Iran and the Caucasus Monographs – serie

This book presents the English translation of a travelogue by an Armenian intellectual of the end of the 19th century. Originally written in a variety of non-normative Western Armenian, it serves as a valuable repository of highly important and unique data on the ethno-demography of the historical region of Dersim, the traditional habitat of Armenians and the Zaza people. The account vividly portrays the urban and rural settlements, their precise topography, and the enchanting landscape of mountains and rivers, which hold a significant place in the folk imagination and sacral world of the highland dwellers.

In A Mountain Oasis, Susan York presents a richly illustrated socio-economic study of village life in Pakistans Yasin Valley, undertaken during one year spent living with a local family. It documents this dynamic agro-pastoral society at a time when few researchers were recording developments in these far-flung and difficult to reach mountain oases of the Hindukush. It is a record of a time when development interventions were in their beginnings, and before this area in Gilgit-Baltistan entered a crucial period of transformation. It provides solid comparative reference material for future research on this region, which is continuing to undergo challenging and complex changes.

In Pamirian Crossroads and Beyond Hermann Kreutzmann offers insights in his fieldwork-based research in High Asia during four decades. A human-geographical perspective is pursued in which case studies about colonial and post-colonial boundary-making, exchange relations of mountain communities across international borders, the transformation of agricultural and pastoral practices and the effects of modernisation strategies in neighbouring countries are centred in the Hindukush, Wakhan Quadrangle, Pamirian Crossroads, Karakoram Mountains and Himalaya. Empirical evidence is augmented by in-depth archival research, thus allowing a perspective from the 19th to the 21st century. By shifting the focus to mountain peripheries and emphasising spaces in between urban centres of power in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the Central Asian Republics different arenas of confrontation and effective changes emerge.

On August 3, 2014, the Sinjar region of Northern Iraq was attacked by the “Islamic State”. Killing and abducting thousands, the jihadists also destroyed many of the religious minority’s shrines. Others, however, were defended by local fighters and groups affiliated with the PKK. In the aftermath of the genocide, stories of divine intervention into the defence bolstered land claims of serveral Kurdish political groups.Through extensive fieldwork in the region, I trace imaginaries of Sinjar as a landscape of resistance and a communal history of continuous persecution to current political disputes and attempts to construct a unified Yezidi identity.

Love, Honour and God tells about the talented and determined people who challenged the dominance of the Persophone written culture and created literature in their mother tongue, Pashto. Offering insights into the lives and literary accomplishments of many acclaimed and less known Pashtun authors of the early modern period, this book traces the development of Pashto writings from around 1530 to 1830 as a considered pursuit of an educational mission and a verbal affirmation of ethnic identity. Based primarily on original texts in Pashto verse and prose, the book explores social views, aesthetic preferences and spiritual values that underlie modern ideologies and cultural awareness of Pashto-speaking communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Does the fact that we dislike someone influence our perception of the world? If Poles consider Russians as "historical" enemies, does this affect how they interpret the present and the past? The author argues this is indeed the case. In his book, the author illustrates this through the example of the Caucasus, primarily in the context of the nineteenth century, when the modern Polish nation was being formed. How did the Polish independence emigration view the independence struggles of the Caucasian peoples? And how do contemporary Polish researchers and publicists approach the issue? Where does Russia fit into all of this? The author seeks to answer these and many other questions in his account about an imagined Polish-Caucasian comradery.

The present volume brings together a carefully curated collection of scholarly essays that offer a multidimensional portrait of Ossetian cultural continuity from antiquity to the present. It presents original research by leading experts in the fields of Ossetology, Caucasian history, mythology, and ethnography. Each contribution provides a rigorous examination of particular elements—linguistic, mythological, archaeological, ritualistic, or historical—that illuminate the complex interplay between antiquity and modernity in Ossetian society.The articles included in this volume, appeared in Russian from the late 19th century to the present day, essentially represent landmark publications on the Scytho-Alano-Ossetian problematics. The volume, in essence, reflects the development of this field of Iranian Studies over nearly a century and a half.