Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • War and peace in the Iranian world

    Jullien, Florence (ed.). 2018. Guerre et paix dans le monde iranien: revisiter les lieux de rencontre (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 62). Peeters.

    Ce volume est le fruit du programme de recherche «Guerre et paix en monde iranien. Revisiter les lieux de rencontre» (2015-2017) de l’Unité Mixte de Recherche “Mondes iranien et indien” et de conférences données dans le cadre d’un atelier lors du deuxième congrès du Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique “Moyen-Orient et Mondes musulmans” (juillet 2017).

    Table of contents:

    • Wouter F. M. HENKELMAN: Precarious gifts: Achaemenid estates and domains in times of war and peace
    • Christelle JULLIEN: La piété du Perse “barbare”. Modélisations chrétiennes en milieu sassanide
    • Maria SZUPPE: Les “Nôtres” et les “Autres” dans la conquête qezelbāsh du Khorāsān : propagande et Realpolitik dans l’État safavide naissant
    • Rika GYSELEN: Une cohésion culturelle par l’image ? Le concept air-terre-eau chez les artistes sassanides
    • Johnny CHEUNG: Maintenir la paix religieuse entre les membres musulmans et yézidis des tribus kurdes
    • Florence HELLOT-BELLIER: Violence et solidarités en Azerbaïdjan iranien avant et pendant la première guerre mondiale
    • Anne-Sophie VIVIER-MURESAN: Sanctuaires “partagés” : lieux de tensions ou de rencontres ?
    • Florence JULLIEN: Des chrétiens engagés pour la paix entre la Perse et Byzance. L’ambassade du catholicos Īšōʿyahb de Gdala
    • Denis V. VOLKOV: War and Peace in the Other and the Self: Iran through the eyes of Russian spies. The case of Konstantin Smirnov (1877-1938) and Leonid Shebarshin (1935-2012)
    • Jean-Pierre DIGARD: Meurtre, répression et réparation en milieu tribal iranien (Bakhtyâri, 1973-1974)

  • Aristotle and Avicenna on the habitability of the Southern Hemisphere

    de Blois, François. 2018. Aristotle and Avicenna on the habitability of the Southern Hemisphere. In Sabine Schmidtke (ed.), Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1935-2018, 188-193. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.

    The history of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study dates back to 1935, and it is the one area of scholarship that has been continuously represented at the Institute ever since. The volume opens with a historical sketch of the study of the Near and Middle East at the Institute. The second part of the volume consists of essays and short studies by IAS scholars, past and present, covering fields such as the ancient Near East and early Islamic history, the Bible and the Qurʾān, Islamic intellectual history within and beyond denominational history, Arabic and other Semitic languages and literatures, Islamic religious and legal practices, law and society, the Islamic West, the Ottoman world, Iranian studies, the modern Middle East, and Islam in the West.

