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Asirios Una Historia De Cinco Milenios

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Asirios Una Historia De Cinco Milenios AÑO XX, NÚMERO 79, INVIERNO DE 2019-2020 79 Asirios Una historia de cinco milenios Carlos Antaramián (coordinador) Heitor de Andrade Carvalho Loureiro, Abdulmesih BarAbraham, Sargon George Donabed, Eckart Frahm, Anahit Khosroeva, Luis Xavier López Farjeat, Arturo Ponce Guadian, Hannibal Travis, Efrem Yildiz. Además, textos de Jean Meyer y Mauricio Sanders $ 100.00 DIRECTOR FUNDADOR Jean Meyer . Istor es una publicación trimestral de la Di­ visión de Historia del Cen tro de In ves tiga­ DIRECTOR David Miklos ción y Do cenc ia Econó mi cas (CIDE). CONSEJO EDITORIAL Catherine Andrews, . El objetivo de Istor es ofrecer un acercamien­ Luis Barrón, Adolfo Castañón, Clara García to original a los aconteci mien­­tos y a los Ayluardo, Luis Medina, Antonio Saborit, gran­­­des de bates de la historia y la actua lidad Rafael Rojas y Mauricio Tenorio internacio nal. DISEÑO Y FORMACIÓN Natalia Rojas Nieto . Las opiniones expresadas en esta revis ta son responsabilidad de sus au to res. La reproduc­ CORRECCIÓN Pilar Tapia y Nora Matadamas ción de los tra bajos necesita previa autori­ zación. CONSEJO HONORARIO . Los manuscritos deben enviar se a la División Yuri Afanasiev † Universidad de Humanidades, Moscú de Historia del CIDE. Su presentación debe Carlos Altamirano Editor de la revista Prisma (Argentina) Pierre Chaunu † Institut de France seguir los atributos que pueden observarse Jorge Domínguez Universidad de Harvard en este nú mero. Enrique Florescano Secretaría de Cultura . Todos los artículos son dictaminados. Josep Fontana † Universidad de Barcelona . Dirija su correspondencia electrónica al edi­ Manuel Moreno Fraginals † Universidad de La Habana tor responsable: [email protected] Luis González † El Colegio de Michoacán . Puede consultar Istor en internet: Charles Hale † Universidad de Iowa www.istor.cide.edu Matsuo Kazuyuki Universidad de Sofía, Tokio Alan Knight Universidad de Oxford Seymour Lipset † Universidad George Mason . Centro de Inves tiga ción y Docencia Olivier Mongin Editor de Esprit, París Eco nó mi cas, A.C., Carretera México­Toluca Daniel Roche Collège de France 3655 (km 16.5), Lomas de Santa Fe, 01210, Stuart Schwartz Universidad de Yale Ciudad de México. Rafael Segovia † El Colegio de México . Certificado de licitud de título: 11541 y David Thelen Universidad de Indiana contenido: 8104. John Womack Jr. Universidad de Harvard . Reserva del título otorgada por el Indautor: 04­2000­071211550100­102 . ISSN: 1665­1715 . Impresión: Impresión y Diseño, Suiza 23 bis, Colonia Portales Oriente, 03570, Ciudad de México. Suscripciones: Tel.: 57 27 98 00, ext. 6093 [email protected] Portada: Bandera que representa universalmente a la nación asiria, diseñada por George Atanos en 1968. ­istor, AÑO XX, NÚmero 79, INVierNO de 2019­2020 ISTOR, palabra del griego antiguo y más exactamente del jónico. Nombre de agente, istor, “el que sabe”, el experto, el testigo, de donde proviene el verbo istoreo, “tratar de saber, informarse”, y la palabra istoria, búsqueda, averi gua ción, “historia”. Así, nos colocamos bajo la invocación del primer istor: Heródoto de Halicarnaso. ÍNDICE 3 Presentación Carlos ANtaramiÁN, Los asirios de ayer y de hoy Dossier I. LENGUA E HISTORIA 11 SargoN George DONabed, Una breve historia del pueblo asirio 35 Eckart Frahm, Historia y cultura de la antigua Asiria 51 LUis XaVier LÓpeZ Farjeat, La importancia de los nestorianos en la traducción de textos filosóficos y su repercusión en las polémicas cristiano­musulmanas 69 Efrem YildiZ, Los asirios y su lengua: Épocas antigua y moderna II. LA ANTIGÜEDAD CALDEA EN AMÉRICA 91 ArtUro PONce GUadiaN, Elías de Babilonia o de San Juan (Ilyās ibn al­qissīs ḥannā al­Mawṣilī) y sus ideas sobre el Nuevo Mundo III. EL GENOCIDIO 105 ANahit KhosroeVA, Breve historia del genocidio contra los asirios en el Impero Otomano: Del sultán Abdul Hamid II a los Jóvenes Turcos (1895­1918) 119 HANNibal TraVis, Acerca de clasificar retroactivamente como genocidios algunos acontecimientos históricos IV. LA DIÁSPORA ASIRIA 135 AbdUlmesih BarAbraham, Los asirios en la república turca y el caso del monasterio de Mor Gabriel 151 Heitor de ANdrade CarValho LOUreiro, La negociación por el asentamiento de asirios en Brasil en la década de 1930: De la esperanza a la xenofobia 167 Apéndice iconográfico Notas y diálogos 175 MAUricio SANders, Manuel Gómez Morín: Libros de Don Quijote Cajón de sastre 183 jeaN meYER Presentación LOS ASIRIOS DE AYER Y DE HOY Carlos Antaramián* Todos los lectores de este dossier tendrán presente los nombres de Asiria, Babilonia, Mesopotamia y de reyes como Asurbanipal o Nabucodonosor, pero es posible que poco sepan de los grupos modernos que reclaman ser descendientes de ese Impe­ rio y de todos los problemas que han enfrentado en la época moderna. Este nú­ mero de Istor, con la colaboración de académicos de seis países y especialistas en arqueología, historia y lingüística aramea, busca dar a conocer el pasado y presen­ te del pueblo asirio. Sargon