nationalism

Rivkin · 6th January 2007, 12:22 AM

Gentlemen,

I owe you an apology for regularly bringing this issue up in a more controversial way than it should be. I also should probably define my position as precise as possible.

Indeed, the "natives" who study their weaponry have a number of advantages - they know the language, they have access to sources that might not be well known globally and they usually can acquire an access to some collections that "outsiders" do not even know about. However in the same time there is no general rule that a "native" knows his weapons better than a "foreigner". Gorelik is an uttermost specialist on Steppe weapons (while not being turkomanish), Astvatzaturjan (armenian) knows circassian weapons better than Nakov or Guchips (circassians) and probably knows chechen weapons better than Aschabov (chechen). Khudjakov knows a lot more about Syberian/monglian weaponry than Kyzlasov.
In the end a better researcher with a solid educational background will always be a better specialist on swords, independent of his/her nationality, place of birth and so on.
Now my second point was not directed for or against the exhibition, I simply referred to a new generation of "scholars" that appeared in the past 20 years. I am myself was often offered money, assistance, publications if I am to agree to promote certain national cause by writing that this nation was inventor of this weapon and was completely superior to the surrounding nations, which were always pathetic and cowardly in comparison, not to mention incapable of inventing new things. I have to admit I have used assistance of the most extreme organizations (which includes extremely right wing asian political parties) in my search for the source documents, however I never agreed to any provisions or conditions concerning my use of these documents.
This said, I know of a large number of weapon researchers whose activities are severely limited either by the policy of their Government (for example one of my russian friends has a problem with researching the russian-chinese border and its "historical" "cossack" roots), or with extreme nationalists. At the same time they can not count on assistance, jobs or respect of "nationalists" since their nationality is different than that of a weapon they research, which I believe to be a tragic and shortsighted policy.
Again, I am myself is not without a "sin" of using the resources, even that of most extremest organizations one can imagine. I have also no problems admitting peculiar trends of "western" historiagraphy (for example Astvatzaturjan cites a very passionate polemics over the origins of a certain sword that was signed as the one from Cairo, where the origin of the polemics in my opinion was essentially that arabs are ulema, and by XVth century could not make swords, therefore the sword's origin must be found elsewhere) or corrupt zionist influence of certain historians, as well as a complete idiocy of Said-like "post-orientalist" approach. And no, I have never collaborated with Harvard researchers of Caspian project and I think their knowledge of Azerbaijan/Caucausus is extremely shallow and may be just as biased as that of CAIS, even though the latter is quite hard to imagine.

In the end I believe that every weapon researcher or enthusiast should be evaluate on her/his personal merit, as well as his/her work. Comments like "he has not been to ...", "what does he know about this culture" and so on should be reserved to the last, editorial section of any critique, i.e. if the person is completely wrong in his writings on a number of subjects, after analyzing these subjects it may be suggested that the author made these mistakes because of his lack of travel experience or language knowledge or something else, like a connection to some nationalist organizations and so on.

Finally, I do believe that all inputs, including speaking to village elders are important, and all of them contain certain biases, but one is better off trusting XVIIth century author on the issue of use of XVIIth century swords rather than XXIst century guru, no matter how "native" the latter is.

6th January 2007, 12:22 AM	#1
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	nationalism Gentlemen, I owe you an apology for regularly bringing this issue up in a more controversial way than it should be. I also should probably define my position as precise as possible. Indeed, the "natives" who study their weaponry have a number of advantages - they know the language, they have access to sources that might not be well known globally and they usually can acquire an access to some collections that "outsiders" do not even know about. However in the same time there is no general rule that a "native" knows his weapons better than a "foreigner". Gorelik is an uttermost specialist on Steppe weapons (while not being turkomanish), Astvatzaturjan (armenian) knows circassian weapons better than Nakov or Guchips (circassians) and probably knows chechen weapons better than Aschabov (chechen). Khudjakov knows a lot more about Syberian/monglian weaponry than Kyzlasov. In the end a better researcher with a solid educational background will always be a better specialist on swords, independent of his/her nationality, place of birth and so on. Now my second point was not directed for or against the exhibition, I simply referred to a new generation of "scholars" that appeared in the past 20 years. I am myself was often offered money, assistance, publications if I am to agree to promote certain national cause by writing that this nation was inventor of this weapon and was completely superior to the surrounding nations, which were always pathetic and cowardly in comparison, not to mention incapable of inventing new things. I have to admit I have used assistance of the most extreme organizations (which includes extremely right wing asian political parties) in my search for the source documents, however I never agreed to any provisions or conditions concerning my use of these documents. This said, I know of a large number of weapon researchers whose activities are severely limited either by the policy of their Government (for example one of my russian friends has a problem with researching the russian-chinese border and its "historical" "cossack" roots), or with extreme nationalists. At the same time they can not count on assistance, jobs or respect of "nationalists" since their nationality is different than that of a weapon they research, which I believe to be a tragic and shortsighted policy. Again, I am myself is not without a "sin" of using the resources, even that of most extremest organizations one can imagine. I have also no problems admitting peculiar trends of "western" historiagraphy (for example Astvatzaturjan cites a very passionate polemics over the origins of a certain sword that was signed as the one from Cairo, where the origin of the polemics in my opinion was essentially that arabs are ulema, and by XVth century could not make swords, therefore the sword's origin must be found elsewhere) or corrupt zionist influence of certain historians, as well as a complete idiocy of Said-like "post-orientalist" approach. And no, I have never collaborated with Harvard researchers of Caspian project and I think their knowledge of Azerbaijan/Caucausus is extremely shallow and may be just as biased as that of CAIS, even though the latter is quite hard to imagine. In the end I believe that every weapon researcher or enthusiast should be evaluate on her/his personal merit, as well as his/her work. Comments like "he has not been to ...", "what does he know about this culture" and so on should be reserved to the last, editorial section of any critique, i.e. if the person is completely wrong in his writings on a number of subjects, after analyzing these subjects it may be suggested that the author made these mistakes because of his lack of travel experience or language knowledge or something else, like a connection to some nationalist organizations and so on. Finally, I do believe that all inputs, including speaking to village elders are important, and all of them contain certain biases, but one is better off trusting XVIIth century author on the issue of use of XVIIth century swords rather than XXIst century guru, no matter how "native" the latter is.