Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Scythian legacy: economy, contact and culture of Eurasian nomads, S. J. Simpson et S.V. Pankova (Dir.)
An overview of the complex relationships of the Asian nomads with the "empires" cultures, as reflected in arts, especially with the Achaemenian, Chinese and Greek. It shows how the Scythian or Saka pastoral nomadic populations selected some art elements from court arts, monumental or "minor", for integrating them in their compositions, by using their own steppe stylistic artistic conventions, for their own use.
This chapter explores the opportunities which displays of classical antiquities offer for understanding Russia’s conflicted self‐identification as a nation. The study of Russian archaeological collecting derives its interest from the multiple associations of classical antiquities, evoking potential genealogies in Roman imperialism, Byzantine Orthodoxy, and Russia’s “native” antiquity on the Black Sea shore—the symbiotic relations between Greek colonists and Scythian nomads. The survey contrasts two currents in display practice, distinguished by the strategies deployed to resolve the perceived lack of organic continuity in Russia’s past. Eighteenth‐century collecting rationalized Greco‐Roman marbles in allegorical terms, as embodiments of the Enlightenment values that justify imperial rule. In response to Slavocentric nationalism, the court’s antiquarians discovered in the nineteenth century an alternative ancestry for the cosmopolitan empire in the Scythian monarchies of South Russia. This analogical conception of antiquity has its legacy in the current theories of cultural convergence in Eurasianist historiography.
This introductory essay places Rostovtzeff's interpretative model of northern Black Sea archaeology in the context of contemporary historical imagination in Russia and Europe. The discussion focuses in particular on Rostovtzeff's approach to Graeco-Scythian metal-work, as pioneered in his 1913 article on 'The conception of monarchical power in Scythia and on the Bosporus', and the possibilities which religious interpretation of the objects' figured scenes offered in developing the narrative of cultural fusion between Orientals and Occidentals best known in the West from his Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (1922). The author seeks to bring out the teleological tendencies of this account, largely concerned with explaining Russia's historical identity as a Christian empire between East and West.
A Review of the Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China, 2024
The Scythian Empire is a controversial book with a charming title that can attract the attention of any scholar. Christopher I. Beckwith presents claims in this book that accepting each one of them leads us to rethink many previous customary historical beliefs. Some of his theories are novel but most of them are rehabilitation of older obsolete ideas. The book wraps a wide range of specialized topics in the fields of history, archeology, and linguistics; but deals with most of them on a superficial level. Since the Scythians were an Iranian ethnic group, this work is especially recommended for scholars of Iranian history, as unfortunately, the significance of the Scythians in shaping Iranian history has not been recognized as other ancient Iranians such as the Persians. In a broader sense, this work can be also useful for scholars interested in the Iranian world and its relations with neighboring civilizations, Eurasia, Central Asia, and China.
The Identity of Scythian and Turk: In the Base of Cultural History
Independently published, Amazon KDP, 2020
This book is the extended and English version of one of my published books, Kültür Tarihi Açısından İskit-Türk Aynılığı (Selenge, Istanbul 2017, Turkish). My goal is to reach to people in the world who are interested in Scythian culture and raise the awareness of them in context of the book title. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P4GBPF8/ref=cm\_sw\_r\_tw\_dp\_x\_7Vn5FbVYK8XTT