Centre de recherche sur le monde iranien

This chapter aims to shed some light on Naṣīr Al-Dīn Ṭūsī contribution to tthat art whereby the poet arranges imaginary propositionst. Defined as a part of logic, poetry is distinguished from all other possible schemes of rational discourse - be they demonstrative, dialectical, rhetorical or sophistical - by the fact that it cannot claim to afffect the audience by winning its assent. We shall therefore question the special features that characterize imagination and its modus operandi in poetry according to Naṣīr Al-Dīn Ṭūsī. First conceived of by Fārābī, the was described at length by Avicenna, who insisted that the emotional efffects of wonder and pleasure were inherent in poetry. Mūliyān, Āmū, Jayḥūn: the phonetic combinations evocative of the Oxus recall the diversity of landscapes it waters and its fertile surroundings. Naṣīr Al-Dīn Ṭūsī may be the sole author to give a comprehensive philosophical account of poetry in Persian. Keywords:Fārābī; Naṣīr Al-Dīn Ṭūsī; Persian; poetic syllogism

Abstract This paper offers a first systematic investigation of predicative possessive constructions across Western Iranian languages. The notion of possession is conceived as a prototypical domain. It is shown that investigated languages are classified into two major areally distributed groups with respect to predicative possessive constructions: (i) “be”-verb languages, (ii) “have”-verb languages. “Have”-possessives, which originated from “action schema”, are argued to have superseded the archaic “be”-possessives, which trigger a non-canonical marking of the possessor argument. However, “have”-verb languages have preserved relics of the older “be”-possessive in some neighbouring domains to possession. In addition, two languages exhibit possession split and are in transition from “be”-possession to “have”-possession: these languages demonstrate the effect of alienability/inalienability in such a split.

International audience

International audience

Il volume, che prende le mosse dal seminario Confine, limite, soglia, svoltosi tra aprile e maggio 2016 presso l’Universita Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, si propone un’esplorazione delle opportunita euristiche legate al concetto di confine.  Raccogliendo tredici contributi afferenti ad ambiti disciplinari diversi e organizzati in quattro sezioni tematiche, nel suo complesso ambisce a mostrare l’arbitrarieta sottesa al tracciamento di ogni confine e a far luce sulla meccanica che orienta i processi di partizione.

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Abstract Old Persian shows a change of postconsonantal y , w to iy , uw , respectively. However, if one applies (pre-)Middle Persian sound changes to the Old Persian forms, the result is at variance with certain Middle Persian forms. If one were to assume a syncope reversing the Old Persian change of y , w to iy , uw , this would also affect old cases of iy , uw and likewise yield incorrect results for Middle Persian. The Old Persian change can thus not have operated in the prehistory of Middle Persian, and there is a dialectal difference between attested Old Persian and the later stages of the language, which is to be added to those already noted. The paper also discusses some sound changes that are connected to the Old Persian change in one way or the other. Cases in point are the processes called Epenthesis and Umlaut in previous scholarship, which this article suggests to interpret as occurring in different contexts and in different periods. The former is limited to V ry , which yields V ir and feeds into a monophthongisation that, as shown by some late Old Persian word forms, occurred within Achaemenid times, giving ēr and īr from ary and əry . Epenthesis did not occur in the prehistory of Parthian, whereas the monophthongisation did. The Appendix presents a tentative sequence of the processes discussed in this article, which is intended as a contribution to the relative chronology of Persian historical phonology.

In June 1607, a Tuscan fleet of about twenty ships and two thousand two hundred men attacked the fortress of Famagusta in Cyprus, with the aim of making it the base for the subsequent occupation of the whole island, which had been in Ottoman hands since 1570. The attack was a total failure: the Tuscan fleet, divided into two parts, did not meet as planned and the Greek inhabitants of the island, who according to Tuscan information should have rebelled, did not. Moreover, the Ottoman garrison was aware of the attack, which meant that the attempt at a surprise attack was in vain. It is clear that, excluding the logistical problem of the fleet meeting up, the enterprise’s lack of success was due to a total inadequacy of what we today would call “intelligence”. The information in Tuscans’ hands did not turn out to be completely correct and they were unable to keep the planned operation secret. However, by contrast, the Venetian intelligence was able to manage the information in its possession in a more cautious way, taking advantage of the situation effectively. Through this case study, the article aims to follow the scholarship on information-gathering in the Early Modern Mediterranean world, showing, once again, how important and extensive such networks were. The aim of this short study, which is based largely on archival documentation, is not to deal with the Tuscan raid on the island, but to identify the faults of the Tuscan “intelligence” that led to the misfortunate attack. Moreover, through the analysis of the documents, it is also possible to add some elements to the knowledge about the Tuscan Grand Duke’s Levantine network.

