A week or so ago I attended a workshop organized by the recently-established Catapult Center for Digital Humanities & Computational Analysis at IUB. The workshop was on Omeka, a digital publishing platform tailored for librarians, archivists and humanists who want to curate collections and research materials online. I attended because I'm becoming more and more interested in possible ways of being to present aspects of my research online, ways that require more sophisticated storage and hosting options than are available through (admittedly, pretty good) blog platforms like Blogspot or Wordpress.
Omeka is becoming increasingly popular with humanists whose research incorporates strongly visual components: manuscripts, photographs, paintings, illustrations &c. The attractions for someone like me, who is interested in the rich world of medieval and early-modern Central Asian manuscript traditions, are obvious; moreover, it brings me into synch with developments in online curation that are currently impacting upon my own research: thanks to digitization initiatives such as Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan, Islamic Heritage Project at Harvard University, and Walters Arts Museum Islamic Manuscripts, I've been able to acquire research materials that once would have required sensitive negotiation and not insubstantial travel costs and copying fees to acquire.
In fact, I learned about the latter goldmine as a direct result of the Omeka workshop: the Walters Art Museum has made publicly available the metadata of its Islamic manuscripts, and the workshop convenors used it as an example of how spreadsheets can be imported (with the aid of a plug-in) into your Omeka site and used to generate new metadata fields.
Not previously aware of the Walters Art Museum (ignorant me!), or its precious collection of Islamic manuscripts, I was delighted to find that it has a fine Safavid copy of نوائی's خمسه, attributed to the 16th cent. As I begin to construct my my research agenda and schedule for the dissertation, the easy availability of such a fine work - unthought of 10-15 years ago - drives home to me the transformational nature of the digital humanities and its benefits to the researcher.
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Monday, 19 November 2012
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Write on!
One of the things that inevitably slows down my blog-posting is the fiddly and persnickety process of correctly transliterating non-Latin scripts. Hence, if you look at some of my past posts, you'll see I've transliterated titles of books and whatnot originally published in, say, Russian or Uzbek, into Latin.
I've now decided this not a helpful process ... both intellectually dishonest and - what with developments in OCR and the non-Latin script search capabilities of Google - no longer necessary on my part to transliterate or transcribe Cyrillic or Arabic-script titles and sources into Latin. As more and more libraries (mine own, IU, for example) are calibrating search functions for non-Latin scripts, it actually means we now no longer have to worry quite so much about how we transliterate the given title of a Russian or Persian work, since interested parties can now simply type the relevant text in the orginal scripts and let nature - I mean, teh interwebs - work it's magic.
I've now decided this not a helpful process ... both intellectually dishonest and - what with developments in OCR and the non-Latin script search capabilities of Google - no longer necessary on my part to transliterate or transcribe Cyrillic or Arabic-script titles and sources into Latin. As more and more libraries (mine own, IU, for example) are calibrating search functions for non-Latin scripts, it actually means we now no longer have to worry quite so much about how we transliterate the given title of a Russian or Persian work, since interested parties can now simply type the relevant text in the orginal scripts and let nature - I mean, teh interwebs - work it's magic.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Research Methods (1)
In one of the December issues of the London Review of Books last year, the historian Sheila Fitzpatrick recalled her experiences as one of the lucky few foreign researchers allowed into the Soviet archives in the 1960s ('A Spy in the Archives').
It's a wonderful account of the dualities and binaries that seem to have underlain her encounters. On the one hand, there was official suspicion, both from British and Soviet bureaucrats charged with overseeing her visit; at the same time, her host family and acquaintances were seemingly quick to dispense with the formalities and provide her with the proverbial 'home from home.'
Based not on my own experiences, but from what I've heard and read about the experiences of researchers in the current post-Soviet space, it seems that some things haven't changed. For example, it is de rigeur in the acknowledgements section of any monograph written by a European or American scholar on, say, Central Asia (and when this thought first popped into my head, I was able to check immediately agains several such volumes in my bookshelves), to note the wonderful hospitality of librarians and archivists, usually in the form of endless cups of tea and local delicacies (dumplings, bread, pastries, kebabs etc.).
All well and good, you might think ... but I wonder if such a habit is a hangover from Soviet days. Fitzpatrick writes:
It's a wonderful account of the dualities and binaries that seem to have underlain her encounters. On the one hand, there was official suspicion, both from British and Soviet bureaucrats charged with overseeing her visit; at the same time, her host family and acquaintances were seemingly quick to dispense with the formalities and provide her with the proverbial 'home from home.'
