quadara - Caucasus, Trabzon, Iran ?

Rivkin · 27th June 2006, 05:54 PM

I can give you two examples, based on experience of two caucasian tribal lords I knew.
First one was approached by a very prominent professor from one of the top 10 US universities, doing anthropology research. She was extremely eager to interview him, so that she will get to know the "cultural context" and so on. After telling her a few stories, he politely referred her to works of XIXth century missionaries, travelers and even some poetry by Lermontov, at the same time he mentioned that the changes the society experienced in the past 100 years have completely annihelated the old world. The professor suddenly became very upset and left. My friend was puzzled so he decided to check her writings. To his surprise the last her article was about how everything that Lermontov and missionaries wrote was a colonialist fantasy, invented by Lord Bayron for the purpose of subjegation of locals. Obviously with such attitude she was looking for "real sources", not some orientalist stuff.

In the second episode I was playing the role of an interviewer, trying to talk with a member of a very old noble family about local traditions. With a sad grimace he said "Listen, I am just a poor tomato-seller, who barely gets by. My father was a poor laborer. Do you really think I have any idea how my ancestors-lords lived ?".

"Cultural context" is important; however today it is not the same as it was 100 or 500 years ago.

27th June 2006, 05:54 PM	#29
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I can give you two examples, based on experience of two caucasian tribal lords I knew. First one was approached by a very prominent professor from one of the top 10 US universities, doing anthropology research. She was extremely eager to interview him, so that she will get to know the "cultural context" and so on. After telling her a few stories, he politely referred her to works of XIXth century missionaries, travelers and even some poetry by Lermontov, at the same time he mentioned that the changes the society experienced in the past 100 years have completely annihelated the old world. The professor suddenly became very upset and left. My friend was puzzled so he decided to check her writings. To his surprise the last her article was about how everything that Lermontov and missionaries wrote was a colonialist fantasy, invented by Lord Bayron for the purpose of subjegation of locals. Obviously with such attitude she was looking for "real sources", not some orientalist stuff. In the second episode I was playing the role of an interviewer, trying to talk with a member of a very old noble family about local traditions. With a sad grimace he said "Listen, I am just a poor tomato-seller, who barely gets by. My father was a poor laborer. Do you really think I have any idea how my ancestors-lords lived ?". "Cultural context" is important; however today it is not the same as it was 100 or 500 years ago. Last edited by Andrew; 27th June 2006 at 06:29 PM.