Karina Vamling
Professor of Caucasus Studies
PhD in General Linguistics
Areas of specialisation: the Caucasus region and Russia.
Research interests: language policy, languages in conflict and migration, language diversity and language typology.
More information at:
https://karinavamling.com/
Address: Faculty of Culture and Society
Malmö University
S-205 06 Malmö
Sweden
PhD in General Linguistics
Areas of specialisation: the Caucasus region and Russia.
Research interests: language policy, languages in conflict and migration, language diversity and language typology.
More information at:
https://karinavamling.com/
Address: Faculty of Culture and Society
Malmö University
S-205 06 Malmö
Sweden
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Books by Karina Vamling
– The authors of this anthology report on what it was like to travel and do field research on the periphery of the Soviet Empire and the political processes that they witnessed. The authors are political scientist Ib Faurby, cultural geographer Lars Funch Hansen, researcher on minority issues Helen Krag, slavicist Märta-Lisa Magnusson, historian and Iranologist Søren Theisen and general linguist Karina Vamling. Since this period they have all closely followed the develop-ment in the Caucasus region in struggles for independence, wars and ethno-political conflicts.
– The contributions to the anthology are based on material collected during travel and fieldwork in both the South and North Caucasus. In their contributions the authors write about the new movements for independence in the Caucasus and increasing tensions with Moscow, how the Soviet structures at different levels were breaking down and the national cultures became increasingly important. They describe how premodern traditions still play a role, despite Soviet modernization, account for specific cultural features and similarities and also witness deepening ethnic antagonism. Though being a peripheral region of the USSR, the Caucasus played an important role in the gradual disintegration of the union and its collapse in December 1991.
— The contributions are written in Swedish and Danish and are illustrated with original photos taken by the authors during their travel and fieldwork in the South and North Caucasus. In the opening contribution Märta-Lisa Magnusson, based on impressions from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia at the end of the 1980s, puts the question “The Soviet people, did it exist?”. In his chapter, Ib Faurby adopts a global as well as local perspective: The disintegration of an Empire in a perspective from below. The following chapter by Karina Vamling focuses on the role of language and identity in Georgia: Four years that changed the identity of Georgia. Søren Theisen travelled extensively in Armenia and writes about the Soviet legacy and pre-Soviet traditions in A Little Trip Down Memory Lane. Travels in Armenia before and shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Lars Funch Hansen shares his impressions from Spitak, the Armenian town that was severely hit by an earthquake in 1988: When the mountains wept. Spitak, December 1989. A photo story from a field visit in snow and ice in Armenia on the 1 year anniversary of the earthquake in 1988. In her chapter Forget it if you can Helen Krag approaches silenced aspects of minority issues in the Caucasus. Lars Funch Hansen continues the topic of conflicts in the North Caucasus and focuses on the Prigorodnyj district and the conflict between North Ossetia and Ingushetia: “He is a conflictologist”. Field research in North Caucasus at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. In the last chapter How I conquered the North Caucasian stronghold Majkop Karina Vamling illustrates challenges of doing field work in the Soviet period in her research on the structure and status of the Northwest Caucasian Circassian language.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Sochi Winter Olympics: Walking Tightrope?
– Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling
Part I: Olympic Perspectives
1 Snow, Ice, and Vertical Drops: What is different about the Sochi Olympics?
– Raymond Taras
2 The Sochi Winter Games: Marketing and Sustainable Development—Or Neither Nor?
– Karin Book
3 Environmental Ethics and the Olympics: On the Reconstruction of Nature for Sport
– Kutte Jönsson
Part II: Identity Matters
4 Olympism and Empire: The Olympic Myth in the Contestation of the Caucasus
– Emil Persson
5 Sochi as a Site of Circassian Long-Distance Memorialisation
– Lars Funch Hansen
6 The Sympols of Sochi 2014: Searching for the Visual Signs of New Russian Political Identity
– Sergei Akopov and Vitalii Volkov
Part III: Internal Order and Security
7 Russia's Olympic Discourses: Effects of Unification and diversification
– Andrei Makarychev
8 Securitization in the North Caucasus on the Eve of the Sochi Games
– Uliana Hellberg
9 The terrorist Threat Against Sochi 2014
– Jakob Hedenskog
Part IV: Caucasian Knots
10 Security of the Winter Olympics in sochi from a Georgian Perspective
– Alexandre Kukhianidze
11 Abkhazia and the Preparations for the Sochi Games
– Revaz Tchantouria
12 Disputed Frontiers: Abkhazia in Russia's Sochi 2014 Project
– Helena Rytövuouri""
CONTENTS
1 SOCIETY AND MIGRATION
Babak Revzani: The Uniqueness of the Caucasian Conflicts?
