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Let’s Abandon the Distortions of Achaemenid
Studies
The Spiegel Controversy. This letter
is being submitted by Dr. David Tevzadze (University of Gori), Professor
George Gulordava (Dadiani Museum Academy), Professor Tariel Jikia (Cheriomushki
College, Russia), Dr. David Khoupenia (University of Zugdidi), Professor
Niko Kachareva (Georgian State University), Dr. Imre Bartfai (University
of Budapest, Hungary) who have worked alongside a collective of graduate
students, researchers, scholars and writers of Iranica hailing from
the University of British Columbia, University of Ottawa, Stanford University,
Harvard University, and universities in Iran (not named by request);
informal consultations were also made with museum directors as well
as archaeologists, linguists and historians in Poland, Iran, and Georgia.
On July 15th
2008, Dr. Matthias Schulz wrote a selective and biased article against
the historiography of Cyrus the Great in Spiegel Magazine: Falling
for Ancient Propaganda: UN Treasure Honors Persian Despot http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,564395,00.html
(German) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566027,00.html
(English) This
was responded to by Kaveh Farrokh: http://www.savepasargad.com/~New-050508/01.General-News/Newss-Pages/kaveh%20farrokh.htm http://www.iranpressnews.com/source/043656.htm
(Persian) Despite his
attack against Cyrus the Great in Spiegel Magazine, Schulz is not an
authority in the field of Iranian Studies. http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/site/hwWjN6 On July 16th (virtually simultaneously
as the Spiegel article) Dr. Jona Lendering supported Schulz’s views as expressed in the Spiegel
article. This was articulated within a larger
series of distortions against the historiography of Iran in his book
review against Kaveh Farrokh’s “Shadows
in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War”: The same review also expresses
errors with respect to the state of Iranian Studies at present. http://www.livius.org/opinion/opinion0012.html http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/lets-abandon-achaemenid-studies/ On July 21, 2008 (just 5-6 days after the postings by Spiegel and Lendering), the views of Schulz and Lendering were further promoted by reporter Harry de Quetteville of the UK’s Daily Telegraph: Cyrus cylinder's
ancient bill of rights 'is just propaganda': A 2500 year old Persian
treasure dubbed the world's 'first bill of human rights' has been branded
a piece of shameless 'propaganda' by German historians.
This
was responded to by Kaveh Farrokh: http://www.savepasargad.com/~New-050508/01.General-News/Newss-Pages/Professor%20Kaveh%20Farokh-E.htm It is interesting that the timing of attacks against
the historiography of Iran (esp. Cyrus the Great), the field of Iranian
Studies and Farrokh were all launched in a 6 day period (July 15-21).
Farrokh
was then interviewed live by on the Voice of America TV program as well
as the BBC. These resulted in a sharp increase of Lendering’s postings
against Farrokh; these were essentially the same as the July 16th
versions (same time period as Spiegel’s article). Below is one of his
postings on the University of Pennsylvania’s book review website: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-09-62.html The main objective of this letter is to demonstrate
Jona Lendering’s shortcomings with respect to his information on ancient
Iran as well as the field of Iranian Studies. This is a cause for great
concern as his website Livius.org, has extensive links on ancient Iran:
http://www.livius.org/persia.html Lendering’s distortions
of Iranian history (and especially archaeology) render his “review”
of Farrokh’s book unreliable. One example is his false claim that
the “The relief of Gotarzes II at Behistun does not stand today”, when in fact it
does (Item 1). Lendering (like Matthias Schulz and journalist De Quetteville) couches his views
in terms of an alleged knowledge of Iranian Studies, yet by doing so
he has demonstrated the reverse. As Lendering often “updates” his websites
with respect to wrong information, we have been obliged to keep records
of Lendering’s original postings to ensure that his original review
remains transparent. Lendering’s deformations with respect to Iranica
are so numerous that we have only been able to summarize just 19 of
these in this posting (see
items 1-19 below this paragraph). In
the case of Cyrus the Great his distortions are so extreme that these
may be construed as a new form of anti-eastern prejudice.
(1)The case
of Gotarzes II (2) Cyrus the
Great (3) Dangers to pre-Islamic
sites in Iran today (13) Salamis (16) Is Lendering
an expert on ancient Iran? (17) Alexander
in Iran: A Brief Note. A
Final Note. The greatest irony of Lendering’s “review” is
that by working so hard to raise questions against Farrokh, he has only
succeeded in drawing the same questions towards his own alleged expertise
on Iran. As noted by a Hungarian professor,
“…the article [Lendering’s
“review”] … seems to be
a partisan action…the critic is worthless…only good for an internet
site such as Livius.org…No proof, no real argument...This critic could
never be published in scientific magazines. At least in Hungary”.
The “tone” of Lendering’s “review” raises the possibility of agitated
psychological processes derived from a prejudice of some kind; processes
which often compromise valid and balanced academic discourse. It would
appear that Lendering is subsumed in the passionate attempts at revising
the history of Iran as promoted by Schulz
and Harry de Quetteville in what appears
to be an orchestrated series of actions.
In that endeavour, Kaveh Farrokh is simply “in the way” of these people
and must be silenced.
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