| Degoev V.V. The Caucasus in the Works of European Authors of the XVIII Century |
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The threefold task the author had in mind implies the following. First, to assess informative value of the 18th century European sketches on the Caucasus as a source of the appropriate knowledge. Second, to redirect scholarly attention towards searching for distinct lines between murky facts and their interpretation, oftentimes arbitrary, uncritical, and even openly biased. It would help to reveal what might be called a scientific trend in Western “historiography” on the region`s past. Third, to expose the role of the incoming political and ideological factors determined by geostrategic interests of the concerned States on the one hand and by its largely prejudiced, as it were, orientalistic perception of the East on the other. While the author found his general approach promising he hesitates to claim that all of his conclusions are flawless. Some of them need further arguments either pro or contra to deservedly place the subject in question in a wider context of history. Keywords: scientific Caucasian studies, "image of the other", European writings.
References: 1. Adygi, balkartsy, karachaevtsy v izvestiyah evropeyskih avtorov XIII-XIX vv. [Adyghes, Balkarians, Karachays in the news of European authors of the XIII-XIX centuries]. Drafting, editing translations, introduction and introductory articles to the texts made by V.К. Gardanov. Nalchik, Elbrus, 1974. 637 p. 2. Glavani Ksaverio. Opisanie Cherkesii 1724 g. Perevod i primechaniya E.G. Veydenbauma [Description of Circassia of 1724. Translation and notes by E.G. Weidenbaum]. Sbornik materialov dlya opisaniya mestnostej i plemen Kavkaza [Collected materials to describe the areas and tribes of the Caucasus]. Tiflis, 1893, iss. 17, division I, pp. 149-177. 3. Sokolov A.B. «Ochakovskoe delo». Anglo-rossiyskii konflikt 1791 goda [«Ochakov case». The Anglo-Russian Conflict of 1791]. Otechestvennaya istoriya [Russian History]. 2002, no. 4, pp. 3–22. Peysonel M. Issledovanie torgovli na Cherkessko-Abhazskom beregu Chernogo morya v 1750–1762 godah (Trait? sur le commerce de la mer Noir) v izlozhenii E.D. Felitsina. Seriya: Materialy dlya istorii cherkesskogo naroda. Vyp.2 [A study of trade on the Cherkess-Abkhaz coast of the Black Sea in 1750–1762 (Trait? sur le commerce de la mer Noir) presented by E.D. Felitsin. Series: Materials for the history of the Circassian people.] Krasnodar, Obschestvo izucheniya Adyigeyskoi avtonomnoi oblasti, 1927, iss. 2. 35 p. |