Kirstine Borch: Return to Gali – Reasons for and Conditions of the Georgians Return to the Gali District
Arsen Hakobyan: The People’s Diplomacy during the Nagorno Karabagh Conflict: A Case of Settlement Exchange (in Russian)
Sara Margaryan: Preservation of Identity Through Integration: the Case of Javakheti Armenians
Hripsime Ramazyan and Sona Avetisyan: Armenian Diaspora: Rendezvous Between the Past and the Present
Alexander Tsurtsumia: The Factor of the Caucasus in Global Politics
Dzhulietta Meskhidze: North Caucasus in a System of All-Caucasian, Russian and European Relations (in Russian)
Ergün Özgür: The North Caucasian and Abkhaz Diasporas; Their Lobbying Activities in Turkey
Nana Machavariani: Abkhazian Diasporas in the World
Ekaterina Kapustina: The “Temporary life” of Labor Seasonal Migrants from Western Mountain Dagestan to the Rostov area: Cultural Projection or Cultural Transformation (in Russian)
Birgit Kuch: Collective Identities, Memories and Representations in Contemporary Georgia: The Theatre-Scape of Tbilisi
Giorgi Gotsiridze and Giorgi Kipiani: The Liturgic Nature of Tradition and National Identity Search Strategy in Modern Georgia: The Case of the Georgian Banquet (in Russian)
2 LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY
A. Filiz Susar and Yeşim Ocak: The Role of Language in the Loss of Culture of Immigrants: The Chechen Example
Junichi Toyota: Caucasian Languages and Language Contact in Terms of Religions
David Erschler: On Syntactic Isoglosses between Ossetic and South Caucasian: The Case of Negation
Sabrina Shikhalieva : Semantics of Deictic Pronouns in the Daghestani Languages
Tinatin Turkia: Lexemes Expressing Migration and Problems of Language Identity in Modern Georgia
Bela Shavkhelishvili : The Influence of Globalization Processes on Languages without Scripts (Based on Tsova-Tush (Batsbi) materials) (in Russian)
Manana Tabidze: Globalization and Language Problems: The Case of the Georgian Language
Tinatin Bolkvadze:The Problems of Learning and Teaching of the State Language in Some Regions of Georgia
—— CONTENTS
—— Preface, by Karina Vamling, p. vii.
—— The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: the political and social significance of the Georgian supra, by Kevin TUITE, pp. 9–35.
—— Continuity of a Tradition: A Survey of the Performance Practices of Traditional Polyphonic Songs in Tbilisi, by Andrea KUZMICH, pp. 36–52.
—— An Attempt to Create an Ethnic Group: Identity Change Dynamics of Muslimized Meskhetians, by Marine BERIDZE and Manana KOBAIDZE, pp. 53¬–67.
—— The Georgian Language and Cultural Identity in Old Georgia: An Examination of Some Conceptual Foundations, by Tinatin BOLKVADZE, pp. 68–73.
—— The Modern Language Situation in Georgia: Issues Regarding the Linguistic Affiliation of the Population, by Manana TABIDZE, pp. 74–80.
—— Language Use and Attitudes among Megrelians in Georgia, by Karina VAMLING and Revaz TCHANTOURIA, pp. 81–92.
—— The Present-day Situation of the Minority Ethno-Linguistic Peoples within the Avaric Region in the Republic of Dagestan, by Rune WESTERLUND, pp. 93–104.
—— Human Rights, Terrorism, and the Destruction of Chechnya, by Ib FAURBY, pp. 105–113.
—— Why No Settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict? – Which are the obstacles to a negotiated solution?, by Märta-Lisa MAGNUSSON, pp. 114–143.
—— Discrepancies between Form and Meaning: Reanalyzing Wish Formulae in Georgian, by Nino AMIRIDZE, pp. 144–155.
