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The Memory of the Crusades in the Arabic Folk Epics: Images and Patterns
 
Код статьиS086919080021277-1-1
DOI10.31857/S086919080021277-1
Тип публикации Статья
Статус публикации Опубликовано
Авторы
Соколов Олег Александрович 
Должность: сотрудник Научной лаборатории по анализу и моделированию социальных процессов, старший преподаватель (Кафедра арабской филологии)
Аффилиация: СПбГУ
Адрес: Российская Федерация, Санкт-Петербург
Название журналаВосток. Афро-Азиатские общества: история и современность
ВыпускВыпуск 6
Страницы172-181
Аннотация

Considering the importance of the topos of the Crusades for the Arab discourses of the 19th - 21st centuries and its influence on the collective memory in modern Arab countries, the challenge of finding the roots of this phenomenon is of vital importance. This problem can be solved only through the analyses of the memory of the Crusades in Arab culture from the late 13th to the beginning of the 19th centuries. Proceeding from this, it seems relevant to study the preservation of the memory of the Crusades in one of the most important types of works of Arabic literature, Arabic Folk Epics. The analysis of the image of the Franks in this kind of sources shows that during the era of the Crusades itself and in the subsequent centuries a huge number of the Arab tribal pre-Islamic narratives and passages about the struggle against Byzantium were transformed into the ones dedicated to Jihad against the Franks. Thus, first the Crusades reshaped this kind of narratives, and then the Arab tradition itself began to support and reproduce the image of the Christian-European-Crusader in the collective memory in Egypt and Levant due to the high popularity of the Folk Epics, which might have created a horizon of expectation for the perception of the European colonial policy of the 19th-20th centuries, i.e. “the return of the Crusaders”.

Ключевые словаCrusades, Arabic Folk Epic, Islam, Arab Identity, collective memory, image of the Other
Источник финансированияThe funding Pure ID 92565886 of Saint Petersburg State University to support this research project is gratefully acknowledged.
Получено30.11.2022
Дата публикации31.12.2022
Кол-во символов29405
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1 INTRODUCTION
2 From all the phenomena of the Middle Eastern history the Crusades remain one of the most often cited epochs addressed in media and one of the most popular fields of research. As Carole Hillenbrand notes, the likening of the modern Europeans with the Crusaders has been typical of the Arab political and religious leaders as well as cultural figures since the middle of the 20th century [Hillenbrand, 1999, p. 590]. Moreover, the recent studies show, that the Arab socio-political and cultural discourses of the second half of the 19th century also contained a significant number of references to the theme of the Crusades, and representatives of all major branches of the Arab social thought (Pan-Islamism, Pan-Ottomanism and Pan-Arabism) appealed to this era [Phillips, 2018; Phillips, 2020; Tikhonova, Sokolov, 2021; Sokolov, 2022].
3 Thus, given the importance of the topos of the Crusades for the Arab politics and culture of the 19th – 21st centuries and its role in the formation of identities within the imaginary communities (national and religious) existing in modern Arab countries, the problem of finding the roots of this phenomenon seems to be extremely relevant. The solving of this research question is related primarily to the study of the functioning of the memory of the Crusades in Arab culture from the late 14th to the early 19th century.
4 In modern historiography, there are two points of view on how the memory of the Crusades was being preserved among the Arabs until the 19th century. According to the first viewpoint, the European invasion was almost forgotten. The main arguments in support of this are the absence of the word “Crusader” (ar. ṣalībī) in the Arabic language until the 19th century and the fact that Arab authors did not create specialized works on the history of the Crusades before that time. This point of view is shared, for example, by Hannes Mohring [Mohring, 2008, p. 101], Bernard Lewis [Lewis, 2003, pp. 50-51] and Jonathan Riley-Smith [Riley-Smith, 2008, p. 64].
5 According to another point of view, it is impossible to make an unequivocal conclusion that the Arabs did not preserve the memory of the Crusades. Haim Gerber argues that, “the Crusades left a deep and lasting trace of fear in the collective mind of the Arab population of Palestine, and will forever remain in their memory” [Gerber, 2008, p. 44]. According to Jonathan Phillips, “we should not underestimate the transmission of the memory of the Crusades through popular culture, which is a subject worthy of further research” [Phillips, 2008, p. 5].
6 Based on this, it seems relevant to study the preservation of the memory of the Crusades in the late Middle Ages and the New Age in the so-called Arabic Folk Epics.
7 The Arabic Folk Epic is a fusion of an ancient Arabian tribal Folklore, legends and fairy tales of ancient Semitic, Persian and Indian origin, historical chronicles and Muslim hagiographic literature. For the most part, the Folk Epics emerged during the era of the Crusades as well as the Mamluk period. During the reign of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and North Africa in the 16th – 19th centuries, works of this genre were extremely popular, as they were performed by professional storytellers in the streets, bazaars and coffee houses [Krymskij, 1971, p. 48]. The wide popularity of Folk Epics in the Arab society of Ottoman times is reported by many travelers and researchers: Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747 – 1825), Antoine-Barthélemy Clot-Bey (1793-1868) and Edward Lane (1801-1876). It is important to note that Epics were known and loved by urban and rural population along with the Bedouins [Krymskij, 1971, pp. 49-52].
8 The issue of preserving of the Crusades memory in the Arabic Folk Epic, however, has not previously become the topic of the complex research. In the only article directly related to the topic under consideration, “The Crusading Stratum in the Arabic Hero Cycles”, its author Malcolm Lyons lists examples of references to the Crusades in the Arabic Epics without considering the patterns of preserving the memory of this phenomenon, and also without examining such an important aspect as the influence of the Crusader topos in the Folk Epics on the image of the Europeans in the Arab culture. At the same time, Lyons notes that the study of the image of the Crusades in the Arabic Folk Epic is extremely important and ambitious [Lyons, 1993, pp. 147-161].
9 Arabic Folk Epics are not considered as sources in the studies of the Arab memory of the Crusades: Carol Hillenbrand [Hillenbrand, 1999] and Jonathan Phillips [Phillips, 2008] mention only the potential relevance of studying these works in this course. Omar Sayfo in his article on the image of Salah al-Din in popular Arab culture starts his analysis only from the 19th century, ignoring the episodes with this character in popular culture of the 14th – 18th centuries [Sayfo, 2017]. Paul Cobb in his study of Islamic perceptions of the Crusades mentions only the glorification of Baybars in the eponymous Epic [Cobb, 2016].

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