Silk Road Christians and the Translation of Culture in Tang China

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The World ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Silk Road ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article attempts to analyse the famous ‘Nestorian Monument’ from Xi'an, set up in 781 by Syriac Christians, as a document of cultural translation and integration. Previous scholarship on the monument has tended to privilege either the Syriac or the Chinese sections of the inscription. By combining the two, and by making use of recent advances in the study of Syriac Christians along the Silk Road, this article argues that the Syriac Christians who set up the monument were using their long history, extending from Persia to China, as a means of establishing their community publicly in new political circumstances of China in the 780s. The role of Syriac on this monument was twofold: it signalled to the local Syriac-speaking community their fundamental ties to the world of Persian and central Asian Christianity, while it also allowed, through ideological and linguistic interaction with Chinese, the maintenance of a Syriac Christian identity through the process of translation. The language of Syriac therefore provides the background of a community looking both backward and forward in a foreign, changing cultural environment.

The ‘Silk Road’: Historical Perspectives and Modern Constructions

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Ravi K. Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
The Silk Road

As it is frequently the case in the modern world, the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Roads’ is of colonial provenance. The elaborate network of ancient routes originating in the fourth millennium bc and linking various parts of the Eurasian landmass through Central Asia was re-imagined and reinvented in the late nineteenth century as a ‘Silk Road’ connecting China with the Roman Empire, thereby undermining the role of the steppe with its various nomadic and oasis cultures which had always been at the heart of this Eurasian system of trade and other exchange. Ever since, historiography has focussed on the role of sedentary civilisations in this system of exchange, with a particular emphasis on China and the West, thus undermining the role of other sedentary civilisations such as India. Contrary to the dominant narrative, the antiquity of the Eurasian trade network goes back to several millennia before the rise of either the Han Empire or Rome. Whereas this network did connect the agrarian civilisations, this happened primarily through the agency of central Asian intermediaries whose culmination is represented by the rise of the vast Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century. The idea of the ‘Silk Road(s)’ is thus anachronistic in the sense that it is a backward projection of present into the historical past, especially in view of the fact that silk was only one among several important items of exchange, such as horses, cotton, precious stones, and furs.

Commercial Queens: Mongolian Khatuns and the Silk Road

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY MAY
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
The World ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
The Silk Road

AbstractThree women dominated the politics and government of the Mongol Empire in the decade of the 1240s. Töregene and Oghul-Qaimish ruled as regents and are credited with corruption and petty politics throughout their regencies, while Sorqoqtani Beki became a paragon of virtue throughout the world for her adherence to the yasa of Chinggis Khan. Curiously, very little attention has been paid to this period to verify the accuracy of the statements. This study examines the role of all three women, but also attempts to place their actions in context, examine their role in commerce and how that affected their activities and their legacies. It argues that while the overall depiction of Töregene and Oghul-Qaimish may not be inaccurate, it overlooks some crucial elements and motives in their actions which also reveal that Sorqoqtani's actions were not as virtuous as the sources state.

scholarly journals European and Italian trades on the Silk Road: a reassessment

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-135
Author(s):  
Salvatore Ciriacono
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
World Market ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The World ◽  
The Silk Road

The principal aim of my essay is looking at the presence and the role of  the European and particularly Italian merchants on the so called “Silk Road” during the 17th and 18th century. We have to remember that this expression was introduced by the German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen, a topic that is receiving a growing attention from the contemporary historians. Indeed this focus is connected to the attention that is given by contemporary economic/political actors to the fortune of the Chinese economy. It is not an accident that Chinese advance is seen by many as the cause of the declining role of Western economies inside the world market.

scholarly journals “My Silk Road to You”: Re-imagining routes, roads, and geography in contemporary art of “Central Asia”

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana T. Kudaibergenova
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Video Art ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The World ◽  
The Silk Road

This paper re-focuses the Silk Road discussions from the position of contemporary art in Central Asian region. Since the late 1980s contemporary art in Central Asia boomed and it eventually became an alternative public space for the discussion of cultural transformations, social and global processes and problems that local societies faced. Initially the questions raised by many artists concerned issues of lost identity and lost heritage during the period of Soviet domination in the region. Different artists started re-imagining the concept of the Self in their works and criticising the old rigid approaches to geography, history and mobility. Nomadic heritage became one of the central themes in contemporary art of Central Asia in the 1990s. Artists started experimenting with symbols of mobility, fluid borders and imagined geography of the “magic steppe” (see Kudaibergenova 2017, “Punk Shamanism”). Contemporary art in Central Asia continues to serve as a space for social critique and a space for search and re-conceptualisation of new fluid identities, geographies and region's place on the world map. In this paper I critically evaluate three themes connected to the symbolism of Silk Road heritage that many artists engage with – imagined geography, routes, roads and mobility. All three themes are present in the selected case studies of Gulnara Kasmalieva's and Muratbek Djumaliev's TransSiberian Amazons (2005) and A New Silk Road: Algorithm of Survival and Hope (2007) multi-channel video art, Victor and Elena Vorobievs’ (Non)Silk Road (2006) performance and photography, Almagul Menlibayeva's My Silk Road to You video-art and photography (2010–2011), Yerbossyn Meldibekov's series on imagining Central Asia and the Mountains of Revolution (2012–2015), and Syrlybek Bekbotaev's Kyrgyz Pass installation (2014–2015) as well as Defenders of Issyk Kul (2014). I trace how artists modernise, mutate and criticise main discourses about Silk Road and what impact this has on the re-imagination processes.