—— Two Types of Relative Clauses in Modern Georgian, by YASUHIRO KOJIMA, pp. 156–167.
The monograph is the result of joint research conducted in Russia and Sweden. The basis for this research has been the project ‘Ergativity in the Circassian anguages’ (with support from The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences). The institutions involved are the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Lund University and the Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) at Malmö University."
Central issues investigated include restrictions in terms of temporal reference and participant reference that the matrix clause imposes on the complement. The modality meanings Truth and Action are found to provide a useful classification of the various matrix predicates. Two clusters of morphological, syntactic and semantic features are moreover shown to correlate with the Truth and Action modalities. The study further outlines a formal grammatical representation of relations between matrix and complement clauses, as well as the structure of simple sentences.
The data examined in the study is based on informant work conducted in Georgia. The matrix predicates that make up the database of the investigation are represented in an appendix, along with an English-Georgian key. An introduction to Georgian grammar for readers not familiar with the language is also presented. ""
В книге рассматриваются дополнительные конструкции в кабардинском языке. Впервые в абхазо-адыгском языкознании дополнительные конструкции анализируются с опорой на семантические основания. Выделяются классы главных предикатов и типы зависимых предикатов, исследуются из семантические, синтаксические и морфологические взаимоотношения. В качестве зависимых предикатов выступают инфинитные образования (причастие, герундий, инфинитив, масдар и др.). Исследуются негативные, вопросительные, императивные, координационные, каузативные, потенциальные и аористные предложения в связи с дополнительными конструкциями. Особое внимание уделяется оформлению падежей субъекта и объекта и их координационными отношениями в дополнительной конструкции. Книга включает вводную часть, где даются общие сведения о кабардинском языке.
—— Данная работа посвящена вопросам эргативности в черкесских языках. Эргативность в этих языках основывается на противопоставлении двух классов глагольных лексем по признаку транзитивности-интранзитивности. В книге широко освящены вопросы эргативности в имени и глаголе. Особое внимание уделяется проявлению эргативности в различных синтаксических конструкциях (в лабильных, инверсивных, а также при координации и субординации). Эргативная конструкция в северо-кавказских языках представляет особый интерес для общей теории эргативности в силу того, что эта категория проявляется в полиперсональной форме глагола. Данное исследование является результатом совместной работы Института Российской Академии наук (Москва, Россия), Лундского Университета и Отделения международных миграций и этнических отношений Университета Мальмё (Швеция). Научный проект ‘Эргативность в черкесских языках’ был поддержан Королевской Академией наук Швеции. (Доступно онлайн в ноябре 2022 года, Кариной Вамлинг 0000-0003-3415-203X).
Papers by Karina Vamling
– The authors of this anthology report on what it was like to travel and do field research on the periphery of the Soviet Empire and the political processes that they witnessed. The authors are political scientist Ib Faurby, cultural geographer Lars Funch Hansen, researcher on minority issues Helen Krag, slavicist Märta-Lisa Magnusson, historian and Iranologist Søren Theisen and general linguist Karina Vamling. Since this period they have all closely followed the develop-ment in the Caucasus region in struggles for independence, wars and ethno-political conflicts.
– The contributions to the anthology are based on material collected during travel and fieldwork in both the South and North Caucasus. In their contributions the authors write about the new movements for independence in the Caucasus and increasing tensions with Moscow, how the Soviet structures at different levels were breaking down and the national cultures became increasingly important. They describe how premodern traditions still play a role, despite Soviet modernization, account for specific cultural features and similarities and also witness deepening ethnic antagonism. Though being a peripheral region of the USSR, the Caucasus played an important role in the gradual disintegration of the union and its collapse in December 1991.