The last decade has witnessed the proliferation of research articles and projects about death in a migratory context — the focus being alternatively on the body of migrants (Lestage, 2019) or on the creation of community through the management of death among (settled) immigrants. This thematic dossier proposes to capture a specific moment — that of death occurring abroad, within a particular space, namely the post-Soviet space — in order to understand not only how migratory flows are perpetuated and anchored in the arrival territories, but also how management of the deceased can contribute to perpetuating and shaping transnational groups over time, on both sides of the borders they cross. This thematic dossier reviews several dimensions of death management in the context of migration: transnational care and translocal funeral rituals, risk mitigation and resource pooling practices, and transnational deathscapes. La décennie qui s’est écoulée a vu la prolifération d’articles et de projets de recherche sur la mort en contexte migratoire — l’accent étant mis alternativement sur le corps des migrants ou sur la création d’une communauté à travers la gestion de la mort chez les immigrés (installés) (Lestage, 2019). Ce dossier thématique propose de saisir un moment spécifique — celui de la mort survenue à l’étranger, au sein d’un espace particulier, à savoir l’espace post-soviétique — afin de comprendre non seulement comment les flux migratoires se perpétuent et s’ancrent dans les territoires d’arrivée, mais aussi comment la gestion des défunts peut contribuer à perpétuer et façonner des groupes transnationaux dans le temps, de part et d’autre des frontières qu’ils traversent. Ce dossier thématique aborde plusieurs dimensions de la gestion de la mort dans ce contexte de migration : les soins transnationaux et les rituels funéraires translocaux, les pratiques d’atténuation des risques et de mise en commun des ressources, ainsi que les « deathscapes » transnationaux. En la última década han proliferado los artículos y proyectos de investigación sobre la muerte en el contexto de la migración, alternando el enfoque entre el cuerpo del migrante (Lestage, 2019) y la creación de una comunidad a través de la gestión de la muerte entre los inmigrantes (asentados). Este dossier temático propone captar un momento específico — el de la muerte ocurrida en el extranjero, dentro de un espacio particular, a saber, el espacio postsoviético — para comprender no sólo cómo se perpetúan y anclan los flujos migratorios en los territorios de llegada, sino también cómo la gestión de los muertos puede contribuir a perpetuar y conformar grupos transnacionales a lo largo del tiempo, a ambos lados de las fronteras que cruzan. Este dossier temático aborda varias dimensiones de la gestión de la muerte en el contexto de la migración: los cuidados transnacionales y los rituales funerarios translocales, la mitigación de riesgos y las prácticas de puesta en común de recursos, y los «deathscapes» transnationales.

This article examines the attitude adopted by Russian government officials and diplomats toward the Iranian constitutional movement in 1907–1912. Framed by the discourse of international prestige, it was shaped by fundamental factors such as foreign policy and domestic security concerns, imperialism, and orientalism. Of no less importance was the role of Russian diplomats in Iran. They had developed and sustained a wide network of political clients who were supposed to act as agents of Russian influence in the country, ranging from local chieftains to members of the ruling dynasty. At some point, the commitment of numerous Russian consular officers in Iran to their clients outweighed pragmatism, and instead of building relationships with the revolutionary government, they began lobbying for Russia's military intervention in support of counterrevolutionary forces. Depending on information coming from the field officers in Iran and obsessed with the notion of imperial prestige and contempt for revolution, the Russian government eventually gave in to this pressure. Резюме: В статье рассматривается отношение российских правительствен-ных чиновников и дипломатов к иранскому конституционному движе-нию 1907–1912 гг. Риторически российская дипломатия апеллировала к международному престижу, но реально на отношение имперских вла-стей влияли империалистическая политика и ориенталистские взгляды, а также практические соображения внешней политики и внутренней безопасности. Не меньшую роль играли связи российских дипломатов в Иране, культивировавших широкую сеть политической клиентуры. В эту сеть агентов российского влияния в стране входили как местные племенные лидеры, так и члены правящей династии. В определенный момент лояльность многочисленных российских консульских чинов-ников их клиентам перевесила прагматизм, и вместо налаживания от-ношений с революционным правительством они начали лоббировать российскую военную интервенцию в поддержку контрреволюционных сил. Российские власти, чрезвычайно серьезно относившиеся к поня-тию имперского престижа и испытывавшие презрение к революции, зависели от информации, поступавшей от их представителей в Иране. В итоге они уступили их давлению.