  • Robert Adam Pollak’s versified translation of Šāhnāme

    Firdausi, Abu’l-Qasem. 2018. Schahname. Das Buch der Könige. 4 vols. (Ed.) Nosratollah Rastegar. (Trans.) Robert Adam Pollak. With an instroduction by Florian Schwarz. 4 vols. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.
    Das Schah­name oder „Buch der Könige“, verfasst um das Jahr 1000 im Osten Irans, ist ohne Zweifel das bedeu­tendste epische Werk in persi­scher Sprache und darf zu den wich­tigsten epischen Werken der Welt­li­te­ratur gezählt werden. Es erzählt die Geschichte der Herr­scher Irans seit den mytho­lo­gi­schen Anfängen bis zur Erobe­rung des Sasani­den­reichs durch die musli­mi­schen Araber im 7. Jahr­hun­dert.
    Im 19. und frühen 20. Jahr­hun­dert erschienen Vers­über­set­zungen des Schah­name in mehreren euro­päi­schen Spra­chen, darunter eine voll­stän­dige italie­ni­sche Vers­über­set­zung des Orien­ta­listen Italo Pizzi und die eben­falls voll­stän­dige engli­sche Über­set­zung der Brüder Arthur und Edmund Warner. Deut­sche Vers­über­set­zungen wie dieje­nigen von Adolf Fried­rich von Schack und durch den Orien­ta­listen und Poeten Fried­rich Rückert blieben jedoch Torsos.
    Erst­mals wird hier eine deut­sche Vers­über­set­zung der soge­nannten histo­ri­schen Teile des Schah­name (Bücher 20-50) von Fird­ausi vorge­legt. Der Urheber dieser meis­ter­li­chen Über­tra­gung ist der öster­rei­chi­sche Schrift­s­teller und Jurist Robert Adam Pollak (1877–1961). Pollaks Über­set­zung zeugt von seinen exzel­lenten philo­lo­gi­schen Quali­täten und seiner großen wissen­schaft­li­chen Sorg­falt, die den Text zu einem weiteren Meilen­stein in der Erfor­schung und Rezep­tion des Schah­name macht.
    Bei der Heraus­gabe der maschi­nen­schrift­lich mit hand­schrift­li­chen Ergän­zungen vorlie­genden Über­set­zung von Robert Adam Pollak (des 4-bändigen Typoskripts) wurden von den Heraus­ge­bern nur notwen­dige Eingriffe in seinen Text vorge­nommen. Pollaks proso­disch oder durch Reim bedingte und daher hier und da vari­ie­rende Lesungen der Lemmata wurden soweit wie irgend möglich in der von ihm gewählten Form belassen bzw. vorsichtig ange­passt, um den poeti­schen Klang seiner Über­set­zung nicht zu zerstören.
    Der voll­stän­dige Schah­na­me­text beginnt mit der Einlei­tung Fird­ausis (ca. 237 Doppel­verse), gefolgt von 50 über­lie­ferten Königs­büchern (52.000–55.000 Doppel­verse), die man inhalt­lich einteilen kann in: a) präh­is­to­ri­scher, mythi­scher Teil (Bücher 1-13), b) halb­his­to­ri­scher Teil (Bücher 14-19) und c) histo­ri­scher Teil (Bücher 20-50). Dieser letz­tere Text­teil, den Pollak als Vorlage für seine Über­set­zung nahm, umfasst die über­lie­ferte Geschichte der Herr­schaft Alex­an­ders über den Iran (331–323 v. Chr.), die Herr­schafts­pe­riode der Parther-Arsa­kiden (247 v. Chr.–226 n. Chr.) und die umfang­reiche Geschichte der Sasaniden (226–651 n. Chr.), schlie­ßend mit einer in ihrer Echt­heit und ihrem Umfang strit­tigen Satire gegen den ghaz­na­vi­di­schen Herr­scher, Sulṭān Maḥmūd (reg. 999 bis 1030 n. Chr.).
    Mit der Über­set­zung Robert Adam Pollaks wird der umfang­reiche histo­ri­sche Teil des epischen Meis­ter­werkes Fird­ausis den deutsch­spra­chigen Inter­es­senten in poeti­scher Form zugäng­lich gemacht. Nunmehr sind die Grund­steine für eine voll­stän­dige deut­sche Ausgabe gelegt worden, die neben Rückerts und Pollaks poeti­schen Über­set­zungen auch die poeti­sche Über­tra­gung Adolf Fried­rich Graf von Schacks »Helden­sagen des Firdusi« berück­sich­tigen könnte.

  • Designs on the Past: How Hollywood Created the Ancient World

    Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2018. Designs on the past: How Hollywood created the ancient world. Edinburgh University Press.

    In the period 1916-1966, during its so-called Golden Age, Hollywood developed a passion for the ancient world and produced many epic movie blockbusters. The studios used every device they could find to wow audiences with the spectacle of antiquity.

    In this unique study, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones shows how Hollywood carefully and skilfully created the popular modern perception of the ancient world. He analyses how producers, art directors, costumiers, publicity agents, movie stars, and inevitably, ‘a cast of thousands’ literally designed and crafted the ancient world from scratch.

    This lively book offers a technical as well as a theoretical guide to a much-neglected area of film studies and reception studies that will appeal to anyone working in these disciplines.

  • ANABASIS. STUDIA CLASSICA ET ORIENTALIA Volume 8 (2017)

    Volume eight of “Anabasis“, edited by Marek Jan Olbrycht is out now. Several papers and reviews of this issue are related to ancient Iran:

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  • Iran and America: A forgotten friendship

    Potts, Daniel Thomas. 2018. Iran and America: A forgotten friendship. The Conversation.

