Eurasian Culture Research Articles

Asia and Europe

In this extended essay, Jack Goody summarizes his long-standing intellectual effort to develop a comparative historical anthropology that would challenge the widely held perceptions about the supremacy of the West in the context of world history. Throughout the essay, Goody focuses on the similarities existing in all Eurasian cultures to turn much of European history and historiography on its head. The essay documents the unity across Eurasia as an interconnected landmass, the legacies of the common Bronze Age of the Ancient Near East, its associated plough agriculture, and the traditions of writing and use of metals in order to reassess the primacy of material resource endowments in shaping human history. Goody presents a series of characteristics conventionally cited in the West as evidence of the uniqueness of Europe and shows that, in each and every case, equivalents can be found in Asia, and notably in China.

Mental Types of Eurasian Culture and Civilization: Russia and Kazakhstan

The article is devoted to defining the place and role of the Kazakh and Russian cultures in the civilizational area of Eurasia. Author discusses the choice of models of social and cultural development of the Republic of Kazakhstan in conditions of globalization and localization. Identification of the Kazakh culture is held in the context of its interaction with nomadic, Islamic, Russian, Central Asian and East Asian civilizations. In this article analyses the role of cultural factors in the formation of post-Soviet Central Asian States.

Access to East European and Eurasian Culture: Publishing, Acquisitions, Digitization, Metadata

Access to East European and Eurasian Culture: Publishing, Acquisitions, Digitization, Metadata

Access to East European and Eurasian Culture: Publishing, Acquisitions, Digitization, Metadata

Access to East European and Eurasian Culture: Publishing, Acquisitions, Digitization, Metadata

The Symposium and Exhibition on Inner Asia Held at the Yokohama Museum of EurAsian Cultures(Research Trends)

The Symposium and Exhibition on Inner Asia Held at the Yokohama Museum of EurAsian Cultures(Research Trends)

Ethnoscapes, entertainment and ’eritage in the global city: segmented spaces in Singapore’s Joo Chiat Road

This case study considers the early development and recent changes that have occurred in the vicinity of Joo Chiat Road, Singapore, which can be described as a ‘linear activity corridor’ linking the districts of Geylang, Katong and Marine Parade, immediately east of Singapore’s urban core. Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has declared Joo Chiat to be a ‘Conservation Area’, reflecting local-born Peranakan and Eurasian cultures, with similar status to other more central historic sites such as Chinatown, Kampong Glam, Little India and Emerald Hill. But the story of Joo Chiat has evolved along a somewhat different trajectory from the more prominent, tourism-related, heritage areas, with a multiplicity of interactions operating at the margins of the planning process. This has led to the spatial infusion of potentially discordant, globally related, ‘entertainment and recreational’ activities into an area of established urban identity and multiple attachments. When a policy of police containment was found to be inadequate in protecting local residents from undesirable impacts, changes were eventually brought about through a combination of neighbourhood activism and local political initiative. Through detailed land use inspections, press reports and strategic interviews, backed up by secondary sources, the study highlights the impingement of marginalised, potentially disruptive ‘global’ elements into a local heritage conservation area, and the importance of strong neighbourhood identity and community involvement as active components in the process of conflict resolution.

By the shores of white waters: the Altai and its place in the spiritual geopolitics of Nicholas Roerich

The artist Nicholas Roerich, famous for his expeditions (1925-1928 and 1934-1936) to Central Asia and the Himalayas, was deeply fascinated by the Altai Mountains, which he visited in 1926 (even though he had emigrated from Soviet Russia in 1918). His interest in the region had partly to do with his scholarly theories about the origin of Eurasian cultures. Even more important were Roerich's occult beliefs. Ostensibly artistic and academic in nature, Roerich's expeditions were part of a larger effort to create a pan-Buddhist state that was to include southern Siberia, Mongolia, and Tibet. In the Altai, Roerich aimed to locate the legendary land of White Waters (Belovod'e) and build his capital there. Support for this 'Great Plan' came from American followers of Roerich's mystical teachings. In addition, by representing himself to Soviet authorities as someone who might foster anti-British resentment and pro-Russian feelings among the populations of Central Asia and Tibet, Roerich briefly piqued their interest. The Great Plan was never realised, but Roerich continued to believe in the Altai's magical properties.