Mobility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
International Exchange ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Networked Music ◽  
The Silk Road

Globalization has increased opportunities for international exchange and cooperation, as well as exploitation and conflict. This chapter approaches the contemporary music ecosystem through the concept of mobility–of ideas, sounds, and musicians–around the world. It considers cultural hybridity as exemplified by the Silk Road Ensemble, transnational embodiment in composer-performers from Tarek Atoui to Pamela Z, the role of institutions and funding bodies in shaping global flows, the meaning of Western music outside the West, networked music created for the Internet, and varieties of cultural opacity and relatedness expressed in music by Liza Lim and Michael Finnissy.

scholarly journals CLUSTER APPROACH IN CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM CASE OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN SECTION OF SILK ROAD

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Mukhambetov ◽  
M. Ottenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Cluster Approach ◽  
Model Calculations ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Silk Road

Modern social and economic science pays little attention to the development of tourism based on new approaches to its management and organization. As a result, the most important sector of the economy develops in practice on the basis of not always effective traditional models. The research problem of the development of a new approach to the organization of tourism products with cross-border nature is developed in this article. The purpose was to develop a methodological toolkit for the development of cross-border tourism based on the cluster approach. To achieve this goal, the study design was based on the study of tourism features that affect the planning and clustering process. The highlighted stages of clustering in the form of identifying tourism objects, designing clusters, forming cluster structures form the basis of a new socio-economic model of the tourism industry. To design a regional cross-border tourism cluster, a method is substantiated and applied to correlate all indicators of cluster tourism development to the number of cultural and historical objects. The selected 19 indicators of development are combined into 6 groups, which make it possible to comprehensively assess the cluster organization of tourism in the region. The approbation of the indicators was carried out on the example of all five countries of the Central Asian section of the Silk Road. Model calculations of the developed set of analytical cluster indicators made it possible to combine the identified objects in each region into homogeneous clusters. In this case, Ward’smethod was used, and the square of the Euclidean distance was used as the objective function and criterion of similarity and difference. The proposed cluster maps make it possible to activate and increase the competitiveness of the tourism product as a whole and give impetus to socio-economic development in each country of the Central Asian region. Key words: tourism, tourism competitiveness, social and economic development of the region, the Silk Road, tourism cluster, cluster design.

scholarly journals IMPLEMENTASI MODEL PEMURIDAN KONTEKSTUAL SEBAGAI PANGGILAN PELAYANAN TERHADAP GENERASI MILENIAL DI ERA INDUSTRI 4.0

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Febriani
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Discipleship Model ◽  
Service Call

ABSTRAK - Arus globalisasi yang mendunia sudah tidak dapat dibendung lagi keberadaannya di negara Indonesia. Indonesia menjadi salah satu dari berbagai negara yang telah dipengaruhi oleh perkembangan teknologi dan iptek yang semakin canggih, sehingga dunia kini telah memasuki era industri 4.0. Generasi milenial adalah salah satu kelompok yang dipengaruhi oleh perkembangan teknologi yang serba instan, bahkan peran penting generasi milenial sudah mulai surut tergantikan oleh kemajuan teknologi. Menghadapi tantangan tersebut diperlukan solusi yang solutif yaitu mengimplementasikan model pemuridan kontekstual sebagai panggilan pelayanan terhadap generasi milenial di era industri 4.0, sehingga membentuk generasi milenial supaya beridentitas Kristen dan bertumbuh menjadi dewasa dalam iman. Pendekatan yang dilakukan adalah dengan pendekatan kualitatif yang melibatkan studi pustaka. Penelitian ini menghasilkan kesimpulan bahwa model pemuridan kontekstual layak dijadikan pedoman dalam mengarahkan para generasi milenial di era indutri 4.0 agar mampu bertahan (survive) dalam perkembangan zaman yang semakin canggih.Kata kunci : Pemuridan, Kontekstual, Panggilan Pelayanan, Generasi Milenial, Revolusi Industri 4.0ABSTRACT - The current global globalization can not be dammed anymore its existence in the country of Indonesia. Indonesia has become one of a variety of countries that have been influenced by increasingly sophisticated technological and technological developments, so that the world has now entered the industrial era 4.0. Millennials have become one of those groups influenced by the development of instantaneous technology, even the important role of millennials has begun to subside replaced by technological advances. Facing these challenges requires a solution that is to implement a model of contextual discipleship as a service call to millennials in the industrial era 4.0, thus forming millennial generations so that Christian identity and growing into adulthood in the faith. The approach taken is a qualitative approach that involves the study of literature. This research concludes that the contextual discipleship model deserves to be used as a guideline in directing millennial generations in the 4.0 industry era to be able to survive in the development of increasingly sophisticated times.Key Words : Discipleship, Contextual, Service Call, Milennial Generation, Industrial Revolution 4.0

