Bumberazi.com is devoted to pre-modern Caucasia, one of Eurasia’s most vibrant crossroads. Emphasizing the cosmopolitan, multiethnic, and cross-cultural character of the region, it seeks to undermine and correct parochial, xenophobic, nationalist, chauvinistic, and imperial visions — whether such imaginations were produced within the Caucasus region or imposed from the outside. This website features the ongoing research of Dr. Stephen Rapp Jr., much of which explores the origin and evolution of medieval Georgian historical literature in Georgian, Caucasian, Near Eastern, Mediterranean, and Eurasian perspective.
Dr. Rapp completed his graduate work at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1997. The following year his unpublished PhD dissertation, “Imagining History at the Crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the Architects of the Written Georgian Past,” garnered one of four university-wide dissertation awards. From August 1998 through May 2008, he was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Eurasian and World History at Georgia State University, Atlanta. Dr. Rapp also served as the founding director of GSU’s Program in World History and Cultures. From September 2008 to March 2009 he taught at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU), Moscow. He is currently Professor of Eurasian history at Sam Houston State University (Texas, USA), associate researcher at the University of Bern’s Institute of History, and visiting fellow of the Center for the Exploration of Georgian Antiquities, University of St. Andrew the First-Called, T’bilisi.
His latest monograph, The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes: Caucasia and the Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature, was published by Ashgate in late 2014.
To contact Dr. Rapp, click here.
For information on Dr. Rapp’s new Ashgate book The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes, click here.
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პირველად ვაჴსენოთ‚ რამეთუ სომეხთა და ქართველთა‚ რანთა და მოვაკნელთა‚ ჰერთა და ლეკთა‚ მეგრელთა და კავკასიანთა―ამათ იყო მამა‚ სახელით თარგამოს. ესე თარგამოს იყო ძე თარშისი‚ ძისწული იაფეთისი‚ ძისა ნოესი.
First let us remember that the Armenians and K’art’velians [i.e., eastern Georgians], Ranians and Movakanians [i.e., Caucasian Albanians], Heris and Leks, Megrelians and [northern Caucasians] [had] a single father named Togarmah. This Togarmah was the son of Tiras, the grandson of Japheth, the son of Noah.
(The Life of the Kings = C’xorebay k’art’velt’a mep’et’a in K’art’lis c’xovreba, S. Qauxch’ishvili ed., vol. 1 [T’bilisi, 1955], p. 3)
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Յիսատակ արասցուք ասմ‚ զի Հայոց և Վրաց և Ռանաց և Մովկանց և Հերանաց և Լեկաց և Կավկասեաց և Եգերաց հայր մի էր սոցա‚ Թորգոմ կոչեցեալ‚ որդի Թիրասայ, որդւոյ Գամիրայ‚ որդւոյ Յաբեթի‚ որդւոյ Նոյի.
Let us remember that for the Armenians and K’art’velians and Ranians and Movakanians and Heris and Leks and [northern] Caucasians and Egrisians there was a single father called Togarmah, son of Tiras, son of Gamer, son of Japheth, son of Noah.
(Armenian adaptation of The Life of the Kings, in K’art’lis c’xovrebis somxuri t’argmanebi, Ilia Abuladze ed. [T’bilisi, 1953], p. 5)
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