magna Carta was viewed as the first step in the restitution of private property and the reigning in of extra-judicial Royal powers; the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of the Republic and later Commonwealth affirmed the right of Parliament to raise taxes and levies independently of the monarch; the Bill of Rights of 1689 defined basic rights for Englishmen; and the Reform Act of 1832 revolutionized parliamentary representation, empowered the newly-industrialized areas at the expense of the landowning classes, and swept away the old system of "rotten boroughs." Or something like that ... you catch my drift.
For many, many years, this was *the* widely accepted narrative for the teaching and understand of British history, and was associated with the platforms of the Whig and Liberal parties, until it was skewered by Herbert Butterfield in his tidy polemic, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931). By which time, political and intellectual trends had begun to challenge traditional notions of historiography.
Marxist historians, as befitting their background in the socio-economic theories of their hirsute and whiskery fountainhead, viewed many of the events in British history - and here I use "British" as opposed to simply "English" - as products of struggle between the classes following revolutions in modes of production. R. H. Tawney wasn't explicitly a Marxist (he was by all accounts a Christian socialist), but he was inspired by Max Weber - who most definitely was a Marxist - and his works such as The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912) and 'The Rise of the Gentry, 1558-1640', Economic History Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (1941) opened up new avenues for like-minded historians to explore major events in British history through the prism of economics. Christopher Hill and Lawrence Stone explored similar themes
This segues into Revisionist historiography, which some people take to mean "Contrarian" or "Counterfactual", but is a shade more complex than that. At its best, it adopted the theories and methodologies pioneered by the Marxist historians, took side-swipes at the sacred cows of the Whig/Liberals, but - as the name suggests - looked for new interpretations of accepted narratives.
The classic example was the reinterpretation of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. As it was largely taught to me, the Treaty was too harsh in its punitive measures against Germany, and played nursemaid to the economic and social conditions that resulted in the rise of Nazism. Such views were widespread early on, not least in John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919).
However, more recent revisionist interpetations have argued that the Treaty was in fact highly lenient - see Corelli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (2002). In a similar vein, revisionist historians argued that the policy of Appeasement and Munich Agreement were far from the acts of political cowardice and weakness portrayed by Churchill and others, but rather policies of expediency and acts minor political genius.
Eventually, the Post-Revisionists appeared on the scene, positing themselves somewhere in between all three of the above mentioned groups, generally eschewing political or methodological biases, and preferring instead measured conclusions based on judicious interpretation of the source material ... and shouldn't that be the preferred methodology of all historians?
Finally, I reach the point of this post. I am a product of my education, and as a would-be historian my formative teenage years were spent in fields (17th Century Britain and Europe) very different to the ones I now frolic in (15th Century Central Asia). Moreover, my current region and period of focus has been largely untouched by the major theoretical and methodological developments in Asian history of the past 30 years of so, to wit Post-Colonialism, 'Orientalism', Subaltern Studies, 'the Cambridge School', and Micro-history, to name the most prominent. On top of that, Central Asian studies in America and Europe has benefited immensely from the opening up of libraries, archives and sites of historical interest in the Post-Soviet space which were previously inaccessible.
In the past few years, historians of Central Asia - and not least those who focus on the periods of Tsarist (1865-1917) and early Soviet (1917-41) rule - have begun to discuss the study of the region in terms commonly used in, say, the study of British-ruled India or French colonial Algeria. Debates about the applicability of Post-colonial theory to the study of Central Asian history, or the usefulness of Saidian (i.e. inspired by Edward Said, Orientalism) memes e.g. Tsarist geographical expeditions as tools of imperial rule, have appeared in the journals.
Such debates are impassioned and inspiring but, like the trends outlined above, they can lead to ossification, stagnation and a certain kind of groupthink in the halls of acadme. Historians grounded in the study of Russia, Russians, and the Russian language (for example ...), need to learn to engage with Central Asia for Central Asia's sake. Theories explaing the rise and consolidation of, say, the Manghits in Bukhara should be grounded in close analysis and interpretation of the sources for that period and place.
