Monday 14 March 2022

The Deep and Wondrous Complexity of the World

One of my addictions - perhaps the most profound and difficult to break - is going on forays through wikipedia, beginning on the entry for something I'm interested in (in this case, the Chechen language) and then following links to whatever catches my eye, so as to end up on, say, the ancient kingdom of Colchis.

These expeditions across time and space never fail to reinforce just how complicated human history is - how many layers upon layers of politics, ethnicity, language and culture we have laid across the surface of the world.

Take Colchis, for example. Thought to be "the earliest Georgian formation", it was perhaps populated by "early Kartvelian tribes", but there are also many Abkhaz, Scythian, Anatolian, Iranian, and Greek place names, and wikipedia tells us that "any of these groups could have constituted the ruling class". One of its major settlements, Discourias (modern Sukhumi, in Abkhazia/Georgia), was founded by Greek settlers in the 6th century BC; "the city and its surroundings were remarkable from the number of languages spoken in its bazaars" (between 70 and 300), and it was a major centre of commerce between the Greeks and the ancient Colchian tribes (for which, naturally, there is a separate entry on wikipedia). 


Reading the history of Discourias itself reinforces the point. It was a major supporter of Mithridates VI of Pontus in his struggle against the Roman Republic; it eventually became part of the Roman Empire but was demolished so as to avoid its capture by Sasanians. It was then restored by the Byzantines but sacked by the Arabs in the 8th century AD, before ultimately being restored again by the Kings of Abkhazia and then flourishing during the Georgian Golden Age as a major centre of trade with Genoa. Occupied by the Ottomans, changing hands between Abkhazians and Mingrelians, and it was then stormed during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in 1810. During the 20th century it saw war, revolution and ethnic cleansing; its 2003 census lists Abkhazians, Armenians, Estonians, Georgians, Greeks, Russians and Ukrainians among its population.

A cursory knowledge of the history of the world reveals it to be of such complexity, variety and interest that no fantasy setting could ever be its match in richness or fascination. One is also reminded when reading it of Voltaire's maxim that "History is only the patter of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots coming up from below". Empires rise and fall, each leaving behind them yet more intriguing detritus for us to pick through. 

13 comments:

  1. Georgia's [always on my mind] an area I keep feeling I need to dig further into. The image of the mountain kingdom, on the periphery of great powers - it keeps cropping up as an ally of the Byzantines or Persians - and then gets sacked by the Arabs.

    Khvanchkara and Saperavi have some merit as wine, incidentally.

    There was an exhibition called 'From the Land of the Golden Fleece' ; I wish I could say it was a few years ago, but it was in 2008-9. It displayed the tomb treasure of 5th century - 1st century BC Colchis [https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/visit-us/exhibitions/from-the-land-of-the-golden-fleece-tomb-treasures-of-ancient-georgia]. Lots of gold beadwork; can't find many pictures, but here's an introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvMHm5gFrL4

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    1. Georgia is one of those places that also haunts my mind, for similar reasons. They also have some amazing food - I have a Georgian recipe book and their version of plov/pilaf/pilau rice is one of my favourite things to cook.

      A few years ago I saw a shortish documentary on, I think, Prime (though could have been Netflix) about a Georgian trader who basically went from village to village swapping cabbages for cutlery and suchlike. It was a really lovely slice of a different way of life.

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  2. A few years ago my Eastern Orthodox parish began singing the Cherubic Hymn* in a style that brought tears to my eyes. Immediately after that liturgy I asked some choir members how exactly they were singing the hymn. "Oh, we sang that this morning in the style of Georgian Chant." From the land of the Golden Fleece.

    *Let us who mystically represent the cherubim,
    and who sing the thrice-holy hymn
    to the life-creating Trinity,
    now lay aside all earthly cares.

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  3. I think Tolkien and Howard understood this; worldbuilding should involve building up rather than just across. A lot of contemporary worldbuilding advice I've read focuses on the building across, i.e. "What aspects of this world/culture should I think about?" As you say, no paracosm could be as complex as real world history, nor does it need to be.

    How's this for a (PBEM?) RPG idea: The starting entry is a wiki page from a fictional world, each player picks a word or concept from the page and creates a new page for that word/concept. Maybe players then vote on which page to use for the next round? This game feels like it probably already exists.

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    1. That's a great game idea!

      Are you familiar with the game Kingdom? After playing in my first D&D campaign in 30 years, which had a fairly fixed arc and endpoint, the players then ran 4 or 5 sessions of Kingdom, each set about 30-300 years after the previous one. The effect of this was to build up the history of the continent we had settled in the D&D game, so that we could then resume play with entirely new characters in the same continent but with 1,000 years of history behind it. Sadly that last part never happened, but still it was fun weaving that history, Kingdom is a really great game that I'd recommend to anyone.

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    2. Sounds like Microscope, which could be used for something similar.

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    3. I was looking at Microscope just earlier today! Asked on the NSR Discord for other worldbuilding games like Kingdom (another favourite of mine is I'm Sorry Did You Say Street Magic). Ended up playing a city-building game called Beak, Feather, & Bone.

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  4. I'm sure there's a word or phrase for that kind of Wikipedia-surfing, but I forget what it is. I've occasionally enjoyed doing it, although I find the information-dump of a Wikipedia much harder to digest than a book.

    On the subject of the eastern reaches of Greek culture, when I first learned of the story of the Pontic Greeks it did my nut! I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@dansumption/on-nationality-and-the-pontic-greeks-3040bbdf2153

    Almost kind of makes me give up hope on the idea that any national/ethnic dispute in the world will ever be reconciled, or at least not in the next few millennia.

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    1. I've been fascinated by Greek expansion across the Black Sea since reading Herodotus. An amazing period of history.

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    2. That part fascinates me, but what fascinates me even more was what happened 3,000 years later. Mindblowing.

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  5. Georgia is amazing - go there! We spent 5 weeks based in Tbilisi last summer (supposed to be 3 weeks but we extended our stay) and wandering around the countryside. Friendly people, incredible food and drink, majestic history (there was a Zororastrian fire temple ruin down the road from the second house we stayed at). Every hill seems to have either a ruined castle or a church on top - inspiring location for thinking about fantasy worlds. I recommend the Georgian national epic poem by Shota Rustaveli "A Knight in Panther's Skin" (12th century AD). Would go back, for a longer time, in a heart beat.

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    1. Sounds great! I almost went there to teach English after finishing uni, but ended up in Japan instead...

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  6. "Wiki-hole" in the sense of a hole you fall into forever if you are not careful... I think that information addiction is a real problem for a certain set of people.

    Regarding the depth of history, the paucity of written history or durable physical history here in the New World gives a totally different feel to things.

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