Gateways to Internationalism

A brief history of the term and the concept The 'Silk Road' is a term coined by a famous German scholar, Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1909). But he used it in a very limited meaning and only for the Han period (1877; on Richthofen, see Waugh, 2001 and many other publications). The notion was further promoted by his one-time student and explorer Sven Hedin (1865-1952), an unrepentant Nazi sympathizer and supporter, who is still considered almost a national hero in Sweden. As one scholar recently noted, Hedin used the term to lend a romantic and scholarly aura to his own highly successful exercises in self-promotion (Morrison 2017). An English translation of his book (Hedin 1938) had become a bestseller and was quite popular at the time. In the first two decades after World War II, this concept became rather dormant. However, since the 1960s, it was reinvigorated in popular literature, and by the 1980s, it became doctrina recepta, a commonplace in the Western countries, China, Japan, and Korea. At present, the 'Silk Road' concept is actively promoted by UNESCO through its various projects and programs, like "Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue" (1987-1997). Nowadays, this organization holds a special Silk Roads online platform (silkroads @unesco. org). In 2014, the "Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor", a territory that stretches for 5000 km, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list that has an obvious sinocentric character. China accounts for 70 percent of sites included on this list, although some of them did not have a direct connection to the Silk Road. At the same time, many important sites, especially in the territory of Uzbekistan, were omitted. Several scholarly and semi-scholarly annuals and journals, such as the Silk Road Studies (the publisher is the Silk Road Foundation), and the Journal of Silk Road Art and Archaeology (published in 1990-2004), are devoted to this subject. Another journal, Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development that Westminster International University is publishing in Tashkent is dealing with contemporary issues. Brill, a highly respected publishing house,

The subject of the paper is the restoration of the Silk Road as a cultural network between the East and the West in the contemporary world. The purpose is to conduct interdisciplinary analyses and prove the need of restoring and reviving this road that has existed for thousands of years, not just as transport and trade route but also as an active trail for multilateral transborder dialogue among the cultures and civilizations of the East and the West. The paper focuses on two aspects: communication and cultural tourism. An attempt is made to place Bulgaria in this context. Bulgaria is not only a chain in this eternal link between the East and the West but also an active participant of the International Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA). The idea we wish to suggest is to make the TRACECA transport corridor a world cultural corridor and to declare the Silk Road a world cultural route. Key words: Silk Road, communication, cultural tourism, dialogue among the cultures and civilizations of the East and the West, world cultural route.

Global Change, Peace & Security, 2020

Irish Interdisciplinary Journal of Science & Research (IIJSR) , 2021

Today, cooperation between Uzbekistan and UNESCO is developing in a progressive manner and contributes to the preservation of the rich spiritual and material culture of our country, the study of the unique heritage of the Great Silk Road.

2020

This editorial explains the beginnings of the journal Silk Road commencing around the time of the 2019 Tashkent agreement and the journal’s future scope and ambitions. As nations within Central Asia look towards greater cooperation the editors articulate the journal’s focus on public policy issues and how Silk Road intends to offer a long-held need for scholarly perspectives and analysis from within the region itself. It explains how the journal’s name links to the past of the region, to evoke its ‘inclusive’ connotations as a space of exchange, travel and ‘ambiguity’ but also is ‘intended to evoke a dynamic forward look towards the future’. Embodying a broad and interdisciplinary focus in its scope, it is hoped that the journal’s name also paves the way to its long term mission of encouraging ‘creativity among researchers working’ on policy in the region and to ‘prompt them both to analyse current public policy and to imagine its future’.

Oxford University Press, 2022

rom the Great Game to the present, an international cultural and political biography of one of our most evocative, compelling, and poorly understood narratives of history. The Silk Road is rapidly becoming one of the key geocultural and geostrategic concepts of the twenty-first century. Yet, for much of the twentieth century the Silk Road received little attention, overshadowed by nationalism and its invented pasts, and a world dominated by conflict and Cold War standoffs. In The Silk Road, Tim Winter reveals the different paths this history of connected cultures took towards global fame, a century after the first evidence of contact between China and Europe was unearthed. He also reveals how this remarkably popular depiction of the past took hold as a platform for geopolitical ambition, a celebration of peace and cosmopolitan harmony, and created dreams of exploration and grand adventure. Winter further explores themes that reappear today as China seeks to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century. Known across the globe, the Silk Road is a concept fit for the modern world, and yet its significance and origins remain poorly understood and are the subject of much confusion. Pathbreaking in its analysis, this book presents an entirely new reading of this increasingly important concept, one that is likely to remain at the center of world affairs for decades to come.

2010

This is a complex, well-argued book, one that every scholar interested in Central Eurasia or in long-term change should read. It is sufficiently encyclopedic to tax any reader's knowledge base. It will be very pleasing in some areas, provocative in others, and informative in still others. Along the way Beckwith drops enough good ideas for research topics to keep a veritable army of doctoral students occupied for decades. One on-line review said, "For iconoclasts who love seeing assumptions torn down, there is plenty of fodder. Lastly, Conan the Barbarian fans may enjoy this sympathetic look at people commonly despised as barbarians" (Gill 2009). (Full disclosure: I am one those fans!). I begin my review with some general comments about Beckwith's goals then move to chapter summaries. I conclude with an exploration some of the many theoretical implications of Beckwith's arguments. Empires of the Silk Road has several interesting organizational features. Two appendices explore the spread of Proto-Indo-Europeans and Central Eurasian Ethnonyms. Each substantive chapter opens with a brief summary of the chapter arguments. These are quite helpful in that the subsequent arguments are at times quite complex. Along with the usual scholarly footnotes, there is an extended set of Endnotes that elaborate on topics discussed in the text. These go beyond the general argument of the chapters, and provide interesting additional deep background. Beckwith's goal is to elucidate many neglected issues in Central Eurasian history, most notably to argue that "the trade in luxury goods (along the Silk Road) constituted a very significant part of the internal economy within Central Asia" (p. xii). Furthermore this trade along with parallel maritime trade "were all integral parts of what must be considered to have been a single international trade system" (p. xx). The entire social, political, cultural, and economic system not only shaped the history of Central Eurasian states and various other peoples, but also the trajectories of the "peripheral states" that

The present publication marks the first period of our activity as a think-tank specialized in international affairs along the Silk Road. It consists of seven reports – a selection of the best contributions of our experts from the past year – that deal with pressing issues of the moment, but which will – undoubtedly – shape the strategic environment in 2018. These are the problems of today, but the roots of tomorrow’s challenges.

Ruandehi Campus Journal, 2025

The paper examines on ethno-religious exhibition along the storied Trans-Eurasian Silk routes and attempts to identify how the people maintained peaceful relationships with an exchange and assimilation of one another's culture and religion. On this background, the Silk Road, which is identified to have thrived as a precursor to modern-day, advanced civilization, is surveyed to be a passage without threats to foster friendly relations among nations and people. Employing the document and narrative analysis methods of the qualitative study design, the paper also attempts to explore the historical context of the evolution of the Silk Road and its enduring contributions to the ancient human civilizations that existed during which times the Road provided critical links. The paper focuses on contact of different religions on the Silk Road, the diffusion of ideas, and the exchange of arts, artifacts and cultures. In addition, it also explores the phenomenon of travel culture history that linked different geographical locations together in a line and propelled the crucial connectivity among diverse people to interact along this epic land and water highway, which shall be exemplary to combat against the dissonance of present day world.