— The contributions are written in Swedish and Danish and are illustrated with original photos taken by the authors during their travel and fieldwork in the South and North Caucasus. In the opening contribution Märta-Lisa Magnusson, based on impressions from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia at the end of the 1980s, puts the question “The Soviet people, did it exist?”. In his chapter, Ib Faurby adopts a global as well as local perspective: The disintegration of an Empire in a perspective from below. The following chapter by Karina Vamling focuses on the role of language and identity in Georgia: Four years that changed the identity of Georgia. Søren Theisen travelled extensively in Armenia and writes about the Soviet legacy and pre-Soviet traditions in A Little Trip Down Memory Lane. Travels in Armenia before and shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Lars Funch Hansen shares his impressions from Spitak, the Armenian town that was severely hit by an earthquake in 1988: When the mountains wept. Spitak, December 1989. A photo story from a field visit in snow and ice in Armenia on the 1 year anniversary of the earthquake in 1988. In her chapter Forget it if you can Helen Krag approaches silenced aspects of minority issues in the Caucasus. Lars Funch Hansen continues the topic of conflicts in the North Caucasus and focuses on the Prigorodnyj district and the conflict between North Ossetia and Ingushetia: “He is a conflictologist”. Field research in North Caucasus at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. In the last chapter How I conquered the North Caucasian stronghold Majkop Karina Vamling illustrates challenges of doing field work in the Soviet period in her research on the structure and status of the Northwest Caucasian Circassian language.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Sochi Winter Olympics: Walking Tightrope?
– Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling
Part I: Olympic Perspectives
1 Snow, Ice, and Vertical Drops: What is different about the Sochi Olympics?
– Raymond Taras
2 The Sochi Winter Games: Marketing and Sustainable Development—Or Neither Nor?
– Karin Book
3 Environmental Ethics and the Olympics: On the Reconstruction of Nature for Sport
– Kutte Jönsson
Part II: Identity Matters
4 Olympism and Empire: The Olympic Myth in the Contestation of the Caucasus
– Emil Persson
5 Sochi as a Site of Circassian Long-Distance Memorialisation
– Lars Funch Hansen
6 The Sympols of Sochi 2014: Searching for the Visual Signs of New Russian Political Identity
– Sergei Akopov and Vitalii Volkov
Part III: Internal Order and Security
7 Russia's Olympic Discourses: Effects of Unification and diversification
– Andrei Makarychev
8 Securitization in the North Caucasus on the Eve of the Sochi Games
– Uliana Hellberg
9 The terrorist Threat Against Sochi 2014
– Jakob Hedenskog
Part IV: Caucasian Knots
10 Security of the Winter Olympics in sochi from a Georgian Perspective
– Alexandre Kukhianidze
11 Abkhazia and the Preparations for the Sochi Games
– Revaz Tchantouria
12 Disputed Frontiers: Abkhazia in Russia's Sochi 2014 Project
– Helena Rytövuouri""
CONTENTS
1 SOCIETY AND MIGRATION
Babak Revzani: The Uniqueness of the Caucasian Conflicts?
Kirstine Borch: Return to Gali – Reasons for and Conditions of the Georgians Return to the Gali District
Arsen Hakobyan: The People’s Diplomacy during the Nagorno Karabagh Conflict: A Case of Settlement Exchange (in Russian)
Sara Margaryan: Preservation of Identity Through Integration: the Case of Javakheti Armenians
Hripsime Ramazyan and Sona Avetisyan: Armenian Diaspora: Rendezvous Between the Past and the Present
Alexander Tsurtsumia: The Factor of the Caucasus in Global Politics
Dzhulietta Meskhidze: North Caucasus in a System of All-Caucasian, Russian and European Relations (in Russian)
Ergün Özgür: The North Caucasian and Abkhaz Diasporas; Their Lobbying Activities in Turkey
Nana Machavariani: Abkhazian Diasporas in the World
Ekaterina Kapustina: The “Temporary life” of Labor Seasonal Migrants from Western Mountain Dagestan to the Rostov area: Cultural Projection or Cultural Transformation (in Russian)
Birgit Kuch: Collective Identities, Memories and Representations in Contemporary Georgia: The Theatre-Scape of Tbilisi
Giorgi Gotsiridze and Giorgi Kipiani: The Liturgic Nature of Tradition and National Identity Search Strategy in Modern Georgia: The Case of the Georgian Banquet (in Russian)
2 LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY
A. Filiz Susar and Yeşim Ocak: The Role of Language in the Loss of Culture of Immigrants: The Chechen Example
Junichi Toyota: Caucasian Languages and Language Contact in Terms of Religions
David Erschler: On Syntactic Isoglosses between Ossetic and South Caucasian: The Case of Negation
Sabrina Shikhalieva : Semantics of Deictic Pronouns in the Daghestani Languages
Tinatin Turkia: Lexemes Expressing Migration and Problems of Language Identity in Modern Georgia
Bela Shavkhelishvili : The Influence of Globalization Processes on Languages without Scripts (Based on Tsova-Tush (Batsbi) materials) (in Russian)
Manana Tabidze: Globalization and Language Problems: The Case of the Georgian Language
Tinatin Bolkvadze:The Problems of Learning and Teaching of the State Language in Some Regions of Georgia
—— CONTENTS
—— Preface, by Karina Vamling, p. vii.
