Last month five collections have gone up online EAP001, EAP038, EAP051, EAP117 and EAP458. These collections come from Iran, Cameroon, Indonesia and finally two from India. I am happy to say that with these new additions our online collections have grown to over two million images!

EAP001 was, as its number suggests, our first ever project. It was a pilot project which was interested in photography in Iran at the turn of the 19th century. It located photographic material from the 19th and early 20th century which was being kept in precarious conditions or in family collections. The project copied a sample of items and located many more for future possible digitisation projects.

EAP001/1/1 - Image 6

EAP038 surveyed and digitised pre-1947 Telugu printed materials in India. It located books and periodicals published during the 19th and first half of the 20th century which had been written in the Telugu language in South India. The first stirrings of cultural and religious renaissance were felt in the Telugu speaking districts of Madras Presidency under the British rule. Expressions of social and cultural interaction between the East and the West can be seen in Telugu print culture. From the revival of medical knowledge to various forms of literary genres such as classical Prabandha, Ithihasa and Puranic tradition and Panchangas [from 1860s] and Satakas and also western forms like novels, short stories, poems and drama.

EAP038/1/18 - Image 107 

EAP051 aimed to preserve records which are written in Bamum script. This is an indigenous African writing system, from the Cameroon Grassfields. The project digitised collections of the Bamum Palace Archive, It also acquired relevant material in danger throughout the Bamum Kingdom and beyond, this material was digitised and deposited at the Bamum Palace Archives.

One book chronicles the arrival of the first German military officer and trader. Other books are devoted to the founding of the kingdom, to a new Bamum religion (fusing Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs), to other topics such as traditional medicine. One family’s collection included early Bamum script on banana leaves. Another collection is particularly important, containing thousands of documents on family and kingdom history, transcripts of speeches given by the Bamum King in the early twentieth century, commentaries on Islam and magic, and many beautiful maps of the Bamum Kingdom with place names and geographic features identified in the indigenous Bamum script.

EAP051/1/1/11/5 – Image 8

EAP117 digitised rare ancient manuscripts and artefacts from the 14th to the 20th century in Kerinca on the highlands of the Sumatra in Indonesia. The project digitised 65 private collections that contain information about an area of which little knowledge exists. The records held in private collections are often open to physical danger or degradation; this project helped ensure that the information contained in these rare documents is preserved and made available to a wide audience.

 

 

 

EAP117/3/1/20 Image 4

The final project, EAP458, digitised records containing information about the Tamil region in India.

The documents are scattered in the homes of Tamil villagers. This material will open a new avenue of analysis at the level of micro-history of rural India, a field for which there is a lack of research material. The project liaised with record holders to survey and digitise their materials, aiding both in the preservation and dissemination of these important documents.

EAP458/17/2/24 Image 2

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

We have another wonderful guest blog this month, this time by Hans Berger who was involved with EAP177 and EAP326, two wonderful photographic projects from Laos. I will let him tell you all about the person who was the inspiration behind it all...

Pha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela (1920-2007)

Theravada monk and abbot, collector of Buddhist photographs of Laos

Portrait of Pha Khamchan by Hans Georg Berger 1996

From the 7th-9th July, Buddhist monks and laypeople of Luang Prabang in Northern Laos commemorate Pha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela, a highly venerated abbot who passed away seven years ago, and who has been the key figure in a research project of the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Pha Khamchan collected Buddhist Photographs of Laos for over 70 years and saved them during difficult times. In 2006, he agreed to a project of digitisation that now makes a unique body of Lao Buddhist photographs available for research, both inside and outside  Laos. With photographer Hans Georg Berger, he created the Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang that now holds more than 35.000 historic photographs and related documents.

Pha Khamchan and his monastic community in 1996

The digitised photographs are available through the EAP website and at the National Library of Laos. The originals are kept in Luang Prabang.