    As President Donald Trump’s rhetoric against Iran heats up again, it is worth recalling a time when the two countries had a distinctly different relationship.

  • A (New) Old Iranian Etymology for Biblical Aramaic אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎

    Noonan, Benjamin J.  2018. A (new) Old Iranian etymology for Biblical Aramaic אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎. Aramaic Studies 16(1): 10 – 19.

    Despite the many advances that have taken place in our understanding of the Hebrew Bible’s Old Iranian terminology, the donor terms of several words have remained elusive. Among them is Biblical Aramaic ‮אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎ (Dan. 3:2–3). Proposed Old Iranian etymologies for this word suffer from various phonological and semantic difficulties, rendering them unlikely. This paper proposes that Biblical Aramaic ‮אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎ is best derived from *ādrangāžara- ‘announcer of financial obligation’, a compound of *ādranga- ‘financial obligation’ and *āžara- ‘announcer’. A derivation from Old Iranian *ādrangāžara- adequately explains the form of Biblical Aramaic ‮אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎. Furthermore, this etymology also suits the context well in that ‮אֲדַרְגָּזַר‬‎ occurs just prior to ‮גְּדָבַר‬‎ ‘treasurer’ and therefore falls logically within the progression from political administration to finances to law evident in the lists of Nebuchadnezzar’s officials (Dan. 3:2–3).

  • A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts

    Péri, Benedek. 2018. Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Islamic Manuscripts and Books 16). Leiden: Brill.

    The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was established in 1826. Its collection of Persian manuscripts is the most comprehensive set of its kind in Hungary. The volumes were produced in four major cultural centres of the Persianate world, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Central Asia and India during a span of time that extends from the 14th to the 19th century. Collected mainly by enthusiastic private collectors and acknowledged scholars the manuscripts have preserved several unique texts or otherwise interesting copies of well-known works. Though the bulk of the collection has been part of Library holdings for almost a century, the present volume is the first one to describe these manuscripts in a detailed and systematic way.

    Benedek Péri is the head of the Department of Turkic Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Specialized in the history of classical Persianate literary traditions, he has widely published on various aspects of Persian, Chaghatay and Ottoman literature.

  • The Mandaean religion and the Aramaic background of Manichaeism

    Ionuţ Daniel Băncilă. 2018. Die mandäische Religion und der aramäische Hintergrund des Manichäismus: Forschungsgeschichte, Textvergleiche, historisch-geographische Verortung. (Mandäistische Forschungen 6). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    Mandaeism, the only surviving Gnostic religion, reflected, recorded, evaluated and thus transformed various religious traditions of different identities. Although a “Mandaean identity” did not develop until after the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia, one can assume that “Mandaean ideas” were already present in various Aramaic-speaking groups in Mesopotamia.
    In his study of the Mandaean religion, Ionuţ Daniel Băncilă asks whether traces of “Mandaic thoughts” can be found in Manichaeism, the second major Gnostic religion in the region. He examines this question in three different methodological approaches: A detailed look at the history of research on the subject shows to what extent previous attempts to explain the relationship between Manichaeism and Mandaeism were subject to the cultural fashions of different epochs; the text-comparative part of the study examines motifs in Manichaeism that can be identified as “Mandaic ideas” on a philological-literary critical basis. In a third part, the Mandaean understanding of history is critically examined and an attempt is made to explain the relations between the two religions geographical and historical vantage point.

    Table of Contents

     

  • Aramaic Magic Bowls

    Siam Bhayro, James Nathan Ford, Dan Levene & Ortal-Paz Saar. 2018. Aramaic magic bowls in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. Descriptive list and edition of selected texts (Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity 7). Lieden: Brill.

    The collection of Aramaic magic bowls and related objects in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin is one of the most important in the world. This book presents a description of each object and its contents, including details of users and other names, biblical quotations, parallel texts, and linguistic features. Combined with the detailed indices, the present volume makes the Berlin collection accessible for further research. Furthermore, sixteen texts, which are representative of the whole collection, are edited. This book results from an impressive collaboration between Siam Bhayro, James Nathan Ford, Dan Levene, and Ortal-Paz Saar, with further contributions by Matthew Morgenstern, Marco Moriggi, and Naama Vilozny, and will be of interest for all those engaged in the study of these fascinating objects.

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