Aglaia Iankovskaia | SOAS University of London (original) (raw)

Papers by Aglaia Iankovskaia

Archipel, 2024

Drawing on a case study of an Arabic poem and two versions of its interlinear Malay translation, ... more Drawing on a case study of an Arabic poem and two versions of its interlinear Malay translation, the paper speculates on the involvement of oral practices in the transmission of interlinear texts. The translations are found in two manuscripts from Aceh (EAP329/1/11, Endangered Archives, 18th c., and ML 341, Jakarta, late 19th c.), between the lines of a didactic verse dealing with the duties of a good Muslim student. While the Arabic text of the poem seems to have been reproduced through copying from a written source, the transmission history of its Malay translations appears to be more complicated. Juxtaposing the two versions of interlinear translation reveals that they are too similar to be unrelated and, at the same time, too different for the differences to result from corruption in the process of recopying. The paper argues that the interlinear text in the manuscripts under discussion has gone through both written and oral transmission—likely in the classroom settings, with a teacher dictating the translation looking into a written copy, but feeling free to slightly modify or complement it during the dictation.

Indonesia and the Malay World, 2024

The article explores the involvement of bilingual texts comprising a source and its interlinear t... more The article explores the involvement of bilingual texts comprising a source and its interlinear translation in Islamic educational practices in 19th- and 20th-century Sumatra. Such texts occur among the so-called kitab kuning, materials dealing primarily with the principles of Islamic faith, jurisprudence, and ethics that have been traditionally used for teaching in Indonesia’s Islamic schools. Written in classical Arabic, these texts are sometimes provided with translations to Malay or other languages between the lines. The article addresses two cases demonstrating occurrence of this practice in manuscripts containing Islamic doctrinal texts that were often used for teaching beginners: an anonymous versified ‘aqīdah originating from late 19th-century Aceh and a copy of Umm al-barāhīn by al-Sanūsī (d.1490), from Palembang of around the same period. The manuscripts under discussion appear to demonstrate different types of interlinear translation from Arabic to Malay, i.e. phrase-by-phrase and word-by-word. The article argues that both types combine literality with interpretation, which allows the assumption that interlinear translation was used as a tool for teaching both the Arabic language and the basics of Islamic doctrine.

Archipel, 2023

Through a case study of a bilingual manuscript found in the collection of Christiaan Snouck Hurgr... more Through a case study of a bilingual manuscript found in the collection of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) in Leiden, the article explores some aspects of the practice of interlinear translation in the Indonesian-Malay world. Dating back to around 1903-1904 and being a copy of a manuscript brought by the Dutch from a military campaign in Gayo, Aceh, the manuscript contains an anonymous didactic poem in Arabic provided with phrase-by-phrase Malay translation between the lines. The author juxtaposes the source text and its translation and argues that the translator employed the interlinear space for both literal and interpretative types of translation, which demonstrates the role of this space in the Islamic educational practices as that for both language teaching and religious instruction.

Kunstkamera, 2024

Батаки, проживающие в северной части острова Суматра, относятся к немногим народам Индонезии, соз... more Батаки, проживающие в северной части острова Суматра, относятся к немногим народам Индонезии, создавшим свою письменность на основе древнего южноиндийского шрифта паллава. В обширных коллекциях Кунсткамеры, представляющих культуру батаков, в основном групп тоба и каро, важное место занимают предметы, на которых зафиксированы тексты, написанные старым батакским письмом. К ним относятся прежде всего книги, изготовленные и написанные жрецами (pustaha). В научном мире есть лишь несколько специалистов, способных читать эти тексты и интерпретировать их содержание. Непревзойденными знатоками батакских рукописей были Иоганнес Винклер и Петрус Форхуве, а в настоящее время таковым является Ули Козок. В статье основное внимание уделяется технологии производства жреческих книг в прошлом и настоящем, а также подчеркивается роль растительных компонентов в процессе изготовления рукописных книг и других предметов с нанесенными на них письменами. В современной жизни технология изготовления книг, не считая незначительных изменений, остается такой же, как и 100–150 лет назад, но функция книг совершенно иная. Современные жреческие книги, копирующие старые образцы, не являются сакральными предметами. Они стали символами исконно батакской культуры и широко используются в туристической индустрии наряду с произведенными с этой же целью фигурками предков (debata idup), магическими жреческими жезлами (tunggal panaluan), традиционными тканями (ulos). B этом своем качестве pustaha остаются существенными элементами традиционной батакской культуры, сохраняющими ее характерные черты.