Buddhist ceremonies take place at Vat Saen Sukharam, a historic monastery of the World Heritage Town of Luang Prabang. Led by Pha One Keo Kittibhaddo, these ceremonies are organised by Pha Khamchan's disciple, Pha Buavan Punnasaro.

Commemoration of Pha Khamchan at the Buddhist Archive of Photography in 2010.

The people of Luang Prabang honour a monk whose conduct and spiritual teaching has been exemplary, as was his profound knowledge of the ancient Lao culture and of its unique traditions and festivals which form the Lao identity.

 

Do have a look at the fascinating film A  Theravada Vision that shows Hans Berger and the monks preserving the photographic archive.

 

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Streaming video in Windows Media format. 1:45
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www.hansgeorgberger.de

www.ananthabooks.com

 
We are very lucky to have another guest blog, this time Dr Irina Pochinskaya who was the grant-holder for EAP556 will talk about the fascinating items that makes up part of the collection for this project.

Staff of the Laboratory: Sitting left to right: P. Mangilev, I. Pochinskaya (head of the Laboratory), N. Anufrieva, N. Shcherbakova. Standing left to right: S. Beloborodov, Iu. Borovik, A. Palkin.

Teaching exhibition at the Laboratory.

The Collection of manuscripts and old-printed books at the Laboratory of Studies in Archaeography of the Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, consists of almost 6000 biblio artifacts of the Ancient Russian tradition and has its roots in Byzantine culture.

The books of the Laboratory collection.

In Russia this tradition is kept and developed by Old-Believers, representatives of a social-religious movement, which appeared as a result of the 17th century split of the Russian Church.

There are 3876 manuscript items in the Laboratory. 19 items are dated to the 15th – 16th centuries. A particularly interesting manuscript from this date is a Gospel (1530s), it contains a signature by the Archbishop of Novgord, Macariy (who later became the Archbishop of metropolitan Moscow and then of all of Russia) and is dated 8 November 1540. Another rare manuscript is a Service to the Icon of Vladimir Mother of God (early 16th century).

Service to Vladimir Icon of Mother of God, early 16^th century.

There are a large number of “sborniki” (collections) of different works and church services within the 17th century books. This includes an entire row of unique manuscripts such as the Chronograph (a 1617 edition and a manuscript dated to the 1620s) and “Ustav” (Order) of Cyrillo-Belozersky monastery, one of the largest in Russia.

Works of N.G. Spafariy, a well-known 17th century writer and diplomat, were widely known throughout the Urals and Siberia and the Laboratory has a collection of Spafariy’s works and translations. Of particular importance is “Titulyarnik” – a handbook for diplomats written in 1672. Our example was made in the 1680s.

 
Titulyarnik. Manuscript, 1680s.

A significant proportion of the 17th century biblio artifacts are manuscripts containing spiritual chants. Melodies in these books were written with special signs known as “kryuki” (hooks) which came to Russia from Byzantium.

There are many books in the 18^th century manuscript collection. They are thematic compilations of extracts from the Holy Scripture and are eschatological, educational and hagiographical in nature. There are also works of the Church Fathers and original Old-Believers. There are also unique manuscripts, such as the Cosmography (1750s-1760s), which is a historical-geographical essay containing descriptions of countries from all the continents and of course a very detailed description of places in Russia. The description is so comprehensive that we can almost guess the author and the sources he used.

Cosmography. Manuscript 1750s-1760s.

An illuminated manuscript of the 1770s deserve special mention. It contains extracts from the book “Prolog”  which illustrates the suffering and torture of saints, making it an anthology of Medieval torture.

The collection of extracts from Prolog Manuscript, 1770s.

There are many collections of 18^th-20^th century services, prayers and canons that were necessary for domestic rituals and services.

Oktoikh. Manuscript, late 19^th century.

During this time, the number of original Old-Believers’ works increased, including essays on the history of the movement. There is a row of 20^th century personal archives from leaders of Old-Believers community. Therefore the collection of 19^th-20^th centuries material gives us a rich resource for studying the history of local Old-Believers and their contemporary condition.