Similarly, an understanding of early Russian attempts to impose Imperial systems of taxation and law in the Steppe or Ferghana valley need to based on a solid understanding of pre-Imperial norms (if such things even existed). Foucault - much beloved Foucault - remarked words to the effect that the solution to the problem of global and hegemonic discourses was to found in the "Local".
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Nawa'i Scholarship (1)
Part of the process of researching Nawa'i includes, of course, engaging with previous scholarship. It is an onerous task: major monographs and articles have appeared in Russian, Uzbek, Turkish, Persian, German, French, Tajik ... and so on. Curiously, little is available in English - it's a similar situation that alluded to in an earlier post, when I was bemoaning the paucity of English-language translations of Mir 'Ali Shir.
I've recently been loaned by my advisor a volume written by the Soviet orientalist E. E. Bertel's, simply titled Navoi: opit tvorcheskoy biografii [Navoi: An experiment in creative biography] (Moscow/Leningrad: Academy of Sciences, 1948). Bertel's was one of the leading Russian orientalists of the 20th century, despite the obvious political and philosophical constraints placed upon him by the Soviet system, which often required scholars to bend their conclusions to match the prevailing ideological trends.
Bertel's has made an attempt here at a scholarly biography, but with (on the face of it) a populist slant. However, I should refrain from making judgment until I've actually, well, read it.
Bertel's also wrote a similar work on Jami, and it's the relationship between Jami and Nawa'i that is the focus of the latest phase of my research. I'm also holding onto a volume edited by the late Uzbek scholar Asom Urunbaev, entitled Pis'ma-avtografi Abdarrahmana Djami iz "Al'boma Navoi" [Signed letters of Abdurrahman Jami from the "Navoi Album"] (Tashkent: Fan, 1982).
It consists of (Russian) translations from the Persian of letters written by Jami, taken from the so-called Nava'i Album' of collected letters (Ms. of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, no. 2178). Some of these letters were quoted from in Nawa'i's composition Khamsat al-Mutahayyirin, his memoir of his friendship with Jami.
I've recently been loaned by my advisor a volume written by the Soviet orientalist E. E. Bertel's, simply titled Navoi: opit tvorcheskoy biografii [Navoi: An experiment in creative biography] (Moscow/Leningrad: Academy of Sciences, 1948). Bertel's was one of the leading Russian orientalists of the 20th century, despite the obvious political and philosophical constraints placed upon him by the Soviet system, which often required scholars to bend their conclusions to match the prevailing ideological trends.
Bertel's has made an attempt here at a scholarly biography, but with (on the face of it) a populist slant. However, I should refrain from making judgment until I've actually, well, read it.
Bertel's also wrote a similar work on Jami, and it's the relationship between Jami and Nawa'i that is the focus of the latest phase of my research. I'm also holding onto a volume edited by the late Uzbek scholar Asom Urunbaev, entitled Pis'ma-avtografi Abdarrahmana Djami iz "Al'boma Navoi" [Signed letters of Abdurrahman Jami from the "Navoi Album"] (Tashkent: Fan, 1982).
It consists of (Russian) translations from the Persian of letters written by Jami, taken from the so-called Nava'i Album' of collected letters (Ms. of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, no. 2178). Some of these letters were quoted from in Nawa'i's composition Khamsat al-Mutahayyirin, his memoir of his friendship with Jami.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
The Historic Nawa'i (1)
part of my research ... well, *part* of it now - probably most of it in the near future - involves examining how successive generations of poets engaged with and responded to Nawa'i's literary legacy. Quite simply, it means reading reams of late medieaval Turkic poetry (Central Asian or Ottoman) and identifying occasions on which poets either responded directly to Nawa'i - usually through the medium of often through the poetic form known as mukhammas, a five-line poem usually written in response to another - or by alluding to him in their poetry.