In search of primeval Russia: stylistic evolution in the landscapes of Nicholas Roerich, 1897-1914

During the first decade and a half of his career, the Russian painter and stage designer Nicholas Roerich (Nikolai Rerikh) (1874-1947) gained renown for depicting his native land’s ancient past in a manner that was supremely creative yet also historically accurate. However, during this period, which lasted roughly from his graduation from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in 1897 to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Roerich’s painterly style and overall world-view underwent major changes. Several factors - including a great love for archaeology, strong feelings about the relationship between humankind and the environment, and a deep interest in mysticism and Asian philosophy - caused him to abandon his early programme of faithfully rendering scenes from Russia’s early history. Increasingly, Roerich painted ancient Russia’s landscape metaphorically, interpreting it first as a crossroads of Eurasian cultures, then as a pristine, primeval wilderness in which humanity lived not only in harmony with the natural world but also in a state of spiritual purity. This archaism, rather than any particular ‘Russian-ness’, became his central preoccupation. Ironically, this transformation came about as he completed what is generally considered to be his most famous images of ‘Russia’: his set and costume designs for Stravinsky’s The rite of spring (1913). After the mid-1910s, Roerich - although he never ceased to paint the Russian past - found Asian landscapes to be more conducive symbols for his inner visions and spiritual convictions.

Fish, symbol and myth by Otto J. von Sadovszky (review)

BOOK NOTICES 653 sistent confusions that language is unproblematically denotative while art is purely mimetic'. Wrongheadedly , we treat 'words as though they were pictures. . . truths as though they froze in place fixed correspondences between words and things and thoughts' (236). But 'the shaman pounds on his words just as he pounds on his drum, as if to shatter them, testing the elasticity of language. . . . Shamanic texts must be heard also as winks and nudges. . . . They belong to entirely different realities than do signs and ciphers . They are notdefinitive, precise, eternally complete , and confrontationally defensible concepts, for such concepts do not exist' (242). Throughout, while his fifteen informants wrestle with their spirits, M wrangles theory with exceptional candor: ? do not seek a certitude that I believe nonexistent' (240). The book is studded with strange texts—chants, charms, mythic narratives, beautifully translated —that preserve an oral tradition doomed to decay as technology advances. Ch. 1, 'Words as cures' (3-25), sets the scene, defines the shaman, introduces ten texts, and surveys ensuing chapters. Ch. 2, 'How to recast affliction' (26-71), categorizes maladies treated by shamans and analyzes their healing rituals. M's spirit hierarchy—distinguishing nine levels, from divine through tutelary—clarifies the shamanic macrocosm (44). Ch. 3, 'Worlds requiring shamans' (72-115), describes Nepalese healers and highlights the instructions implicit in their songs. Ch. 4, 'Staging interventions' (116-52), covers ritual more closely while plunging into the autodidactic, semi-improvisational texts, Ch. 5, "The sound of things' (153-93), shifts from production pieces—'long public narratives' (24)—to the more private mantras of individual shamans. This chapter investigates the spells that push shamans beyond the pale of magico-medicine into the realm of necromancy . Ch. 6, 'Shaman voices, shaman texts' (194-232), recounts crucial episodes in the shaman's career, including initiation and obsequies. An epilogue , Ch. 7, 'Casting Indra's net' (233-44), summarizes , reassessing M's objectives. The book is wellindexed , with a concise bibliography preceded by a glossary of Nepali terms. This work is not without flaws, including excessive reiteration of authorial intent (e.g., 26-29, 73-76, 116, 118, 136, 195). Plus, pushed too far, theory escapes into ether, as when M argues that the Nepali texts 'produce a unique self. . not a certain kind of being, but a certain kind of theory' (194). But these are minor infelicities, more stylistic than substantive. Overall, The rulings ofthe night is a tour de force, reflecting years of rigorous field work and far more than language acquisition. With these powerful songs, M depicts worlds within words, an entire shamanic mythos. [Stephen O. Glosecki, University ofAlabama at Birmingham.] Fish, symbol and myth. By Otto J. von Sadovszky. (ISTOR books, 6.) Budapest & Fullerton, CA: Akadémiai Kiadó & International Society for Trans-Oceanic Research, 1995. Pp. 94. Paper $23.00. The International Society for Trans-Oceanic Research (ISTOR) series is targeted to linguists, ethnographers , and others interested in mythology and folklore. This book, volume 6 in the series, aims to prove semantic correlations surrounding fish concepts in Eurasian culture by reconstructing the longstanding and widespread Eurasian myth ofafish supporting the earth. The book includes a selected bibliography , index, and 28 illustrations. This short work discusses connections between fish and other elements ofthe human sphere by investigating the connections among language, art, and mythology in ancient Eurasian cultures to argue a relationship between the concepts of 'fish' and 'support '. Sadovszky makes great use of illustrations, especially in Ch. 1, 'Fish and the shinbone' (1-40). This chapter is subdivided into five sections. Section 1, 'Fish roe and the calf of the leg', demonstrates that the association between the leg and the fish is more extensive than early researchers thought. The author provides many cognates to illustrate the pervasiveness of these roots across language families. However , the chapter's highlight is S's discussion in Section 2 of the tattoos on the preserved body of a sixth-century b.c.e. man. "The fish and the Pazyryk man' segment illustrates linguistic associations concerning the fish and human body structure. The author reasons that, if the association between the fish and the calfwas so widespread, art showing this relationship should still exist. The...