There are 67 old-printed books from the 16^th century. Among these are the first books printed in Moscow: The Lenten Triodion (c.1555-1556) and the Gospel (c.1558-59). They have no publisher’s imprint, so the creators remain anonymous.

Gospel. Moscow, Anonymous typography, 1550s.

There is also the first accurately dated Russian old-printed book – The Apostle dated to 1564 (2 items). The collection also holds the first books published in Ukrainian and Belarussian typographies.

The 17^th century books consist mainly of books published before the Church Reform of the 1650s-1660s which divided  the Russian Orthodox Church creating the oppositional Old-Believers’ movement. There are also Ukrainian and Belarussian publications, which were in demand amongst the Old-Believers.

Gospel. Nizhniy Novgorod, 1613.

The book collection of  the 18^th-20^th centuries mainly consists of books published by Old-Believers. During the 18^th to early 20^th centuries Old-Believers printed books mainly in typographies of the Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth) in Warsaw, Vilna, Grodno, Pochaev and Suprasl, the books were then illegally exported to Russia. The Old-Believers book publishing from the second half of 19^th century to the early 20^th century was organized in Russia, but was illegal. In 1905 the government legalized it.

The Laboratory staff actively studies biblio artifacts. You can see the list of their works on the website of the Laboratory.

Due to the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library (project EAP556 “Book heritage of Ural Old-Believers”) digitisation of the most valuable biblio artifacts at the Laboratory started. The purchase of acid-free book boxes was also carried out under the grant.

Happy International Archives Day! Welcome to our monthly blog updating you about recent online collections. This month four collections have gone online EAP027, EAP061, EAP144 and EAP372. One of these collections hails from Liberia, two are from Indonesia and one is from India.

The first collection is EAP027 which preserved the papers of William V.S. Tubman, Liberia’s longest running president (1944-1971). These materials were being stored in a library in an unoccupied mansion in Liberia. Many had been damaged by mould and insects. Some had been left on the floor after the room had been searched by rebels, who thought the papers may contain hidden money and valuables, during Liberia’s civil war in 2003.

The collection contains papers which relate to Tubman’s personal and political life from his presidency in 1944 to his death in 1971. The majority of the collections focuses on the beginning (1944-1950) and the end (1961-1971) of his presidency. The papers are divided into three main groups, Liberian government papers, W.V.S Tubman papers and records relating to Tubmans work with non-governmental organisations. Given Tubman’s status as an African head of state during the de-colonization era, these papers will be of particular value for the study of the Organization of African Unity’s early years, as well as for the study of West African diplomacy.

A previous project, EAP139, which is already online, preserved the photographic collections of William V.S. Tubman.

EAP027/1/1/5/22 – Image 3

EAP061 is the first of the collections from Indonesia; it digitised Islamic manuscripts belonging to Pondok Pesantren. Pondok Pesantren are traditional Islamic schools which have become centres for Islamic learning and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge in Indonesia. The manuscripts reveal their role as centres for learning and sharing of Islamic teaching.

The project digitised three collections: Pondok Pesantren Langitan in Tuban, established 1852 by KH. Muhammad Nur; Pondok Pesantren Tarbiyyah al-Thalabah in Keranji, established in 1898 by KH Musthofa; and Pondok Pesantren Tegalsari, Jetis Ponorogo, established in the 18th century by Kyai Mohammed Besari.

These manuscripts include 'Yellow Books' (Kitab Kuning, a term referring to Islamic works printed on yellowish paper), such as Jawhar al-Tawhid, Hidayat al-Sibyan, Kitab Taqrib, Kitab Sittin Mas'ala etc. However their marginal notes make them unique from the original books. These notes are an important resource to study the efforts of Indonesia Ulama to translate Islam into the local context. The manuscripts provide evidence for how Islam interacted with local and Indonesian culture.

