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Andrew Johnson [FXS]
Firaxian
- Joined
- May 15, 2020
- Messages
- 552
My point - years ago - was to take this bit by a historian of the region ("region" here getting more and more specific - my area of expertise is the mainland) that really highlights how differently history is seen by academics and by lay audiences. When I read about a place as a lay person, I might start by opening a Wikipedia page and seeing a map, with colors that expand across a region. But what do those colors mean? The people in the blank spaces on the map are going to be - usually (here's where settler-colonialism is different) - the same before and after they are "part of the empire." At times, not all of them will know who the ruler is, or to what state they belong. Historians love states that do censuses or the like - that fills in detail what's going on, at least from the perspective of the state. But most states don't have those records, or they've been lost.
Srivijaya is an interesting case of this. The name is found a few - but not all - places. Certainly important city-states existed in the Malay peninsula. But is the Srivijaya written of at Palembang the same as the "Suvarnabhumi" attested to in Javanese sources? We can look at artifacts, etc., and say that there is a cultural continuity in these sites, but is that a political continuity? Our records come from a variety of sources - Chola writings, Chinese writings, Javanese writings, stone stelae, but they don't always seem to line up. Indeed, some of the source referents for Srivijaya's history are conflating it with Angkor - if this seems confusing on a map, it's not in historical records: a writer that says "we sailed for X days, went up a broad river, and reached a great stone capital" could be referring to either, especially as sources often just use their own words for places (e.g. "Funan" or "Chenla" or, to take another example, "Cathay"). Further, as I mentioned above, the "blank" spaces on the map still have cities and towns, people and art, Indic religions and animism. Where does the color of the empire labeled "Srivijaya" begin and end?
Imperial power, in many places, is a thin coat of paint onto long-established regions, and written records often clash. This makes the past an uncertain place, something that people who want certainty dislike. There is a tremendous push to say "X people were here, and Y people were there," but this doesn't work for most of the world. The establishment of "race," "culture," or "nation" are always backwards-oriented attempts to create a mythic origin for modern nationalism. You can always tell a historian when they describe the past in terms of individual authors (e.g. Zhou Daguan writes X) instead of empires (the Khmer did Y). Or, you can imagine a cubist painting - we get different perspectives upon a thing - perhaps they line up, perhaps they don't, perhaps we're missing parts that would make them line up.
My example of Sukhothai I know a lot more. The site was discovered and proclaimed to be the ancestor of the Thai state just at the time that European empires were "discovering" other origins, or writing their own national epic (Lönnrot's Kalevala is an example I know well from this time - a compilation of oral history from northern Karelia that became the Finnish epic). It was subsequently rebuilt to be an unquestionably beautiful site. Undoubtedly there was a city-state there, one that warred and allied with Chiang Mai, Ayutthaya, and others. But is that where the blue of Siam enters the map? Does it even make sense to frame the question this way?
I'm not going to speak to the game, and don't want anything to be said about how I've "confirmed" or "denied" that any place I mention here is or isn't in the game. Games require abstraction, they need that notion of cultural borders, or this or that civilization there on the map. They need certainty. Srivijaya is cool, much as many ancient states are cool - but if we're speaking about the historical record, we just need to take any authoritative voice that says "THIS is what was here" cautiously. Unless, of course, this is the first you're hearing about these places; in that case, read up - then smash your assumptions later.
Srivijaya is an interesting case of this. The name is found a few - but not all - places. Certainly important city-states existed in the Malay peninsula. But is the Srivijaya written of at Palembang the same as the "Suvarnabhumi" attested to in Javanese sources? We can look at artifacts, etc., and say that there is a cultural continuity in these sites, but is that a political continuity? Our records come from a variety of sources - Chola writings, Chinese writings, Javanese writings, stone stelae, but they don't always seem to line up. Indeed, some of the source referents for Srivijaya's history are conflating it with Angkor - if this seems confusing on a map, it's not in historical records: a writer that says "we sailed for X days, went up a broad river, and reached a great stone capital" could be referring to either, especially as sources often just use their own words for places (e.g. "Funan" or "Chenla" or, to take another example, "Cathay"). Further, as I mentioned above, the "blank" spaces on the map still have cities and towns, people and art, Indic religions and animism. Where does the color of the empire labeled "Srivijaya" begin and end?
Imperial power, in many places, is a thin coat of paint onto long-established regions, and written records often clash. This makes the past an uncertain place, something that people who want certainty dislike. There is a tremendous push to say "X people were here, and Y people were there," but this doesn't work for most of the world. The establishment of "race," "culture," or "nation" are always backwards-oriented attempts to create a mythic origin for modern nationalism. You can always tell a historian when they describe the past in terms of individual authors (e.g. Zhou Daguan writes X) instead of empires (the Khmer did Y). Or, you can imagine a cubist painting - we get different perspectives upon a thing - perhaps they line up, perhaps they don't, perhaps we're missing parts that would make them line up.
My example of Sukhothai I know a lot more. The site was discovered and proclaimed to be the ancestor of the Thai state just at the time that European empires were "discovering" other origins, or writing their own national epic (Lönnrot's Kalevala is an example I know well from this time - a compilation of oral history from northern Karelia that became the Finnish epic). It was subsequently rebuilt to be an unquestionably beautiful site. Undoubtedly there was a city-state there, one that warred and allied with Chiang Mai, Ayutthaya, and others. But is that where the blue of Siam enters the map? Does it even make sense to frame the question this way?
I'm not going to speak to the game, and don't want anything to be said about how I've "confirmed" or "denied" that any place I mention here is or isn't in the game. Games require abstraction, they need that notion of cultural borders, or this or that civilization there on the map. They need certainty. Srivijaya is cool, much as many ancient states are cool - but if we're speaking about the historical record, we just need to take any authoritative voice that says "THIS is what was here" cautiously. Unless, of course, this is the first you're hearing about these places; in that case, read up - then smash your assumptions later.
)