Donabed, académico de la Universidad Roger Williams, nos dice en el artículo introductorio que geográficamente los asirios son un pueblo transna­ cional nativo del norte de Mesopotamia, originarios de esos poblados próximos a las ciudades en donde floreció el Imperio Asirio y que se ubican actualmente en el noreste de Iraq, noroeste de Siria y sureste de Turquía. Son hablantes de asirio, una forma moderna del arameo mesopotámico y también utilizan el siriaco, el arameo de Edesa, como lengua eclesiástica. Hoy sus descendientes pertenecen a alguna de las siguientes comunidades cristianas: la Iglesia Católica Caldea, la Iglesia Asiria del Este (conocida como nestoriana), la Iglesia Siria Ortodoxa (co­ nocida como jacobita) y la Iglesia Católica Siria, además de algunos miembros de distintas denominaciones protestantes. Desde hace casi dos milenios han sido estas designaciones eclesiales, más que su etnicidad, lo que los ha identificado como grupos y ha producido su balcanización. Los asirios fueron víctimas del genocidio (llamado seyfo, “espada” en arameo) contra las comunidades cristianas que se llevó a cabo en el Imperio Otomano a * El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. 3 CARLOS ANTARAMIÁN partir de 1915; al término de la Primera Guerra Mundial fue otro de los grupos a los que las potencias occidentales negaron también la posibilidad de consolidar un Estado, como le fue negada a kurdos y armenios. En los años siguientes las comunidades asirias sobrevivientes fueron desplazadas y se asentaron en las in­ mediaciones de sus territorios ancestrales; refugiados de Edesa se asentaron en Alepo, aquellos de las montañas de Hakkâri terminaron en Iraq o en Illinois, los de Diyarbakır en California. Los asirios crearon entonces una diáspora con nodos en Líbano y en Sudamérica, en México y en Cuba, actualmente el espectro es amplísimo y cuenta con comunidades desde Australia hasta Suecia. Aquellos que se quedaron en Irán e Iraq, en Turquía y Siria, fueron participantes de los diferen­ tes movimientos políticos de los Estados en que vivían y en muchas ocasiones nuevamente víctimas de represión y masacres, como la de Simele en 1933 en Iraq, o la represión que el gobierno turco practicó en todo el oriente de Anatolia en la década de 1980, que provocó nuevas oleadas de desplazados asirios que se refu­ giaron en Europa occidental. La anexión que hizo Daesh (autollamado Estado Islámico) del norte de Siria e Iraq en 2014 provocó que muchas comunidades asirias fueran desplazadas e in­ cluso hubo masacres contra grupos yezidíes. Hoy, la invasión que el gobierno turco de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan realiza en el norte de Siria ha generado temor de que se repitan los desplazamientos forzados e incluso las masacres contra los asirios, yezidíes y kurdos por parte del ejército turco. Debemos, pues, temer la desapari­ ción —ya sea por expulsión, masacre o migración— de grupos minoritarios como los asirios en Medio Oriente ya que, nos dice Donabed, es con su otredad como “crean una representación más vívida y un tejido más denso de la historia, la cultura, las tradiciones y, sobre todo, el rumbo del Medio Oriente”. Eckart Frahm, profesor de Asiriología de la Universidad de Yale, nos lleva en su colaboración para este número de Istor, intitulada “Historia y cultura de la antigua Asiria”, a un recorrido que comienza a mediados del tercer milenio y que se con­ solida en los siglos VIII y VII a.C.; época en que Asiria era el imperio más grande del mundo y cuya historia es casi universalmente conocida a través de reyes como Nabucodonosor o Sargón, personajes e historias como la de Semiramis o Gilga­ mesh, que figuran en muchos textos clásicos y de manera especial en la Biblia. Desde el siglo XIX Asiria ya no sólo fue conocida en fuentes secundarias y terciarias, pues a partir del desciframiento de la escritura cuneiforme, de la que el autor es un especialista, se conocen de primera fuente detalles fascinantes sobre la vida cotidiana de esta sociedad; quejas sobre plagas de polilla en los textiles, cien­ 4 Los asirios de ayer y de hoy tos de recetas culinarias y descripciones de opíparos banquetes, fracasos po líticos, posiciones estelares y cómo interpretarlas, o la vida, interacciones y activi dades comerciales de los mercaderes asirios desde Mesopotamia hasta el Mediterráneo. Ese Imperio, quizá el primero en la historia que amerita ese nombre, nos dice Frahm, fue una entidad poderosa, enorme y bien organizada, multiétnica y mul­ tilingüe y, como todo imperio, llegó a su fin de manera estrepitosa; aunque no sin antes dejar una profunda influencia en todos los pueblos vecinos, cuyas historias, mitos y conceptos aún son parte del pensamiento occidental ¿No fue después del sitio de Jerusalén cuando los hebreos fueron deportados por los asirios a Babilonia y ahí nació la diáspora judía? Un acontecimiento considerado como “el primer evento mundial” por el involucramiento que tuvieron, además de los asirios y los judíos, los egipcios, los nubios, los fenicios, los filisteos, los árabes y que la Biblia describe con gran detalle.
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