EAP061/1/17 Image 74

EAP144 is the second project from Indonesia. It digitised over 250 manuscripts from five Suruas (Prayer Houses) in West Sumatra. These manuscripts contain various texts such as Al-Qur'an, Al-Qur'an Translation (Tafsir), Tasawuf, Fiqh, Agiography (The Stories of the Saints), Arabic Grammar, Minangkabau Laws, Kaba, Hikayat, Nazam, Azimat, Letters and Medicine which hold important information for Minangkabau culture and Islamic history. They will contribute greatly to the study of Islam, Tasawuf, Traditional Laws, Language, Literature, Culture, and Medicine in Indonesia.

EAP144/1/13 – Image 2

EAP372 is the final project, this digitised early periodicals and newspapers of Tamilnadu and Pondichery in India.

Tamilnadu and Pondicherry occupy a prominent place on the map of print history in South Asia. Printing during the modern period proliferated to the rest of India from Tranquebar, a small coastal town south of Pondicherry in Tamilnadu. There was a big boom in printing in the 19th and the 20th century in the Tamil region. Evidence to this is the number of books, periodicals and newspapers that were published. While importance was given to the creation of publications, preservation took a back seat. A number of periodicals and newspapers primarily in Tamil and English remained locked and in deteriorated condition in several collections in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry.

The project was undertaken by a team from the Roja Muthiah Research Library. They identified materials in libraries and private archives which were then digitised. A total of 140,609 images were digitised. 10,770 issues from 56 titles of periodicals were identified, many of which were rare periodicals.

EAP372/1/1/1/1 – Image 9

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

 

This month we have four new collections online, these are EAP261, EAP427, EAP535 and EAP593. Two of the collections hail from African countries, Nigeria and Malawi. The other two collections are from India and Mexico.

EAP427 is a pilot project which looked to preserve Native Administration records from Malawi, formerly Nyasaland. These records date from 1891 to 1964 and were generated by the Native Authorities (traditional chiefs).

The records represent a rich history of Malawi from the colonial period up to the transition to self-rule. Prior to independence, the Colonial Government introduced the Native Authorities to Nyasaland as a way of involving the local people in the governance processes through their own traditional institutions. The introduction of Native Authorities meant that native chiefs became part of Government administration. As such, in the course of undertaking government business, the chiefs created, received and maintained a lot of administrative records.

Prior to British colonialism, Malawi was a predominantly oral society. The establishment of the native authorities marked a transition to literacy as the traditional leaders were required to conduct official business in writing. The records are a lasting legacy of the impact of colonialism on the people of Malawi and for this reason this project helped to ensure their preservation.

The project targeted 32 different districts to survey. It digitised a sample of records from four of the districts; these are now available to view online.

EAP427/1/8 part 2 of 2 Image 190

EAP535 is a major project which digitised precolonial documents from Northern Nigeria. The project focused on materials held by the National Archives Kaduna, which was established as the major repository for Northern Nigeria in 1957. 

The records consist of three main collections. The first is a collection of Arabic manuscripts dating from the early 18th century to the 1930s. They include local chronicles, private correspondence, legal documents and religious literature.

EAP535/1/1/4/23 – Image 13

The second, ‘The Secretariat Northern Province Collection’, consists of letters to various colonial administrators, official assessment reports, ethnographic reports, and numerous annual numerical files dealing with diverse subjects like agriculture, religion and slavery. This material dates from 1900 to 1959.

EAP535/2/5/6/10 – Image 39

The final, the ‘Provincial Offices Collection’ consists of circular letters to various colonial administrators, official assessment reports, ethnographic reports, and numerous annual numerical files dealing with diverse subjects like agriculture, religion and slavery. The materials copied in this project deal with the period between 1900 and 1953.

EAP535/2/5/6/10 – Image 39

These materials are of high importance as they document the social, economic and political history of the Sokoto Caliphate (the largest 19th century Islamic empire in West Africa) as well as the early years of British colonial rule in Northern Nigeria, when many features of Caliphate economy and society were researched by colonial officials. The documents are also of value to historians of Africa in general, because such resources deal with labour, culture, intellectual history and inter-group relations in the African pre-colonial era.