Batak people of North Sumatra are one of the few ethnic groups in Indonesia who have developed their system of writing on the basis of Pallava, ancient South Indian script. In the vast Batak collections of the Kunstkamera, which represent primarily Toba and Karo Batak groups, texts written in old Batak script are found on many objects. The most notable of those are books produced and written by Batak priests (pustaha). Only a few scholars in the world are able to read and interpret these texts. Among them, the unsurpassed experts on Batak manuscripts were Johannes Winkler and Petrus Voorhoeve, and currently is Uli Kozok. The present article focuses on the materiality of Batak books and techniques of their production in particular, in the past and present, highlighting the role of plant materials in the practices of manufacturing these manuscripts, as well as other objects with texts written on them. In modern Sumatra, techniques of producing pustaha appear to remain the same as 100-150 years ago, while functions of these books have changed significantly. Being copies of older items, the modern pustaha are no longer sacred objects. They have become symbols of the original Batak culture and are being widely used in tourist industry along with ancestral figurines (debata idup), magic priest staffs (tunggal panaluan), and traditional textiles (ulos) that are being manufactured for this purpose. As markers of Batakness, these objects remain significant elements of traditional Batak culture.

Hunter Gatherer Research Volume 6, Number 1-2, 2023

This paper provides a review of references to the coastal societies of maritime Southeast Asia fo... more This paper provides a review of references to the coastal societies of maritime Southeast Asia found in medieval Arabic geographies and travel accounts. Arabic sources, along with Chinese accounts, contain some of the earliest evidence for the history of these populations. Starting in the first centuries of Islam, Arab merchants and sailors began reporting their encounters with various communities scattered along the coasts of the Straits of Malacca. Such encounters occurred at sea during pirate attacks, in busy Malay port-polities, or on desolate shores where travellers, either shipwrecked or anchored, were in search of fresh water and jungle products for trade. Notwithstanding their brevity, Arabic accounts appear to provide some insights into the maritime activities of the predecessors of the modern Orang Laut and other maritime adapted communities throughout the region. Even fictional motifs offer a glimpse into the crucial role of the sea in the lives of Southeast Asian coastal populations, as echoed by descriptions of fantastic images of fish people depicted in medieval Arabic literature.

Proceedings of the Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12), 2022

The article looks into pre-modern Arabic descriptions of Sumatra and discusses the conceptions an... more The article looks into pre-modern Arabic descriptions of Sumatra and discusses the conceptions and ideas of the island they present. Sumatra, the westernmost island of the Malay Archipelago, was the first part of the region to become familiar to Middle Eastern sailors and traders. It was on their way to China and served as a source of fresh water and food supplies, as well as camphor, benzoin, and other jungle products. The coastal areas of Sumatra were visited by Middle Eastern ships as early as the first centuries of Islam, which is reflected in Arabic geographies and travel accounts. Before 1450, these texts appear to contain more information on Sumatra than on the other islands of the archipelago. There can be distinguished three major areas in the island known to premodern Arab writers: the northern coast of Sumatra, the western coast facing the island of Nias, and the eastern coast in the vicinity of present-day Jambi and Palembang. Each of the areas has Arabic place names associated with it, which appear in geographical texts from the ninth up to the fifteenth century and beyond. Besides topographical data, Arabic sources provide ethnographic descriptions of local populations. The article offers a brief review of the accounts of Sumatra found in these texts and their authors' ideas of pre-modern Sumatran geography and cultures.

Шаги/Steps, 2021

The paper presents a brief review of the work of the Department of Australia, Oceania and Indones... more The paper presents a brief review of the work of the Department of Australia, Oceania and Indonesia of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS, St. Petersburg, during recent years in the context of the history and current state of Russian studies of the Southern Seas countries and the cultures and languages of Austronesian and Austro-Asiatic peoples of Southeast Asia and Oceania. The authors describe the major directions of this work, including fundamental and field studies in anthropology, ethnography and folklore, as well as publishing and exhibiting activities related to the jubilee year of Nikolai N. Miklouho-Maclay (2021). The article contains a review of the conference “Maclay Readings” that was held at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) on November 11 and 13, 2020, and was dedicated to the memory of Alexander K. Ogloblin (1939–2020), an outstanding scholar and teacher of many modern Russian specialists in Indonesian and Malaysian Studies.