scholarly journals The educational-mystical role of intermediate centers (Ribat) along the Silk Road from China to Iran El rol educativo-místico de los centros intermedios (Ribats) a lo largo de la Ruta de la Seda de China a Irán

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (24) ◽  
pp. 167-175
Author(s):  
Maedeh Karimyan
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Historical Monuments ◽  
Mystical Literature ◽  
The Silk Road ◽  
Over Time

The silk road path to the northern part from China to Europe and from southern paths to lateral paths of Iran- Mesopotamia to Antioch and Mediterranean, had been the place of construction the historical monuments and works such as castles, towers, mills, graves, and intercity Ribats. Sufi Ribats as the mystical orientation and educational centers had a special place in the Silk Road, these intermediate buildings are buildings that functioned militarily in the first centuries of Islam (8th, 9th, and 10th centuries AD), and over time have been used to mean monasteries. The architectural style of the Ribats was similar to that of a military castle, and most of them consisted of a rectangular building with four watchtowers. Examining the Ribats of the Silk Road, it will become clear that the architectural form and plan of the Ribats are very similar to those of religious schools and Caravanserais. The Sufi historians and researchers have recorded many reports over these Ribats, have investigated the introduction, application, and position of Ribats in detail and have left fairly invaluable information to the futures. In this regard, the historical books and Sufi educational books and mystical literature are endowed with reports over intra-city and intercity Ribats built mainly on the way of main paths, particularly the main path of the Silk Road and its lateral ways. In this article, these Ribats have been described in detail as well as their role on the Silk Road.

China’s Integration Projects in Asia-Pacific and Eurasia

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
S. Sevast'yanov
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
External Interference ◽  
China Sea ◽  
The World ◽  
Silk Road Economic Belt ◽  
The Silk Road

Until recently, only economically developed West-oriented states launched integration initiatives encompassing the entire Asia-Pacific region. However, over the last few years Beijing proposed several such initiatives embracing territories from America to Africa. The paper discusses the changes in Chinese views towards the leadership in modern world. Recent events in Syria, Ukraine, South China Sea and East China Sea made it clear that the world becomes more polycentric, with Russia and China resistant to external interference in the territories of their vital interests. The latest trends in East Asian and Asia-Pacific regionalism are singled out. China and USA have been the main rivals in initiating and supporting competing integration models. China has demonstrated unprecedented activity and launched several integration projects of trans-regional (Asia-Pacific and Eurasia) and on regional levels (East Asia). However, despite its growing geopolitical and economic aspirations, Beijing is not frontally challenging Washington-led system of intergovernmental agreements and financial institutions in Asia. Instead, Beijing is forming an alternative pro-Chinese model of integration without US participation (or with their secondary role) thus trying to gradually transform the Asia-Pacific to post-American hegemony model. President Xi Jinping put forward a concept of “Asia-Pacific Dream”. It incorporates formation of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “New Maritime Silk Road” that will link the economies of Asia, Europe and Africa. By proposing these large scale infrastructure projects and two new regional financial institutions (Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank), the Chinese leadership renewed its global and regional politics, attempting to create a Eurasian “economic corridor” which could serve not only its regional and global interests, but for the common good of whole Asia and the world. Obviously, “New Silk Roads” strategy faces geopolitical and other challenges; yet, even it partial realization would make China a leader of the continental part of Eurasia. In terms of global and regional governance these trends can be strengthened through coordinated policy of Moscow and Beijing towards including these projects into the agenda of non-Western intergovernmental institutions, such as BRICS, SCO, Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and others. Moreover, strategic cooperation with Russia is one of the principal factors to secure the success of China’s integration plans in the Asia-Pacific and especially in Eurasia. For its part, Moscow should deepen interaction and effectively utilize the resources of “rising” China to support Russia’s interests in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific. It is necessary for Moscow to coordinate efforts with Central Asian states and China to elaborate co-development plans for infrastructural initiatives put forward by the SCO, EEU and the “Silk Road Economic Belt”. At the same time, Moscow should increasingly encourage Chinese investment into the Russian Far East. Acknowledgements. This article has been prepared in the framework of contract with the RF Ministry of Education and Science “Formation of the New International Order in the Asia-Pacific and National Interests of Russia”, project № 1430.

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