The project successfully created 62,177 digital images. These are now available to view online.

EAP261 digitised a wide collection of rare and unique material related to Bengali drama. The material was held by a private collector, Dr Devajit Bandyopadhyay. The collection covers the 19th and early 20th centuries, and includes texts of formal 'modern' drama, texts of jatra or traditional Bengali folk theatre, books of songs from plays, and secondary material of that period.

Apart from the documentary value, the collection offers unique opportunities for historical and thematic study. Bengal saw the first major rise of Western-type drama in India. The Western influence derived largely from Shakespeare and other Renaissance drama, and had suggestive resemblances with traditional folk theatre. The entire process can be traced through this archive, combining jatra with Western-type drama.

249 titles were digitised, some of them multi-volume, making a total of 385 volumes and over one hundred thousand images.

EAP261/1/1/114 Image 39

EAP593 looked to survey material relating to Mexico’s indigenous population. It focused its search on the town of Tenejapa. The project aimed to preserve archives which show the culture and traditions of these communities, which are changing rapidly due to the modernisation of the area. These include photographs, negatives and personal documents. The project digitised a sample of these collections which are now available to view online.

EAP593/1/1 – Image 1

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This is the second part of this month’s blog updating you on the new EAP collections which are now available online. This edition covers four projects, EAP408, EAP450, EAP570 and EAP596.
Two of these collections come from Caribbean Islands the Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla. The other two collections come from Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

EAP408 was a pilot project which carried out a survey of archives of the Turks and Caicos Islands. These islands do not have a formal national archive, which has left the islands archives vulnerable to loss. Only the Turks and Caicos National Museum has a mandate to collect and care for historical records and before this project its archival collection, which spans around 50 linear feet, represented the islands only known archival records.

The project searched to find collections of archives; it located the major repository of Government Archive records and investigated any other reported or potential storage areas on the inhabited islands of Grand Turk, Providenciales, North Caicos, Middle Caicos, South Caicos and Salt Cay. A sample of the records was digitised and this is now available to view on our website.

EAP408/1/1/78 – Image 3

The second project, EAP596,  is from the Caribbean as well, aiming to survey the endangered records of Anguilla. Anguilla also has no formal archive for the collection of records relating to the island. Most archival work has been undertaken on a voluntary basis. Most notably, the Anguilla Archaeological & Historical Society (AAHS), although lacking in resources, has intervened on an ad hoc basis in order to prevent the destruction of historical records wherever possible.
The survey yielded somewhat more pre-1900 material than expected. It represents a valuable resource for research into the island’s history. The material offers a portrait of social and economic conditions, distilled from the King’s Bench records of the 18th century as well as from the Deed series that begin in 1824 and continue through into the later 20th century.

There is abundant documentary material that relates to the Revolutionary period, although much of it has been destroyed by natural disaster and human neglect. The Revolutionary documents have stimulated the most local interest and also detail the extraordinary transformation of Anguilla from an island in 1970 without telephones or electricity to the complex tourist-based economy and society of the present day.

The project’s secondary focus was on creating a digital sample of some of the material. Four document series, comprising six bound volumes, one newspaper and one group of unbound documents were digitised, resulting in the creation of 2,491 digital images. These are now available to view via our website.

EAP596/1/3/1 – Image 56

EAP450 undertook a survey of manuscripts in Sri Lanka that had been written in the Malay language. The history of the ‘Malay’ community in Sri Lanka goes back to the middle of the seventeenth century, following the foundation of Dutch rule in the island in 1640. The designation ‘Malay’ has been commonly used to refer to people from the Indonesian Archipelago who were exiled to Sri Lanka by the Dutch as political exiles and convicts, sent there in various capacities to serve the Dutch, or recruited as soldiers to colonial armies, both Dutch and, at a later stage, British.

The Malays of Sri Lanka produced a diverse range of manuscripts in the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. These included Islamic theological treatises, poetry, biographies of the prophets, mystical writings and more.

