“Our Mission in Oriental Studies”
Chapter 4 “Our Mission in Oriental Studies” Those [Orientalists] who never get to the Orient or who – upon returning – publish their observations in print must begin the task of systematically creating Czech Orientalist literature. We owe this to our nation, [and] to our students … If it wants to profit the state must invest. Built this way Oriental studies will secure us lasting success in the Orient and will per- haps serve as a model for other Slavic states. alois musil, 19201 In 1920, the year that according to some marks the end of the first phase in the development of Czech Oriental studies,2 the anthropologist, geographer, and Middle Eastern scholar Alois Musil (1868–1944)3 wrote an article titled “Our Mission in Oriental Studies and in the Orient.”4 The field of scholarship de- voted to the languages, cultures, and history of “the Orient” was still relatively young in Czech (and from 1918 Czechoslovak) academia, and only a handful of scholars dealt with the Turkish language and the Turks in their research and teaching. Each of these scholars (all of whom were men) was a personality in his own right, and not everything that Musil wrote in this text about the tasks 1 Alois Musil, Naše úkoly v orientalistice a v Orientě (Prague: Edvard Leschinger, 1920), 19–20. 2 Rudolf Růžička, “Prof. Dr. Rudolf Dvořák: Posmrtné vzpomínky o zemřelých členech Akademie,” in Almanach České akademie věd a umění, vol. 31–32 (Prague: Nákladem České akademie věd a umění, 1922), 82. 3 Musil’s education, research interests, international fame, and adventurous life set him apart from his Czech colleagues.
[Show full text]