Этнография. 2021. 2 (12): 143–165. , 2021

Международная научная конференция, посвященная 65-й годовщине начала изучения языков ЮВА в нашей стране: Сборник материалов (Санкт-Петербург, 15–16 сентября 2020 г.) / Сост. Е. Н. Колпачкова. СПб.: Изд-во АИК. , 2020

Доклад посвящен обзору основных типов тканей уис и их функций в современной культуре батаков к... more Доклад посвящен обзору основных типов тканей уис и их функций в современной культуре батаков каро (о. Суматра, Индонезия). Окрашенные индиго темно-синие ткани, представленные в батакских коллекциях МАЭ РАН (Кунсткамеры), сегодня почти вышли из употребления. Современный репертуар уисов составляют ткани в красных, пурпурных и других тонах, причем за каждым из приблизительно 20 типов закреплены определенные цвета, композиция и функции. Как и внешний вид уиса, его роли в культуре каро претерпевают постоянную эволюцию.

The paper provides a review of the major types of uis textiles and their functions in the modern culture of the Karo Batak of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Naturally dyed blue textiles represented in the Batak collections of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) have all but gone out of use. The modern repertoire of uis includes red, purple and other textiles, each of the approximately 20 types associated with particular colours, design and functions. Both the designs of uis and its roles in the Karo culture are undergoing constant change.

Entangled Religions 11.5, 2020

The article focuses on Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s account of his journey through the Malay Archipelago in the ... more The article focuses on Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s account of his journey through the Malay Archipelago in the 1340s, which is remarkable in so far as it captures the region at the early stages of Islamisation, when the first Muslim sultanates emerged in North Sumatra. It describes the Arab traveller’s encounters with both Muslim and Hindu-Buddhist inhabitants of the region, drawing the image of a frontier of the world of Islam. The article discusses the narrative techniques used in the travelogue and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s perceptions of the cultural border between Muslim and non-Muslim parts of the archipelago. As the author tries to demonstrate, this barrier is represented in the text as the one between the cosmopolitan but familiar Islamic world and the exoticised space beyond, and it appears to be more imagined than actually experienced, since the account seems to be largely shaped by the general narrative paradigm of the travelogue.

Труды Института востоковедения РАН. Вып. 28. Письменные памятники Востока: Проблемы перевода и интерпретации. Избранные доклады: Том III. М.: ИВ РАН , 2020

The Accounts of China and India is one of the earliest Arabic texts mentioning the islands of the... more The Accounts of China and India is one of the earliest
Arabic texts mentioning the islands of the Malay Archipelago and
the Malay Peninsula. The writing consists of two parts: an anonymous
text dating back to 850 and a 10th-century supplement to it
by Abu Zaid al-Sirafi. It contains various data on not only China
and India, but also on ports and islands located along the major
sea lanes through Southeast Asia. Along with Chinese dynastic
chronicles, The Accounts appear to be one of the earliest written
evidence on the history and historical geography of the Malay-
Indonesian region. In the first part of The Accounts one can find
descriptions of the routes followed by Middle Eastern ships
through the Bay of Bengal, the Straits of Malacca and possibly
Sunda, while the supplement by Abu Zaid contains a curious
historical tale about the raid of Sailendras against Cambodia
dating back to the late 8th century. The article looks into these
accounts, as well as the place names they mention, which were
applied by medieval Arab geographers and travellers to the islands
of the Malay Archipelago and the coasts of the Malay Peninsula.

(Papers of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS. Issue 28. Written Sources of the East: Problems of Translation and Interpretation. Selected papers. Volume III. Moscow: IOS RAS)

Бетель, кава, кола, чат. Жевательные стимуляторы в ритуале и мифологии народов мира / Отв. ред. и сост. М. В. Станюкович; ред. А. К. Касаткина. СПб.: МАЭ РАН (Betel, kava, cola, chat. Chewing stimulators in ritual and mythology of the world. St. Petersburg: MAE RAS), 2015

The article deals with the references to the practice of betel consumption in “The Journey” of Ib... more The article deals with the references to the practice of betel consumption in “The Journey” of Ibn Battuta, an Arab traveler of the 14th century. These mentions indicate the wide spread of betel chewing in the countries around the Indian Ocean in the Middle Ages, and also may serve as a source of data on its ritual and etiquette functions.