—— The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: the political and social significance of the Georgian supra, by Kevin TUITE, pp. 9–35.
—— Continuity of a Tradition: A Survey of the Performance Practices of Traditional Polyphonic Songs in Tbilisi, by Andrea KUZMICH, pp. 36–52.
—— An Attempt to Create an Ethnic Group: Identity Change Dynamics of Muslimized Meskhetians, by Marine BERIDZE and Manana KOBAIDZE, pp. 53¬–67.
—— The Georgian Language and Cultural Identity in Old Georgia: An Examination of Some Conceptual Foundations, by Tinatin BOLKVADZE, pp. 68–73.
—— The Modern Language Situation in Georgia: Issues Regarding the Linguistic Affiliation of the Population, by Manana TABIDZE, pp. 74–80.
—— Language Use and Attitudes among Megrelians in Georgia, by Karina VAMLING and Revaz TCHANTOURIA, pp. 81–92.
—— The Present-day Situation of the Minority Ethno-Linguistic Peoples within the Avaric Region in the Republic of Dagestan, by Rune WESTERLUND, pp. 93–104.
—— Human Rights, Terrorism, and the Destruction of Chechnya, by Ib FAURBY, pp. 105–113.
—— Why No Settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict? – Which are the obstacles to a negotiated solution?, by Märta-Lisa MAGNUSSON, pp. 114–143.
—— Discrepancies between Form and Meaning: Reanalyzing Wish Formulae in Georgian, by Nino AMIRIDZE, pp. 144–155.
—— Two Types of Relative Clauses in Modern Georgian, by YASUHIRO KOJIMA, pp. 156–167.
The monograph is the result of joint research conducted in Russia and Sweden. The basis for this research has been the project ‘Ergativity in the Circassian anguages’ (with support from The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences). The institutions involved are the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Lund University and the Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) at Malmö University."
Central issues investigated include restrictions in terms of temporal reference and participant reference that the matrix clause imposes on the complement. The modality meanings Truth and Action are found to provide a useful classification of the various matrix predicates. Two clusters of morphological, syntactic and semantic features are moreover shown to correlate with the Truth and Action modalities. The study further outlines a formal grammatical representation of relations between matrix and complement clauses, as well as the structure of simple sentences.
The data examined in the study is based on informant work conducted in Georgia. The matrix predicates that make up the database of the investigation are represented in an appendix, along with an English-Georgian key. An introduction to Georgian grammar for readers not familiar with the language is also presented. ""
В книге рассматриваются дополнительные конструкции в кабардинском языке. Впервые в абхазо-адыгском языкознании дополнительные конструкции анализируются с опорой на семантические основания. Выделяются классы главных предикатов и типы зависимых предикатов, исследуются из семантические, синтаксические и морфологические взаимоотношения. В качестве зависимых предикатов выступают инфинитные образования (причастие, герундий, инфинитив, масдар и др.). Исследуются негативные, вопросительные, императивные, координационные, каузативные, потенциальные и аористные предложения в связи с дополнительными конструкциями. Особое внимание уделяется оформлению падежей субъекта и объекта и их координационными отношениями в дополнительной конструкции. Книга включает вводную часть, где даются общие сведения о кабардинском языке.
—— Данная работа посвящена вопросам эргативности в черкесских языках. Эргативность в этих языках основывается на противопоставлении двух классов глагольных лексем по признаку транзитивности-интранзитивности. В книге широко освящены вопросы эргативности в имени и глаголе. Особое внимание уделяется проявлению эргативности в различных синтаксических конструкциях (в лабильных, инверсивных, а также при координации и субординации). Эргативная конструкция в северо-кавказских языках представляет особый интерес для общей теории эргативности в силу того, что эта категория проявляется в полиперсональной форме глагола. Данное исследование является результатом совместной работы Института Российской Академии наук (Москва, Россия), Лундского Университета и Отделения международных миграций и этнических отношений Университета Мальмё (Швеция). Научный проект ‘Эргативность в черкесских языках’ был поддержан Королевской Академией наук Швеции. (Доступно онлайн в ноябре 2022 года, Кариной Вамлинг 0000-0003-3415-203X).
https://ojs.mau.se/index.php/caucasus/issue/view/35
Paper read at the conference ”Caucasian Philology: History and Perspectives” in memory of Prof. Mukhadin A. Kumakhov’s 90th birthday, organized in Nalchik on October 19, 2018, by the Institute of Studies in the Humanities at the Kabardino-Balkarian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Malmo University, Sweden, on November 22-23, 2017.
