Xu Duo (Hamburg), The Travel of Central Asian music to the East — Transmission and Transformation in the mediaeval times

Due to the extensive exchange of trade and religion the location facilitated; the Silk Roads had become the meeting point for various cultures. With the increasing travel of commercial traders, exchange of religion or migration of residence in between Central Asia and medieval China, Central Asian music was transmitted towards the East, being adapted in the Sui-Tang courts and eventually arrived in Japan. The paper will firstly introduce the court music in Sui-Tang periods, by providing the descriptions of Central music found in Chinese literary sources such as in Sui shu (隋 書). In order to present their settings in the Sui and Tang court, and to explain the relation in between the settlement of Central Asian music in the courts and its political purpose. Secondly, this paper will introduce the Central Asian musical images in Kizil (Kucha, Xinjiang province), Bezklilk (Turfan, Xinjiang province) and Mogao (Dunhuang, Gansu province) caves. With an aim to present an overview and the usage of such musical imagery in Buddhist paintings. Furthermore, the paper will introduce the spread of Central Asian musical images in medieval Japan, to emphasis the acculturation and assimilation that occurred between Central Asia and its East. Thirdly, this paper aims to introduce the Dunhuang manuscripts which contain lute musical notation. As a musical instrument which was originated from Central Asia, there had been copying of the lute musical notation in both Dunhuang manuscripts and manuscripts preserved in medieval Japan. By providing evidence from Chinese literary source, musical imagery and manuscripts, this paper aims to offer new perspectives on combining different methodological approaches and disciplines in order to discuss the transmitted and transformed Central Asian culture in the East during the mediaeval times.

Sara Zanotta (Pavia), The Vokalā and the Dissemination of News among Globally Scattered Iranian Communities in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

During the second half of the 19th century, the political and economic conditions of Qajar Iran and technological developments on a global scale pushed a growing number of Iranian subjects to move, often not permanently, to foreign territories. While low-waged workers mostly moved towards the proximate lands of the Russian and, to a lesser extent, the Ottoman empires, a growing number of merchants and traders, constantly travelling along trans-imperial trade routes, students, and political and religious opponents formed Iranian communities of various sizes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. This paper aims to present how the vokalā (representatives), i.e., individuals, in most cases merchants, involved in the dissemination of newspapers connected geographically distant communities and allowed them to maintain contacts and organize forms of political cooperation between the last three decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. By combing host-country censuses and Persian-language diplomatic sources, memoirs, and newspapers, I will first map the presence of various Iranian communities abroad and reflect on phenomena of integration and separation in the context of arrival, also leading to the establishment of Iranian newspapers, intended not merely as community papers but aimed at a broader Iranian and Persian-speaking audience. Then, I will investigate the role and networks of the vokalā in the distribution of these Iranian newspapers on a global scale. These individuals, largely merchants, supplemented their main commercial activity with that of newspaper distributors, thereby transporting newspapers printed in Iranian communities in Istanbul, Cairo, Alexandria or London, to other Iranians or Persian-speakers located in various parts of Asia, from Izmir to Rangoon, and in Egypt. In this way, I will argue that they managed to connect these geographically scattered communities to the point of creating a single distant community, sharing news and discussing the need of reform of Qajar Iran and reaching beyond subscribers to the newspapers and the literate public.