This pilot project documented approximately 50 Malay manuscripts, books, letters and notes. It provided a digital sample of 5 of these manuscripts. These are now available to view via our website.

EAP450/1/2 – Image 129

EAP570 is our largest collection to date, containing over two hundred and ninety thousand images.  It digitised the archives of several Buddhist temples in Bhutan. With a long history and undisturbed continuity, Bhutan’s far flung temples and monastic archives represent a literary trove which is still largely unexplored. The project went to the temples of Dongkala, Chizhing, Dodedra and Phojoding; they all have significant manuscript collections dating from the 16th century and later, covering a wide range of subjects from canonical writings to local biographical and ritual literature.

The books are housed in the temple halls, and were generally wrapped in cloth or sometimes bound with a rope and stacked on shelves. They are vulnerable to damage and even possible destruction. For instance, the earthquake on 19 September 2011 has affected 339 temples in western Bhutan including those mentioned here, and destroyed 17 beyond repair. Despite the spiritual, academic and artistic significance of these collections to the local communities, scholars and wider audience, they remain in precarious conditions.

Making digital copies has proven to be the most effective and economical method of preservation, also allowing these fantastic resources to reach a much wider audience. The project was exceptionally successful, even managing to digitise some manuscripts from four additional temples Phurdogkha, Menrikha, Thujedra and Pumola. The project digitised nearly 800 manuscripts. During the process they also cleaned bookshelves, changed book covers and helped to improve the conditions in which the original books were stored.

EAP570/1/1/1 Part 2 – Image 213

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

 

This month has been a bumper one with nine collections going up online, adding over three hundred and fifty thousand images. To avoid an overload of projects April’s blog has been split into two parts. This blog is part one and describes the first five projects which are available; these are EAP207, EAP234, EAP284, EAP314 and EAP401. Two of these collections are South American, coming from Argentina and Peru.  Another two come from Africa, originating from Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. The final collection comes from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

EAP207 digitised various collections of items stored at Museo de La Plata; these had been identified in a previous pilot project, EAP095. Museo de La Plata was established in Argentina in 1888. It was the first institution of its kind in South America, resulting from the donation of several anthropological and archaeological collections gathered during the 1870s. These  collections provide a picture of pre-industrial societies across a wide area of South America during the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

The albums Boggiani, Bonaparte (Old and New World), and the Bolivian Collection represent objects used by ethnologists as visual data of indigenous peoples. The Moreno Album contains images from F. P. Moreno's collections at the Anthropology and Ethnography Museum of Buenos Aires, founded in 1878. This album along with the Calchaquí Album was presented at the Paris World Exhibition of 1878 and both contain very rare images.

EAP207/2/1 – Image 1

The second project EAP234 identified and catalogued colonial documents (1535-1929) held at the Lima Metropolitan Welfare Society, Peru.  The archive holds documents about benefactors, foundations, brotherhoods, chaplaincies, rural and urban properties, slaves, wills, payments letters and accounts records which provide information on the daily operations of many charitable institutions. These documents are especially valuable as sources of economic, social, religious, art and medicinal history. As well as listing and organizing the material the project also produced a digital sample of the records, this is now available to view on our website.

 EAP234/1/2/14/1 – Image 2

EAP284 is a pilot project which surveyed the records held at the Sierra Leone Public Archives. Sierra Leone was settled in 1787 by the 'black poor', who were mostly former slaves from London.¹  Sierra Leone received successive waves of immigration, African American ex-slaves who had fled to Nova Scotia, Jamaican Maroons who had been removed from Jamaica and initially settled in Nova Scotia, but after facing cold winters and racism came to Freetown. There were also thousands of people who had been liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy after 1815 and settled in Freetown. As well as these there were migrants from the hinterland, including Muslims from the north and north east, and local ethnic groups - Mende, Temne, Vai, Sherbro. Sierra Leone became home to a unique polyglot Atlantic community. The records provide an insight into slavery, abolition, race, meanings of freedom and political sovereignty throughout the region.