The research platform Russia and the Caucasus Regional
Research’ (RUCARR) is an intellectual hub for scholars at the
Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University. Established
as late as in 2016, RUCARR builds on an established and wellrecognized
area studies tradition at the University which
connects with an extensive research networks nationally and
internationally.
As the name of the platform, suggests, Russia and the
Caucasus are the geographical areas of primary concern.
RUCARR’s research focus is on political, social, cultural,
economic and other dynamics and processes of significance
within its geographical delimitations. Areas of interest
include, but are not restricted to, contemporary politics,
history and nationalism, ethnic and national identity, security
issues, democracy and civil society development,
authoritarianism and post-authoritarian transition and
transformations.
The aim of this conference is to focus on the ongoing Circassian revival or mobilisation following the international attention on the Circassians in relation to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games and the 150-year anniversary of the forced exile from the Caucasus in the same year. This importantly included a mobilisation of youth and a stronger use of the Internet in these processes. This is significant, especially among the diaspora, where many belong to the first generation that have lost the Circassian language, perhaps the most important part of Circassian identity. During the last ten years, Circassian associations have been supplemented by a new form of NGO’s using different methods in promoting Circassian revival and survival, including use of new Internet and social media related tools, including many cases of new cross-border linking and cooperation. It is the aim of this conference to take stock of these developments among the Circassians as a geographically highly dispersed people in a increasingly volatile region.
We invite presentations on the following interrelated subthemes:
– Homeland and Diaspora – Minority Conditions. Status, Trends, Perspectives.
– Circassian civil society mobilisation and organisation.
– Survival of Circassian Culture and Traditions in the Era of Globalisation.
– Circassian language. The role of language in contemporary Circassian revival
Abstract submission
Please, submit an abstract by September 22 of no more than 400 words (word count not including references) by email to [email protected]. Include a title, authors, affiliations and contact email addresses and submit the abstract both as a Word document (Unicode fonts) and a pdf file. Language: English.
Venue: Malmö University campus (close to Malmö Central Station)
Organizing committee: Prof. Karina Vamling, Prof. Bo Petersson, Dr. Lars Funch Hansen.
Nationalism, Patriotism, and Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Russia.
For the paper sessions contributions all across RUCARR’s sphere of activities are warmly welcome: http://wpmu.mah.se/rucarr/research/secondannualconference/call-for-papers/
The program will start at 1 pm on November 22 and end at noon, November 23.
In connection with this year’s special focus, RUCARR organizes a thematic conference, directly following the Second Annual Conference: Circassians in the 21st century: Identity and Survival – in the homeland and diaspora, November 23–24, 2017 – read more.
Organizing committee: Prof. Bo Petersson, Prof. Karina Vamling, Dr. Derek Hutcheson
Venue: Malmö University Campus (close to Malmö Central Station)
Sign-up form
Looking forward to seeing you in Malmö in November!
50 years ago these tasks were perceived as particularly urgent, as there was all reason to believe that many of these languages would be lost without a trace as a consequence of the social turmoil that could be expected to follow in the wake of the Russian revolution.
(Vogt 1973: 9).
Vogt concluded that this was one of the main factors behind the decision to embark on systematic research on this topic by the newly founded Institute of Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture in Oslo. Already in August 1923, the year following the founding of the Institute, the prominent Norwegian Indo-Europeanist Sten Konow and young linguists Alf Sommerfelt and Georg Morgenstierne signed a statement concerning the planning of a Norwegian linguistic expedition to the Caucasus.
The contribution of this paper is to further look into the background, motivations and implementation in the 1920s of these research plans on the basis of letters and other unpublished archival documents kept at the Norwegian State Archive in Oslo.