Category Archives: Allgemein

Previous Meetings: 42nd Meeting, Prague 1999

Dear Reader,

The the discovery of archival materials always offers a fortunate opportunity to fill in blank spots in the history of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC). This is even more important in cases where no proceedings volume was ever produced.

For the 42nd Meeting of the PIAC held in Prague in 1999 hosted under the auspices of RFE/RL, the following materials are now available in addition to the existing article by Bruce Pannier:

As always, curating the PIAC archive relies on contributions from the PIAC community. Thus, in case you participated in that meeting but do not find your name in the aforementioned materials, please let me know and everything will be duly updated.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General

Berlin, March 09, 2023

Previous Meetings: 61st Meeting Bishkek, 2018

Dear Reader,

the 61st Annual Meeting of the PIAC took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in 2018. With more than 150 participants it definitely is one of the biggest PIAC meetings ever held; the Meeting was part of a series of other, more prominent high-level international events, among them the Third World Nomad Games, the celebrations for the 27th Independence Day of Kyrgyzstan, as well as the 6th Meeting of the Turkic Council, as it was then called.

The introduction contains links to the list of participants, the programme as well the presentations.

Sincerely yours,

Oliver Corff
Secretary General.

Berlin, February 3rd, 2023

Previous Meetings: 47th Meeting Cambridge, 2004: Report

Dear Reader,

Our Turkish colleague Süer Eker wrote an introduction to the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) and a report on the 47th Annual Meeting of the PIAC. He kindly gave permission to translate the report in English, and finally it could be published here.

Oliver Corff, January 23, 2023.

Previous Meetings: 53rd Annual Meeting St. Petersburg, 2010: Abstracts and Report

Dear Reader,

Recently, Viacheslav Zaytsev made the Book of Abstracts of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference available which was held in St. Petersburg, 2010. He also gave permission to make all abstracts available via programme and individual contributor.

This update was a good opportunity to finally present the report on that Meeting which was written by the President of that Meeting, Tatiana Pang.

The re-organized overview including T. Pang’s report of the Meeting can be found here, the book of abstracts here, individual abstracts are available via the programme.

Oliver Corff, January 23rd, 2023.

 

In Memoriam Giovanni Stary

– A Sublime and Humane Ambassador of Manju Scholarship –
Giovanni Stary
(March 27, 1946 – October 19, 2022)

Giovanni Enrico Stary (he rarely used his middle name) was born in Merano in South Tyrol, on March 27, 1946. It may be a coincidence that he was born in a city known through the ages as a residence of scholars and writers alike; it may be another coincidence that South Tyrol, an autonomous province in northern Italy, being home to Germans and Italians, enjoying a strong regional culture, is a prominent model of a region where multiple languages and cultures co-exist in a community. In a wider sense, this may also be said of the Manju nation, their language, culture and religion, subject of the life-long academic interest of Giovanni Stary.

Giovanni Stary studied Classical Chinese at the Istituto Universitario Orientale, at Naples. His doctoral dissertation, defended in 1969, was the ouverture to a lifelong occupation with Central Asia and China: “I primi rapporti tra Russia e Cina. Documenti e testimonianze” [Early relations between Russia and China. Documents and testimonies.], later published in Naples in 1974. A German treatise followed soon, in 1976: “Chinas Erste Gesandte in Russland”. Among these earliest envoys are the Manju diplomat Tulišen, whose report Lakcaha jecen de takûraha babe ejehe bithe [“Book of the remote border areas recorded by the embassy”; the title also being interpreted—rather than translated—as “Narrative of the Chinese Embassy to the Khan of the Tourgouth Tartars”] (in Chinese: 異域錄). Tulišen and his text have been known in the West since the end of the 18th century. Far less known is the fate of Tuoshi and Daisin missions, the Tuoshi mission being systematically purged from the record under Qianlong; the “Draft History of Qing” (清史稿) neither mentions Tuoshi nor Empress Anna or their encounters in 1731 and 1732 at all, only the “History of Qing from Beginning to End” (清史紀事本末), compiled in the early years of the Chinese Republic by Huang Hongshou, mentions Tuoshi’s mission and encounter with Empress Anna.

Beginning with his dissertation thesis, Giovanni Stary made Manju studies an integral element and later central foundation of his scholarly work. To him, Manju never was an extinct or dead language, and his occupation with and dedication to Manju studies never was what is known in some academic circles, occasionally in a mildly disparaging tone, as Hilfswissenschaft. Rather, Manju studies were to him an essentially contemporary field. Thus, he dedicated a considerable portion of his energy to researching Sibe, a modern, yet endangered branch of the Tungusic languages which is still spoken today in Xinjiang and is mutually intelligible with Manju. He published “Epengesänge der Sibe-Mandschuren” (1988), the “Taschenwörterbuch Sibemandschurisch–Deutsch” (1990) and the “‘Schamanenbuch’ der Sibe-Mandschuren” (1992). Whoever among his wide circle of friends happened to travel to China, or better, Xinjiang, was asked to buy every available publication in Sibe.