Old Nordic and Christian elements in Saami ideas about the realm of the dead

The fact that a word or concept has been borrowed from outside does not mean that the original content, the original ideas which the loan word in question expresses, have also been adopted. This is by no means the case when it is a question of abstract words and notions, such as the afterlife. A word, an idea, a custom is taken over but filled with new content; in its new context it acquires a genuinely Saami conceptual load, which has its original domiciliary rights in Saami, north Eurasian culture. The present brief notes on the Nordic and Christian influence on Saami ideas about the realm of the dead proceed from the Saami religion as a whole, examining and explaining it from an external perspective: what connecting-points are there in the "original" mother tradition for the new ideas which have been adopted over the course of time and which have been grafted on to the old? The first and fundamental starting-point for the study of the meeting of the Saami religion with the old Nordic and Christian ones will be the Saami religion itself in its Finno-Ugric and North Euroasiancontext and not the old Norse or Christian beliefs. The question is what has inspired ideas: Are they ideas which have emerged from the Saamis' own religion, or are these ideas the result of old Norse/Christian influence? As far as old Norse influence is concerned, its relevance seems to be limited to the saivo concept. The sources for Saami religion which we possess are not primary sources, which go back to the Lapps themselves; they have been assembled by outsiders. Those who compiled these records were "children of their time" and bound by the conceptual models of the day and by the frames of reference of their religion—Christianity. The Saami realm of death, Jabmeaimo, is Saami in character, with certain Christian elements (purgatory, heaven–hell, heavenly god–devil).

The Internal Regularity Of Ethnogenesis (Landscape and Ethnos, XIV)

AbstractThe author, a Leningrad University ethnologist, completes a series of 14 articles on the relationship between landscape and ethnic communities, and on the forces that account for the rise and decline of ethnic groups through history. After having discussed in the first few articles the relationship between shifts in storm tracks and the fortunes of the steppe peoples of Central Asia, Gumilev developed a theory that attributes the rise, development and decline of an ethnos to the initial burst and gradual waning of an innate ethnic energy or drive. Ethnoses may be grouped into superethnic systems that are identifiable with major culture areas through time and through space (Hellenistic culture, Moslem world, European civilization, Eurasian nomad culture). The author attempts to relate the different phases in the evolution of an ethnos to changing relationships between the group and the individual, as expressed in a series of imperatives, but further analysis of what generates innate ethnic drive is...

The Microlithic Character of Neolithic Cultures in Central Asia, Trans-Baikal, and Manchuria

AbstractComparative study of both pottery and stone implements indicates that Mongolia, Manchuria, and eastern Siberia constitute a Siberian-Mongolian culture area of great antiquity. During the Neolithic this area was characterized by a small-tool tradition distinct from the microlithic tradition of the west, and unlike the tool-making developments of the Yang-shao and Lung-shan farmers to the south. The so-called “microlithic” character of the Siberian Neolithic is not demonstrated by archaeological collections from the area, and is demonstrated to be the historic result of early terminological confusions that have been perpetuated in the literature. A. A. Formozov's claims for a Eurasian steppe culture characterized by a microlithic tradition distinct from both the southern farmers and the forest culture of the taiga are rejected.

The Colonial Novel in Indonesia

THE RECENT success in the United States of the translation of Maria Dermout's novel, The Ten Thousand Things,l suggests that at last a much-neglected aspect of Western literature, the work of the writers of the vanishing colonial era in Africa and Asia, may have become eligible for wider public interest. Only Kipling has attained broad popularity in this literary genre; and, strictly speaking, he is not wholly a part of it, since colonial literature is typically the product of Eurasian culture and style of living, in the knowledge and understanding of which the chronicler of Anglo-India has proved, in retrospect, to have been far from proficient. Colonial literature tends to revolve around the novel of manners, the tale of allegedly characteristic conditions in colonial society, while for a Conrad or a Maugham the tropical environment of Southeast Asia is at best only the decor for a description of universal human foibles. Even in the literature of the metropolitan powers the colonial contribution has only recently begun to attract attention; in the colonial, or former colonial, nations themselves this contribution is often mistakenly regarded as an alien element beyond the interest of the developing national literatures. The following pages, by focusing on the modern novel in the colonial epoch of Indonesia, will suggest that there is here an inadequately explored area of literary effort in the Western tradition.

The Indonesian Eurasian and His Culture

The Indonesian Eurasian and His Culture