The project was successful in surveying these archives and supplied a digital sample of some of the records; this is now available on our website.

EAP284/2/1 – Image 9

EAP401 was based in Ethiopia and looked at digitising records relating to Ethiopia’s Islamic Heritage. Islam was introduced to Ethiopia nearly 1500 years ago. The project undertook a survey to identify the most endangered Islamic manuscripts and archives in functioning and abandoned mosques, as well as looking at private holdings in North Shewa (Goze, Husiso), South Wello (Gedo Toleha, and Dodota) and Gacheni.

The project identified six abandoned mosques in the towns of Cheno, Dera and in South Wallo, 21 manuscripts were listed. Some manuscripts in poor conditions were relocated to the Gaceni District Culture and Tourism Bureau. Ten manuscripts were digitised and these are now available on our website.

EAP401/1/3 - Image 94

EAP314 located handwritten documents of village judicial assemblies, or traditional courts of customary law, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Though these assemblies never acquired legal sanctity the practice of recording the nature of the dispute and the judgment handed down by village elders became a standard procedure in this region of India. The records will enable researchers to acquire new insight into Tamil rural social life.

The project identified 45 individuals holding documents related to Tamil customary law and rural social history. The collections of 10 individuals were digitised, comprising 619 paper documents, 24 notebooks and 9 copperplates, these are now available to view on our website.

EAP314/10/2 – Image 19

Check back next week to see the final four projects!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

^1. Pham, John-Peter (2005). Child soldiers, adult interests: the global dimensions of the Sierra Leonean tragedy. Nova Publishers. pp. 4–8. ISBN 978-1-59454-671-6.

 

Today is Persian New Year known as Nowruz. It celebrates the first day of spring and so to mark
the occasion we have another guest blog, this time from Jane Lewisohn who was
the grant holder for EAP088, a project about Persian poetry and music.

The Golha (‘Flowers of Persian Song and Music’) radio programmes were broadcast on Iranian National Radio for 23 years from 1956 through 1979, comprising approximately 850 hours of programmes made up of literary commentary with the declamation of poetry, which was sung with musical accompaniment interspersed with solo musical pieces. The programmes were the brainchild of Davoud Pirnia, a one-time Assistant Prime Minister, enthusiastic patriot and scholar who harboured a deep love for Persian culture and its rich literary and musical traditions. He retired from political life in 1956, for the next eleven years he devoted himself tirelessly to producing of the Golha programmes. The foremost literary, academic and musical talents of his day offered Mr. Pirnia their collaboration and support. The greatest Iranian vocalists of the twentieth century saw their careers launched on these radio programmes. Besides having such a rich pool of talent at his fingertips, Mr Pirnia had the support of the Director of the Iranian National Radio (1950–1960s), Nusrato’llah Mu‘niyan who transformed the radio from a commercial advertising platform for entertainers and a parking place for relatives of political elites into a respected and influential vehicle for the preservation and promotion of Persian culture. The Golha programmes became exemplars of excellence in the sphere of music literature, setting standards that are still looked up to in Iran today, referred to by scholars and musicians as an encyclopaedia of Persian music and poetry. Most of the great ballads and songs in modern Persian literature were commissioned specifically for these programmes.

Davoud Pirnia © Golha Project

Mr. Pirnia produced five different categories of programme: ‘Perennial Flowers’ (Golha-yi javidan, up to 157), ‘Particoloured Flowers’ (Golha -yi rangarang, 481), ‘A Green’ (Barg-i sabz, 312), ‘A Single Rose’ (Yik shakh-i gol, 465), ‘Desert Flowers’ (Golha-yi ṣaḥra’i, 64), each featuring choice selections from the lyrics of the great classical, and contemporary Persian poets, combining song, declamation with musical accompaniment, learned commentary and Persian folk music.

