Electronic Library of Scientific Literature - © Academic Electronic Press



ASIAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES



Volume 9 / No. 2 / 2000




Obituary

Vojtech Kopčan
(1 May 1940 Horná Ždaňa – 2 September 2000 Banská Štiavnica)

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 145–147


Chaulet’s Histoire Sainte. Translating Bible into Marquesan

Viktor Krupa
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

Translating Bible into a very remote language spoken by people living in a likewise distant culture is always a serious challenge. This article gives a brief characteristic of the creative effort of Gérard Pierre Chaulet who has translated Bible or rather its key passages into the language of the Marquesans.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 148–153


Searching for Roots and Lost Identity in Contemporary Chinese Literature

Marián Gálik
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

In the years 1984–1987 searching for roots of literary identity was quite wide-spread and popular among the Chinese men of letters in the PRC. The aim of this article is to analyse this phenomenon against the background of the situation in the Latin American countries, and to show the strong and weak points of this short-lived, but important literary movement.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 154–167


Local, Place, and Meaning: A Cultural Reading of the Hong Kong Stories

Dorothy Wong
Department of Comparative Literature, University of Hong Kong, China

The aim of this article is to investigate into the relationship between the Hong Kong local and Hong Kong with reference to the stories about the place.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 168–179


Some Remarks on Romani Identity

Anna Rácová
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The Romani language as one of the important criteria of the Romani identity is discussed here. Problems of the standardization and codification of Romani are also examined.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 180–186


Innovative Elements in the 19th Century Arabic Lexicon

Ladislav Drozdík
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The nahda movement, following the thirteenth-eighteenth centuries of cultural isolation and decadence (casr al-inhitat), may be interpreted as a process of re-evaluation of the Arab cultural heritage. The process has been started by the confrontation of traditional values with those coming from the newly discovered Europe. The study concentrates on the way the Arabic lexicon was being adapted to meet this tremendous cultural challenge.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 187–212


The Struggle for Syria (The Road towards the United Arab Republic)

Karol Sorby
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

Syria has been an important centre for Arab nationalists for centuries and the Syrians see themselves as the natural leaders of Arab nationalism. By the time Syria gained its independence from the French in 1943, Syrian leaders were divided on how to pursue their goal of Arab unity. The country was full of political parties; the army was indoctrinated and politicized; social cleavages were extreme; the rich and influential Syrian families were opposed to any change in the status quo; the communists wanted a revolutionary Syria. Externally , Syria was the subject of constant outside intrigues: the West wanted to see a pro-Western Syria; the East worked hard to win Syrian friendship; for decades the Hashemite kings of Iraq and Jordan had wanted to bring Syria under their control. However, the regional dimension played a decisive role and Egypt’s stand was of supreme importance. The roots of the conflict lay not in the Syrian tilt toward the Soviet bloc but in the US attempts to dominate the region.

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 213–234


Book reviews

Asian and African Studies, 9, 2000, 2, 235–259