"Weddings are elaborate in Dagestan, the largest autonomy in the North Caucasus. On August 22
we attended a wedding in Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital: Duma member and Dagestan Oil Company chief Gadzhi Makhachev's son married a classmate. The lavish display and heavy drinking concealed the deadly serious North Caucasus politics of land, ethnicity, clan, and alliance."
Thus begins a highly informative and somewhat amusing diplomatic cable, recently leaked by wikileaks.
[more inside]
posted by Guernsey Halleck
on Dec 2, 2010 -
38 comments
Georgia and Russia: This is the most balanced and informative discussion I've seen since the invasion over three months ago (
MeFi thread). If you've been wanting to catch up, this essay and its many useful links are the way to go. The author,
Donald Rayfield, is professor of Russian and Georgian and knows both countries well. (Via
wood s lot.)
posted by languagehat
on Nov 18, 2008 -
12 comments
Narts! The Nart Sagas are arguably the most essential ingredient of Circassian Culture, to which they are what Greek mythology is to Western Civilization. Though much less known than their Greek counterparts, the Nart epic tales are no less developed. The heroism, sagacity, guile and ferocity of the Nart demi-gods are more than matches
to those of the Greek Pantheon. If this
selection of stories captures your interest, you might want John Colarusso's
Nart Sagas from the Caucasus; you can read the
introduction online ("A ship sailing across the Black Sea in the year 1780 eventually would have come upon a lush shore at the eastern end of the dark gray waters..."). Although they seem to have been brought by the
Ossetes (and J. Cassian is posting an Ossetian tale,
The Death of Soslan, on his
blog), they're
everywhere in the Northern Caucasus. And
some people say they were the source of the King Arthur stories.
posted by languagehat
on Dec 4, 2004 -
13 comments