Based not on my own experiences, but from what I've heard and read about the experiences of researchers in the current post-Soviet space, it seems that some things haven't changed. For example, it is de rigeur in the acknowledgements section of any monograph written by a European or American scholar on, say, Central Asia (and when this thought first popped into my head, I was able to check immediately agains several such volumes in my bookshelves), to note the wonderful hospitality of librarians and archivists, usually in the form of endless cups of tea and local delicacies (dumplings, bread, pastries, kebabs etc.).
All well and good, you might think ... but I wonder if such a habit is a hangover from Soviet days. Fitzpatrick writes:
We weren’t allowed to go to the snackbar or cafeteria because that would have meant wandering unsupervised around the building; instead, kind-hearted supervisors (dezhurnye, always women) made tea for us and allowed us to eat sandwiches at our desks, dropping crumbs on the state secrets.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Diversions (2)
'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".
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".
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.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Nawa'i MSS (1)
One of the main problems facing the researcher of Mir 'Ali Shir is that manuscripts of his works, whether copied during his own lifetime or after, are dispersed across innumerable countries. Naturally, some institutions have more mss than others; of particular importance is the manuscript collection at the Biruni (Oriental) Institute of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in Tashkent. There are also important items at libraries in Kazan (Tatarstan) and St Petersburg (Russia).
Outside of the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Bibliothèque Nationale du France in Paris and the British Library in London are arguably of primary importance. It should be pointed out that Nawa'i's works exist in both Persian and Chaghatay Turkic, but because of my language training I am initially focusing on identifying and accessing mss written in the latter language.
There are two ways of identifying mss: 1) scholarship based on mss and published critical editions; 2) published catalogues. In terms of the latter, a limited list looks like this ...
Ethé, H., Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the India Office Library, repr. (London: India Office Library & Records, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1980).
Kut, G., Supplementary Catalogue of Turkish Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: with reprint of the 1930 catalogue by H. Ethé, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Meredith-Owens, G. M., Handlist of Persian Manuscripts [acquired by the British Museum] 1895-1966, (London: British Museum, 1968).
Parlatir, İ., Hazai, G., and Kellner-Heinkele, B., Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2 (Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2007).
Rieu, C., Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1879-83).
—, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, (London: British Museum, 1888).
—, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, (London: British Museum, 1895).
Smirnow, W. D., Manuscrits Turcs de l’Institut des Langues Orientales [St Petersburg], Collections scientifiques de l’Institut des Langues Orientales du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, 7 (Amsterdam: Celibus, 1971).
Sobranie Vostochnykh Rukopisei Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR [catalogue of oriental manuscripts at the Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences], 11 vols (Tashkent: UzSSR Academy of Sciences, 1952–1987).
Volin, S. L., ‘Opisanie rukopisei proizvedeniy Navoi v Leningradskikh sobraniyakh' [A description of Navoi manuscript items in the Leningrad collections], in Alisher Navoi, ed. by A. K. Borovkov (Moscow/Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1946).
Waley, M. I., Supplementary Handlist of Persian Manuscripts, 1966-1998, (London: British Library, 1998).
Outside of the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Bibliothèque Nationale du France in Paris and the British Library in London are arguably of primary importance. It should be pointed out that Nawa'i's works exist in both Persian and Chaghatay Turkic, but because of my language training I am initially focusing on identifying and accessing mss written in the latter language.
There are two ways of identifying mss: 1) scholarship based on mss and published critical editions; 2) published catalogues. In terms of the latter, a limited list looks like this ...
Ethé, H., Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the India Office Library, repr. (London: India Office Library & Records, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1980).
Kut, G., Supplementary Catalogue of Turkish Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: with reprint of the 1930 catalogue by H. Ethé, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Meredith-Owens, G. M., Handlist of Persian Manuscripts [acquired by the British Museum] 1895-1966, (London: British Museum, 1968).
Parlatir, İ., Hazai, G., and Kellner-Heinkele, B., Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2 (Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2007).
Rieu, C., Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1879-83).
—, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, (London: British Museum, 1888).
—, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, (London: British Museum, 1895).
Smirnow, W. D., Manuscrits Turcs de l’Institut des Langues Orientales [St Petersburg], Collections scientifiques de l’Institut des Langues Orientales du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, 7 (Amsterdam: Celibus, 1971).
Sobranie Vostochnykh Rukopisei Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR [catalogue of oriental manuscripts at the Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences], 11 vols (Tashkent: UzSSR Academy of Sciences, 1952–1987).
Volin, S. L., ‘Opisanie rukopisei proizvedeniy Navoi v Leningradskikh sobraniyakh' [A description of Navoi manuscript items in the Leningrad collections], in Alisher Navoi, ed. by A. K. Borovkov (Moscow/Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1946).
Waley, M. I., Supplementary Handlist of Persian Manuscripts, 1966-1998, (London: British Library, 1998).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)