Daniel Prior, Lecture "How a Horse Theft Becomes a Praise Poem"
Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 4:30pm to 6:30pm
Location: Keeneland Library, Keeneland, 4201 Versailles Rd.
Equestrian art takes many forms, even poetic. In 1864 a band of Kirghiz nomads in Central Asia crossed into China and stole a herd of several hundred horses from their long-time Mongol enemies at the cost of many lives. This unprovoked act of violence, which was an episode in a major outbreak of unrest, soon became the subject of a Kirghiz epic-like narrative poem celebrating the heroism of the raiders. Literature traditions show us that stealing herds of horses and protecting them from theft has held worldwide fascination for millennia. Daniel Prior, in studying and translating the previously unpublished manuscript of the Kirghiz raid narrative, found an extraordinarily well-documented window on the complex relationship between such historical events and the stories people tell about them.
Directions to the venue:
1. Enter Keeneland Race Course at Gate 1
2. Take the first right on Entertainment Court.
3. At the top of the hill, veer left into the Keeneland Library parking lot.
http://www.keeneland.com/discover/visit (select “other facilities,” choose the Library)
Daniel Prior, Lecture “Riding through a Kirghiz Epic Poem”
Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: Niles Gallery, Fine Arts Library
In 1994 Daniel Prior and a Kirghiz assistant traveled 1,100 kilometers on horseback to trace the itinerary of the hero of a Kirghiz epic poem, Bok Murun. The six-week expedition, which passed through the Tian Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan and the steppes of southern Kazakhstan, revealed that the nineteenth-century oral epic contained a wealth of precise information about the geography and practicalities of the nomadic life of the Kirghiz herders. Prior also experienced the resiliency of a population facing the stunning collapse of the Soviet Union and the uncertainties of independence. In his slide presentation Dr. Prior will talk about the traditions and adaptations of the herders he met, the challenges of doing ethnographic research on oral traditions in post-Soviet Central Asia, and how field ethnography relates to historical research on folklore traditions.