Davoud Pirnia  © Golha Project

The Golha marked a watershed in Persian culture. Heretofore, due to the conservative socio-religious bias, serious music had been practised behind closed doors. Where performed in public spaces, performers were branded as street minstrels. Due to the high literary and musical quality of these programmes, public perception of music and musicians in Iran shifted and its participants became referred to—for the first time—as maestros, virtuosos, divas and adepts of a fine art, no longer inhabiting the lowest rung of the social ladder.

The Golha programmes were so popular that people organized their schedules around listening to the broadcasts. The Golha programmes also evoked a neo-classical revival in Persian song and verse of the late Qajar period which were re-interpreted and performed by modern musicians and vocalists, and likewise promoted Persian vernacular music that was carefully researched, recorded, and broadcast, thus helping to preserve both the vernacular and classical traditions of Persian music and poetry which were under threat from influences outside and within Iran that wished to modernize the society.

The most important effect of the Golha programmes on Iranian society, (illiteracy was 85% in the 1950s –1960s), was that they accustomed people to hearing good poetry and good music, re-introducing over 560 Persian poets from the ancients to the moderns, thus reinvigorating interest in classical Persian literature. The Divans of poets never properly edited and published before suddenly became in high demand!

Abdolvahab Shahidi with accompanying musicians  © Golha Project

When Pirnia retired 1967, several other musicians, scholars and poets, succeeded him. In 1972, Hushang Ibtihaj, a well-known modern Persian poet, took responsibility for the programmes, changing their name, consolidating all the various types of ‘flowers’ into one programme called ‘Fresh Flowers’ (Golha-yi tazeh, 201). Ebtehaj patronized the revival of interest in Persian music of the Qajar period (1794-1925); as a partial result of Ebtehaj’s vision, a movement to preserve and cultivate the traditions of Persian urban art music is still alive and flourishing in present-day Iran.

Concert  © Golha Project

The “Golha Project” began in early 2005 with a pilot project supported by the Iran Heritage Foundation, the British Institute of Persian Studies and the Department of Music at SOAS to see if was possible to collect, archive and digitalise the Golha programmes. Following the success of the pilot project, over the next two years, with the support of the Department of Music at SOAS and British Library Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), assisted by many generous private and institutional collectors in Iran, France, Germany, Canada and the United States, all the Golha programmes were collected. In July 2007, a digital copy of the complete Golha archive was deposited in the British Library’s World Sound Archive.

In 2008, the second phase of the Golha project was launched, supported by the Iran Heritage Foundation, the British Academy, the Parsa Foundation, British Institute of Persian Studies and the Department of Music at SOAS. To construct a searchable, relational database for the Golha programmes which includes bio-bibliographical data on the performers and authors, photographs, musical notation of the songs and transcriptions of the poetry. The database is searchable through a purpose-built website allowing one to search it by programme name, number, singer of the avaz and tarana, song writer, poet of the avaz, first line of the song or poem sung, name of the song, instrument, musician, composer, name of poet whose poetry is sung or declaimed, poetic genre, dastgah or avaz and gusha of the music performed, etc.

The searchable relational database for this important archive, has become a unique cultural resource for students and lovers of Persian culture and a teaching tool for Persian music and Persian literature in many Universities in Europe and North America, was launched in August 2012, with the support of Iran Heritage Foundation, and is available Completely free for all to access at. www.golha.co.uk.

Since 2005, many other archives and important collections have been collected by or donated to the Golha project, including folk recordings, private recordings and additional archives of radio programmes, comprising thousands of hours of twentieth-century Persian music. Some of these resources have already been digitalised, but over 1000 reel and cassette recordings still need to be digitalised, archived, indexed and included in the Golha database. It is our hope that in its future phases, the Golha Project will find the support it needs to make this intangible cultural heritage of Iran freely available to all there by the revealing the important role Iran’s cultural heritage has played in shaping world culture.

For more information on the Golha project please refer to

http://www.iranheritage.org/golha_project/default.htm or [email protected].

Jane Lewisohn director of the Golha Project

Research associate Music Department SOAS, University of London

http://www.golha.co.uk/