An example of the latter can be found in the poetry of the noted Khorezmian historian Shīr Muhammad Mīrāb bin ‘Awaḍ Biy Mīrāb al-Khīwaqī (1192/1778-1244/1829), or simply (and more commonly) Mu’nis. Nawa'i's works are known to have been on the curriculum (such as it was) in Central Asian madrassas by the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Examples of Nawa'i's works copied by Munis himself today survive in Central Asian collections.
References
V. A. Abdullaev, O’zbek Adabiyoti Tarixi II: XVII asrdan XIX asrning ikkinchi yarimgacha [History of Uzbek Literature, II: From the 17th Century to the Second Half of the 19th Century], (Tashkent: O’qituvchi, 1967).
Q. Munirov, Munis, Ogahiy va Bayonining Tarikhiy Asarlari [The works of history by Munis, Agahi and Bayani], (Tashkent: Uzbekistan SSR Academy of Sciences, 1960).
Gerhard Schoeler and Munibar Rahman, ‘Musammaṭ’, EI², VII (1993), pp. 660-2.
An example of the latter can be found in the poetry of the noted Khorezmian historian Shīr Muhammad Mīrāb bin ‘Awaḍ Biy Mīrāb al-Khīwaqī (1192/1778-1244/1829), or simply (and more commonly) Mu’nis. Nawa'i's works are known to have been on the curriculum (such as it was) in Central Asian madrassas by the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Examples of Nawa'i's works copied by Munis himself today survive in Central Asian collections.
References
V. A. Abdullaev, O’zbek Adabiyoti Tarixi II: XVII asrdan XIX asrning ikkinchi yarimgacha [History of Uzbek Literature, II: From the 17th Century to the Second Half of the 19th Century], (Tashkent: O’qituvchi, 1967).
Q. Munirov, Munis, Ogahiy va Bayonining Tarikhiy Asarlari [The works of history by Munis, Agahi and Bayani], (Tashkent: Uzbekistan SSR Academy of Sciences, 1960).
Gerhard Schoeler and Munibar Rahman, ‘Musammaṭ’, EI², VII (1993), pp. 660-2.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Diversions (1)
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not reading/studying Mir 'Ali Sir all the time - just most of it ... but that's by the by. By way of distraction, and in order to hone my reading and translating skills vis à vis Chaghatay Turkic, I've been working through some materials available online at Harvard University's Islamic Heritage Project.
One is Janāb-i Ba-davlatnī hikāyātlārī ('Tales of the Blessed Lord'), an account of Ya'qub Beg's rule, written by Aḥmad Qulī Andījānī in 1322 AH/AD 1904-05. As manuscripts go, it's fairly easy to read and comprehend; indeed, as literary stylings go, it's pretty banal. Moreover it was one of the works consulted by Hodong Kim for his - as we like to say in these parts - 'seminal' study of Ya'qub Beg and related revolts against Qing rule in Xinjiang during the 1860s and 1870s, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 (Stanford University Press, 2004).
Available through the same avenue of research is a collection of 13 Central Asian documents from the 16th-19th centuries, in Persian or Chaghatay. Most of them appear to originate from Samarqand, Kashgar or Yarkend ... and, because the world is arranged this way, they are the subject of a study by - Hodong Kim, published as a chapter in a collection of conference proceedings, entitled Studies on Xinjiang Historical Sources in 17-20th Centuries, edited by James Millward, Shinmen Yasushi and Sugawara Jun, under the auspices of the Toyo Bunko. Hodong Kim's chapter ('Eastern Turki Royal Decrees of the 17th century in the Jarring Collection') compares the Harvard copies with those held, as the chapter title indicates, in the collection of the noted Swedish orientalist, Gunnar Jarring.