Beyond scholarly work, he also disseminated his knowledge and understanding of Manju culture to a broader audience. A representative title is “On the Tracks of Manchu Culture. 1644–1994. 350 Years after the Conquest of Peking” (1995). This book contains more than 200 illustrations reflecting the rich heritage of Manju history, inscriptions and material culture, both in the Manju heartland as well as beyond its borders. The book even offers a rare glimpse into the contemporary life of Cabcal Sibe Autonomous County during the year 1991; at that time, public signboards still showed Sibe Manju texts on top, with their Chinese equivalents below — a vivid demonstration of Sibe being indeed the primary language of Cabcal.

Besides his own writing, Giovanni Stary edited and published numerous sources (e.g. “Ars Poetica Manjurica”, 1989, and “Materialien zur Vorgeschichte der Qing-Dynastie”, 1996, to name just two titles), frequently in collaboration with life-long colleagues.

Giovanni Stary was a faithful friend of the PIAC family; he participated in at least 25 Annual Meetings and was the President of the 28th Annual Meeting which was held in Venice in 1985 (he also published the Proceedings volume of this meeting in 1989). His outstanding academic contributions to the field of Altaic studies were recognized with the Indiana University Prize for Altaic Studies, or PIAC Medal in short, in 2006.

Beyond his own research and writing, Giovanni Stary always played a catalytic role in the field. He published dozens of scholarly reviews (the author of these lines counted more than 70 but is not at all sure whether he found all reviews written by him), thus sharing his own broad knowledge of recent work and increasing the visibility of other scholars and their research within the community.

If anything more needs to be said, then that Giovanni Stary was a true bridge between generations of scholars; in prominent position, he mentions Walter Fuchs and Shunju Imanishi as academical teachers. A similar relationship holds true for the author of these lines who, over nearly 20 years, received continuous support and critical feedback from Giovanni Stary along his own humble steps of Manju studies. His guiding spirit will live on and his work will be a source of inspiration to continue Manju studies in a way which demonstrates the lasting significance of the field.

Giovanni Stary was an immediate child of the end of World War II; the peaceful end of the Cold War and the ensuing demise of the Eastern Bloc created a historical window of opportunity for research, academic collaboration and friendship across many borders, as his writings reflect. It must have been painful for him to see this window closing again.

Everybody who knew Giovanni was aware of his frail health in recent years, but everybody was devastated to hear that the wonderful human being he was no longer is with us. Over decades of fruitful collaboration, many of his colleagues become close friends, and we all mourn, with great sadness, his departure.

Oliver Corff
Secretary General
November 5th, 2022.

42nd Annual Meeting Prague, 1999

Dear Reader,

the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference took place in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1999. It is one of those meetings in the history of the PIAC where neither any conference material nor a proceedings volume are available.

The most comprehensive report was by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who hosted the 42nd Annual Meeting. Their report here is reproduced with kind permission by RFE/RL.

Report: 42nd Annual Meeting, Prague 1999

Oliver Corff, October 2022.

Obituaries

Dear Reader,

obituaries are an important means to share the memories of a person who has passed away. The writer of the obituary shares his or her knowledge of the deceased and, very often, shares the perceptions and sentiments related to that person. An obituary is thus a pathway to contribute to collective memory by sharing these individual observations and sentiments.

In a scholarly environment, collective memory is the essence of all academic pursuit. Without the achievements (and occasional errors) of our predecessors, meaningful reasoning would be simply impossible. It is thus understandable that writing obituaries is one of the many tasks of a scholar who takes history as the most important source of progress. In this tradition, PIAC members dedicate obituaries to their fellow members who have passed away.

References to obituaries dedicated to the following scholars, but published outside the domain of altaist.org, were added recently.

Oliver Corff, September 13, 2022

Previous Meetings: Programme of 16th Meeting, Ankara 1973

Dear Reader,

from the archives of Györges Hazai the editor could obtain the Programme of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Ankara 1973. There are some minor differences between this programme and the Proceedings; not all  speakers in the programme appear with their contributions in the Proceedings, but this quite a normal case as usually not all participants submit their papers for publication in written form, and sometimes the editors take an additional step of accepting only a selection of papers offered by the contributors for the Proceedings.

Oliver Corff, September 06, 2022

Previous Meetings: Programme of 14th Meeting, Szeged 1971

Dear Reader,

from the archives of Györges Hazai the editor could obtain the programme of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Szeged 1971. There are some minor differences between this programme and the Proceedings; not all contributors to the proceedings appear as speakers in the programme, and vice versa.

Oliver Corff, September 03, 2022.