Abstract. A 2010 survey of more than 10 000 students from 18 countries showed that Central Asia was virtually absent from their representations of the world. In order to check whether this was also the case in the representations of students from this region, this survey was replicated in Kazakhstan, while nevertheless making the assumption that a Central Asian region would be largely represented by the students. While the results confirm important aspects of the theory of social representations of space, they also provide some original insights, showing in particular the very large place given to States, and in particular the Kazakh State, in the breakdown of the World. The prominence of States in Kazakh students' representations of the World can be analysed as a sign of the appropriation of the nation-state model by Kazakh students, some thirty years after the country's independence.

International audience

International audience

L’Iran retrouve peu à peu une place dans l’économie et la politique mondiale. Cette renaissance met en évidence des dynamiques nouvelles et des blocages dont l’analyse ne saurait se fonder sur la simple continuité, sans tenir compte de la rupture profonde de près de quatre décennies d’isolement voulu ou imposé. Les études sur l’Iran réel sont trop rares. Les travaux présentés lors de la réunion de l’AGF en octobre 2016 montrent une société, des relations internationales et des territoires différents des stéréotypes. De nombreuses études nouvelles sont nécessaires pour connaître la complexité du processus de renaissance d’un pays en voie de sécularisation après avoir fait l’expérience de l’islam politique.

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Traversant l’ensemble de la tradition zoroastrienne, la Dēn (avestique daēnā « vision ») est une notion polysémique qui peut désigner soit une divinité aurorale psychopompe, soit la doctrine religieuse, soit la parole sacrée de l’Avesta. Combinant ces différentes acceptions, le passage du Dēnkard III.225, commenté ici pour la première fois, apporte non seulement la preuve directe d’une continuité du sens originel de « vision » entre l’Avesta et sa strate exégétique en moyen-perse (pehlevi), mais également celle du développement de spéculations métaphysiques (avec un arrière-plan néoplatonicien) sur la vision transcendantale à laquelle accède le mage. Des sources matérielles (iconographiques et épigraphiques) contribuent elles aussi à mettre en évidence que la Dēn est l’entité divine que l’on regarde les yeux dans les yeux.

International audience

This article discusses A. Chokobayeva and N. Shelekpayev’s critique of Müller’s concept of the ‘Global East’ to describe the former socialist East, as well as their proposal to adopt a ‘tactical essentialism of national discourses’, which they consider necessary for the production of social science research in Central Asia, liberated from Russian interpretations of the past and present. Consequently, the article discusses the limitations of major paradigms, including that of the “Global East”. It argues that this term ignores the fact that the scholarly field it is supposed to unite is divided by a post-colonial configuration that fosters divergent views. Furthermore, it highlights that this notion also neglects the crucial issue of research autonomy from political affairs. Finally, the article critiques the use of tactical essentialism as a response to these issues. However, the promotion of essentialism — be it tactical or strategic — in Central Asian studies, despite its laudable ambition to move away from imperial and neo-imperial narratives, can exacerbate organic, essentialist and nationalist visions of identity and nation already prevalent in political powers and public opinion. Therefore, the authors argue for a methodological postulate of critical and dispassionate constructivism that guarantees as much autonomy as possible for research in and on Central Asia.

International audience

Les poéticiens de l’Iran pré-moderne n’ont jamais éludé la délicate question de la nature de la poésie. Du vers (naẓm), de son essence et de ses attributs, ils offrent des analyses copieuses, quoique divergentes. De son pendant, en revanche, presque rien n’est dit : comment définir la prose (naṯr) ? Comment les lettrés de l’Iran classique la concevaient-ils ? Par-delà le simple critère métrique, l’artigraphie du XIIIe siècle semble faire signe vers certains traits positifs, prosodiques et syntaxiques, qui la caractérisent. La coordination (‘ aṭf) est de ceux-là. Excédant les règles de la grammaire, il se pourrait même que l’inclination à la «jonction » (vaṣl) et au «reploiement » (edrāj) invoquée par les auteurs reflète un authentique idéal esthétique. C’est cette notion de la prose d’art dans l’Iran médiéval que voudrait éclairer le présent article.