One is Janāb-i Ba-davlatnī hikāyātlārī ('Tales of the Blessed Lord'), an account of Ya'qub Beg's rule, written by Aḥmad Qulī Andījānī in 1322 AH/AD 1904-05. As manuscripts go, it's fairly easy to read and comprehend; indeed, as literary stylings go, it's pretty banal. Moreover it was one of the works consulted by Hodong Kim for his - as we like to say in these parts - 'seminal' study of Ya'qub Beg and related revolts against Qing rule in Xinjiang during the 1860s and 1870s, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 (Stanford University Press, 2004).
Available through the same avenue of research is a collection of 13 Central Asian documents from the 16th-19th centuries, in Persian or Chaghatay. Most of them appear to originate from Samarqand, Kashgar or Yarkend ... and, because the world is arranged this way, they are the subject of a study by - Hodong Kim, published as a chapter in a collection of conference proceedings, entitled Studies on Xinjiang Historical Sources in 17-20th Centuries, edited by James Millward, Shinmen Yasushi and Sugawara Jun, under the auspices of the Toyo Bunko. Hodong Kim's chapter ('Eastern Turki Royal Decrees of the 17th century in the Jarring Collection') compares the Harvard copies with those held, as the chapter title indicates, in the collection of the noted Swedish orientalist, Gunnar Jarring.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Nawa'i MSS (3)
Earlier posts alluded to a) the lack of English translations of Nawa'i's works, and b) the production of scholarly editions in (mostly) Uzbekistan and Turkey. However, as libraries and archives get stuck into the arduous process of digitizing their collections, it is to be hoped that the manuscript copies themselves will become accessible online - preferably without having to pay for the privilege, but we can but hope.
One good example is the University of Michigan, which has made available for download (courtesy of the excellent Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan project)an early 19th-century copy of the Khamsa-i Nawa'i. Composed during 888-890 AH/AD 1483-85, this is a quintet of mathnawīs modeled on Persian works by Niẓāmī, Amīr Khusraw and Jāmī; Nawa'i's was the first in the genre to be written in Chaghatay Turkic. The five parts are:
I.) Ḥayrat al-Abrār
II.) Farhād va Shīrīn
III.) Laylī va Majnūn
IV.) Sab‘a-yi Sayyār
V.) Saddi Iskandarī
This particular copy comes from the Abdulhamid Collection at UM, so-called because it belonged to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909). The name of the copyist and the date of copying is given at the end of the text: Sahib Shaykh Khatib, 1245 AH (AD 1829/30).
I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to examine the ms., but on the face of it, it is a very good copy, made in a clear and tidy hand, with relatively few blemishes or major lacunae.
One good example is the University of Michigan, which has made available for download (courtesy of the excellent Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan project)an early 19th-century copy of the Khamsa-i Nawa'i. Composed during 888-890 AH/AD 1483-85, this is a quintet of mathnawīs modeled on Persian works by Niẓāmī, Amīr Khusraw and Jāmī; Nawa'i's was the first in the genre to be written in Chaghatay Turkic. The five parts are:
I.) Ḥayrat al-Abrār
II.) Farhād va Shīrīn
III.) Laylī va Majnūn
IV.) Sab‘a-yi Sayyār
V.) Saddi Iskandarī
This particular copy comes from the Abdulhamid Collection at UM, so-called because it belonged to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909). The name of the copyist and the date of copying is given at the end of the text: Sahib Shaykh Khatib, 1245 AH (AD 1829/30).
I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to examine the ms., but on the face of it, it is a very good copy, made in a clear and tidy hand, with relatively few blemishes or major lacunae.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Nawa'i MSS (2)
Earlier this year I compiled for the purposes of a term paper an initial handlist of Nawa'i MSS worldwide. I identified over 680 copies of Mir 'Ali Shir's Persian and Turkic works in libraries and archives throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia. The oldest dated from his lifetime (i.e. the 2nd half of the 15th cent.) and the most recent from just before WWII (1939, to be precise). As the focus of the survey was on handcopied mss, I excluded lithographic and printed editions of his works.
