Assyria and Wizardly Geography

[Liz Muir]

No: HPFGUIDX 99152

---------Message 1--------
bboy_mn wrote:
>You know, I always thought it would be cool to go to Czechoslovakia. 
I
>hear the make really great beer there. There is just one problem; it
>doesn't exist, at least not any more. Despite the fact that I would
>have to go to the Czech Republic, if I told someone I was traveling 
to
>Prague, I would probably still say I was going to Czechoslovakia
>becuase that's how it's been designated on maps for my whole life.

First of all, this development is not even pre-Cold War.  The name 
and boundary change occurred 1 January 1993, when it split into the 
Czech Republic and Slovakia, due to the two nationalities present in 
the country.  As a matter of fact, Czechoslovakia didn't even exist 
before WWI, during which it won it's independence from Austria-
Hungary.  So, following your logic, do you think anyone would 
understand me if I said I was going to the Dual Monarchy?  Though it 
was an extremely common nickname before WWI, I doubt anyone would 
acknowledge it today.

Czechoslovakia is such a recent development in history that it 
couldn't possibly be an accurate comparison to an name/boundary 
change which occurred in the fairly early AD (or CE, if you are 
feeling PC).  It takes about 100 years for collective consciousness 
to render a name obscure and useless (except in trivia games and 
specialist studies).  Although most people would understand what I 
meant by Czechoslovakia, only those with a good knowledge of history 
would understand if I went to Austria-Hungary.  I say the percentage 
would continue to decline as I go further back.  Assyria wouldn't 
even be recognizable if it didn't have such a prominent place in the 
Bible.  (A more extreme example of this would be that a good number 
of people would know what I meant by Babylon, due to its prominence 
as a symbol and country in the Bible, even though it is almost as old 
as Assyria.  But Assyria is not symbolic in exactly the same way, 
although it is a possibility that JKR is being symbolic . . .)

>How about Siam? People still go to Siam. The people who live there
>still hold on to their culture. I'm sure that some old people still
>refer to it as Siam. But the people who live there decide to change
>their name to 'land that is alway free' or as we know it-Thailand.

I'm sure they do, since the change was only made in 1949.  Unless you 
know St. John the Divine (the only person I know of who MIGHT be 
around from when Assyria existed), I don't expect this could apply to 
Assyria at all. People also may recognize Siam from references in 
common terms, such as Siamese twins, in the same way they recognize 
Babylon, but Assyria does not fall under this case.  (And BTW, what 
does holding on to culture have to do with anything?  Culture, I 
believe, doesn't fall under a specific name, but is a name-surpassing 
set of traditions.)

>Up until 1871, there was a country in Northern (what we call) Germany
>called Prussia (Blend of Russia, Poland, and Germany). They had a
>unigue language and culture. The local dialet in that area is still 
so
>strong that many mainstream Germans can't understand them. I'm sure
>people who are descended from Prussians still maintain some hold to
>their historical geographical culture. Despite the fact the it 
doesn't
>exist in the Geo-Political sense, it still exist in the
>Geo-Sociological sense.

You might be surprised to find that I have actually heard of 
Prussia.  I paid attention during this high school history class.  
I'm actually descended from many people who lived in Prussia (from 
with my maternal grandfather gets the name Miller, or Millius).  I 
have a chart in my house if you'd like to see it.  I'm actually quite 
far in tracing my genealogy, back to the 1500's.

If my history class serves me right, culture in Prussia is mostly 
just the common German culture which it shared with various other 
German states, which had formerly existed together as the Holy Roman 
Empire from about 843 to 1803 and were still semi-associated via a 
weak central government called the German Confederation until Bismark 
unified the country prior to WWI.  Having spent almost a millennium 
speaking the same language under the same government, all these 
states have fairly similar culture.  With this example you come a 
little closer to a valid comparison with Assyria, but remember that 
Assyria was dissolved in 586 AD or earlier, before the HRE or Prussia 
were even close to formation.  Although it's still much too recent to 
compare, but people wouldn't recognize it if I said I brought this 
back from Prussia, now would they?

>Take the Gypsies of Romania; unless I'm mistaken, their country
>vanished when politicians redrew the country boundaries in that
>region. The Gypsies were left with out a country, yet they still 
found
>themselves tied to a unique identity and to the land where they 
lived.

I believe you refer to the Roma, who live throughout Europe and not 
just in Romania.  The Roma never actually had an organized country, 
so it doesn't really compare to the powerful empire of Assyria.  
Also, the Roma, who hate being called Gypsies, aren't even one 
distinct culture but several.  Saying the Roma have the same culture 
is like saying Europeans have the same culture.  Partially true, but 
not very correct.  No one would understand if I brought a plant back 
from a trip to "Roma."

>My point is that Assyria may not exist from a Geo-political
>perspective, but the land and the people are still there, and they
>still feel their ties to their cultural history. In that same sense,
>while today we have people who are Persians, we no longer have a 
Persia.

The same relationship to Assyria seems unlikely to me.  Persia was, 
in the first place, not the correct name for the country, but a 
mistake made by western diplomats.  Again, the `change' in names 
(1935) is too recent to compare.  If we assumed this kind of 
relationship with ancient countries by current people, Germans would 
call themselves citizens of the Holy Roman Empire (or some earlier 
version) and I'm sure the English would insist on being called Anglo-
Saxon.  Such a connection only exists when the ancient version 
continued into recent times and as part of a cultural reclamation 
(eg, as far as I understand, the Scots, the Celts, Castillians and 
other examples).

>So, my vote is for (b.), this is a reference to a cultural region of
>the middle east, not to a geo-political region.

Which I completely disagree with, as pointed out in the preceding 
paragraphs.  There is no comparable precedent, at least that anyone 
has cared to site, and no reason for Neville to speak in that way in 
the first place.

>I also give some weight to option (d), I don't think wizards and
>witches recognise the same geo-political boundaries as muggles do.
>Recently, we were talking about Quidditch teams, and came to the
>general conclusion that the wizard world doesn't recognise Republic 
of
>Ireland and Northern Ireland; it's all Ireland to them. The Republic
>vs Northern was founded in religious and political strife that the
>wizard world wasn't part of.

This was more of the kind of discussion I was looking for!  I have 
looked up said posts, but would have appreciated it if you had 
focused more on this than the many invalid examples above.

In summary:  I find no similar case for referring to the region as 
Assyria, but do find the Quidditch World Cup posts interesting.

Rowen,
who is sorry if she insults anyone because she is in a bad mood as 
she writes