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Ahmad Dānish was a 19th-century Central Asian Persian-speaking intellectual who wrote numerous works – ranging from historical treatises to his research on geography and astronomy. His most famous work is Navādir al-vaqāyi‘ [The Rarest of Events], and the reason for its fame lies in its contents, since it contains two treatises dedicated to Dānish’s diplomatic visits to Saint Petersburg and one treatise with his suggestions on reforming the political and social structure of the Bukharan Emirate. The former two treatises (and partially the third one) formed the basis for his image of a ‘progressive’ and ‘pro-Western’ enlightener that was cultivated by Russian imperial and Soviet scholars and that, to some extent, survives up until now. It is not surprising that two Russian translations of Dānish’s works that appeared during the Soviet period both contained his accounts of life in Saint Petersburg, along with some other extracts from Navādir and from one of Dānish’s other works that supported this image.
In this talk I will explore how exactly this process of translating Dānish’s works became political.
Before starting her PhD in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, Kamila Akhmedjanova completed her BA and MPhil degrees at the University of Oxford, having previously specialized in Italian literature and general linguistics. She also holds an MSt in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. Kamila Akhmedjanova’s doctoral dissertation is a study of Ahmad Dānish’s legacy within the context of late 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends.
Kamila Akhmedjanova has published several academic articles, covering topics related to the 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends, as well as to the methodology of teaching Tajik dialect of Persian. Her first article was dedicated to the study of double past participle forms in the Sicilian dialects, while her most recent published article is dedicated to the interplay of literature and politics in the works of Sadriddin Ayni, a famous Soviet Tajik writer. In addition, her forthcoming article explores the image of Persia in Russian literature.