The survey revealed two trends: first, that his works rapidly spread as far afield as the Ottoman Empire, India and eastern Moghulistan (counterminous to modern-day Xinjiang) within a couple of decades of his death, facilitated by diplomatic and cultural exchanges between the Ottomans, Safavids, early Mughals and rulers of eastern Turkestan; abd second, that there appears to have been a huge increase in the copying of his works from around 1800 - or, to put it another way, we have more copies of his works made between 1800 and 1900 than were made between 1500 and 1800 put together.
I'm still working on the handlist, as I missed several major collections and archives in Turkey, and also did not cover India or China in my survey, so for the moment I'll offer up a few readings which explore the cultural exchanges between Central Asia and neighbouring regions from 1500 onward.
Suggested Readings
Beisembiev, T. K., ‘Farghana’s Contacts with India in the 18th and 19th Centuries (According to the Khoqand Chronicles)’, Journal of Asian History, vol. 28, no.2 (1994), pp. 124-35.
Birnbaum, E., ‘The Ottomans and Chaghatay Literature’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 20, no. 3 (1976), pp. 157-190.
Dale, S. F., ‘The Legacy of the Timurids’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, vol. 8, no. 1 (1998), pp. 43-58.
Foltz, R., ‘Cultural Contacts between Central Asia and Mughal India’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 42, no. 1 (1998), pp. 44-65.
Schimmel, A., ‘Some Notes on the Cultural Activity of the First Uzbek Rulers’, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, vol. 8, no. 3 (1960).
Soucek, P., ‘Persian Artists in Mughal India: Influences and Transformations’, Muqarnas, vol. 4 (1987), pp. 161-181.
Subtelny, M. E., ‘Art and Politics in Early 16th Century Central Asia’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 27, nos 1-2 (1983), pp. 121-148.
Tanindi, Z., ‘Additions to Illustrated Manuscripts in Ottoman Workshops’, Muqarnas, vol. 17 (2000), pp. 147-161.
The survey revealed two trends: first, that his works rapidly spread as far afield as the Ottoman Empire, India and eastern Moghulistan (counterminous to modern-day Xinjiang) within a couple of decades of his death, facilitated by diplomatic and cultural exchanges between the Ottomans, Safavids, early Mughals and rulers of eastern Turkestan; abd second, that there appears to have been a huge increase in the copying of his works from around 1800 - or, to put it another way, we have more copies of his works made between 1800 and 1900 than were made between 1500 and 1800 put together.
I'm still working on the handlist, as I missed several major collections and archives in Turkey, and also did not cover India or China in my survey, so for the moment I'll offer up a few readings which explore the cultural exchanges between Central Asia and neighbouring regions from 1500 onward.
Suggested Readings
Beisembiev, T. K., ‘Farghana’s Contacts with India in the 18th and 19th Centuries (According to the Khoqand Chronicles)’, Journal of Asian History, vol. 28, no.2 (1994), pp. 124-35.
Birnbaum, E., ‘The Ottomans and Chaghatay Literature’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 20, no. 3 (1976), pp. 157-190.
Dale, S. F., ‘The Legacy of the Timurids’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, vol. 8, no. 1 (1998), pp. 43-58.
Foltz, R., ‘Cultural Contacts between Central Asia and Mughal India’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 42, no. 1 (1998), pp. 44-65.
Schimmel, A., ‘Some Notes on the Cultural Activity of the First Uzbek Rulers’, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, vol. 8, no. 3 (1960).
Soucek, P., ‘Persian Artists in Mughal India: Influences and Transformations’, Muqarnas, vol. 4 (1987), pp. 161-181.
Subtelny, M. E., ‘Art and Politics in Early 16th Century Central Asia’, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 27, nos 1-2 (1983), pp. 121-148.
Tanindi, Z., ‘Additions to Illustrated Manuscripts in Ottoman Workshops’, Muqarnas, vol. 17 (2000), pp. 147-161.
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