Central Asia

July 1, 2022 thread

It's time to talk about Central Asia🧵

First thing to understand about Central Asia is that modern borders have no correlation at all with borders of historic regions. For example the historic region of Khorasan that played a key (or the key?) role in Medieval Islamic history is now divided between a number of states

Modern nation states very much exaggerate their primordiality. In case of Uzbekistan we understand this. In case of Iran we don't. And yet, in my view Islamic authors didn't talk about Iran nearly as much as about Khorasan. The former was an abstraction, the latter - a reality

Second thing to understand about Central Asia that it used to lie on commercial crossroads. Much or even may be most of the trade between East and West Eurasia went by land caravans through Central Asia. The region used to be rich and have geographic comparative advantages

Commercial transactions brought cultural contacts. Just one example. The Qing rulers of China presented themselves differently in their Chinese and Manchu correspondence. In Chinese letters Qianlong showed himself as a "normal" Confucian ruler. In Manchu letters Hongli didn't

That might not be an exaggeration to say that the Manchu served as a secret language of power in the Qing empire until very lately. Only in Manchu which their Chinese subjects couldn't understand, Qing rulers could express their thoughts relatively freely

Manchu script looked nothing like characters. It was an adaptation of Mongol script for the Manchu language commissioned by Nurhaci Khan in late 16th c. Mongol script in its own turn was an adaptation of the Old Uyghur Script for the Mongol language commissioned by Genghis Khan

Old Uyghur script itself ultimately derived from the Aramaic script, through the cultural and religious contacts of the Silk Road. So the Manchu writing system whose knowledge is necessary for understanding the politics of the Qing Empire evolved from a writing system of Levant

Modern discourse is still Eurocentric. When discussing the Silk Road cultural exchange, we focus on Marco Polo, and ignore his contemporary Rabban Sawma, a Beijing Nestorian who travelled to Europe. How did Medieval Paris look for a native of Khanbaliq? https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/sauma.html