ЭТНОГРАФИЯ / ETNOGRAFIA. 2019. № 1 (3), 2019

Статья основана на материалах полевого выезда автора на остров Суматра (Индонезия) в августе 2018... more Статья основана на материалах полевого выезда автора на остров Суматра (Индонезия) в августе 2018 г. Целью экспедиции были сбор данных о производстве и бытовании ритуального текстиля в каро-батакской деревне и уточнение сведений о батакских коллекциях, хранящихся в МАЭ РАН. Основной единицей каро-батакской ткаческой традиции является уис-прямоугольный кусок домотканой материи, изготовленный на наспинном ткацком станке с применением техник икат и сонгкет. Уис занимает центральное место в культуре каро и выполняет разнообразные ритуальные и социальные функции, в том числе являясь неотъемлемым элементом обрядов жизненного цикла и важнейшим маркером этнической идентичности.
В коллекциях МАЭ батакский ритуальный текстиль представлен преимущественно образцами конца XIX в., относящимися к типу так называемых синих тканей. Сегодня такие ткани можно по-прежнему найти в домах батаков каро, где они хранятся как семейные реликвии, однако традиция их изготовления практически прервана. За последние сто лет заметно изменился репертуар ритуального текстиля каро, а на смену темно-синей цветовой гамме пришли ярко-красные тона. Свой вклад в эти процессы внесли появление новых технологий, синтетических материалов и красителей, а также расширение контактов каро с другими народами региона. Но так или иначе уис продолжает играть ключевую роль в каро-батакской культуре и социальной жизни.

The article is based on the author’s field studies in Sumatra, Indonesia, in August 2018, which aimed to collect data on the production and usage of ritual textiles in the Karo Batak village as well as to amplify the information on the Batak collections held in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg. The major piece of Karo Batak weaving tradition is uis, which is a rectangular handwoven cloth produced on a backstrap loom involving the techniques of ikat and songket. Uis appears to be central to the Karonese culture, its ritual and social functions including those of a key element of the passage rituals and its role of an ethnic identity marker.
In the MAE collections Batak ritual textiles are mainly represented by late nineteenth-century items which belong to the so-called “blue textiles” type. Nowadays these textiles can be still found in Karonese houses where they are kept as heirlooms, but their production has all but completely ceased. The repertoire of Karonese uis changed significantly over the past century, the dark blue color set having been replaced by bright red tones. The advent of new technologies and synthetic yarn and dyes contributed to the issue, as did the increase of interaction between the Karo Batak and other peoples of the region. However, uis retains its integral role in the Karonese culture and social activities.

Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU. Vol. 23. 2018. P. 40-49., 2018

Восток (Oriens). 2014. №3. С. 126-137., 2014

«Путешествие» Ибн Баттуты занимает особое место среди средневековых арабских источников по истори... more «Путешествие» Ибн Баттуты занимает особое место среди средневековых арабских источников по истории малайского мира. Это одно из немногих арабских свидетельств о регионе, основанных на рассказах очевидца. В 1345-1347 гг. Ибн Баттута совершил плавание из Индии в Китай и обратно через Малаккский пролив, посетив по дороге султанат Самудра-Пасай на Северной Суматре и портовый город Какула, предположительно находившийся на побережье Малаккского полуострова. Описание этих портов занимает несколько страниц в «Путешествии» и содержит не только историко-географические, но и этнографические сведения. Несмотря на небольшой объем и сложности в восстановлении хронологии и маршрута, сообщения Ибн Баттуты служат ценным источником по истории малайско-индонезийского региона. Тем не менее, на русском языке они до сих пор не изданы. Русского перевода полного текста «Путешествия» не существует. В разное время в нашей стране публиковались отдельные извлечения из сочинения, однако главы, посвященные Юго-Восточной Азии, остаются за рамками этих изданий. Публикация содержит перевод отрывков из «Путешествия» Ибн Баттуты, посвященных Самудре и Какуле, и комментарии к нему. Перевод выполнен с арабского текста, изданного в 1858 гг. французскими востоковедами Ш. Дефремери и Б. Р. Сангинетти.